So, I just had the worst experience of my life and I never really get to share it with my family because they straight up always think I’m lying. Every Time.
So I want to share it with you so that you know you’re not alone in your Odd phobias.
I have two Phobias and both were brought on by trauma when I was younger.
I constantly get teased about them and it really pisses me off because they are not a joke to me. I want to talk about them because I want people to know that your phobias should be valid. No one should ever tell you that you shouldn’t have a certain phobia because it’s “Stupid.”
The first one I want to talk about is the “Weirdest” phobia I have, I am absolutely terrified of Oranges. Or more specifically the smell. I absolutely adore the taste of oranges and I like the look and colour but the smell triggers a deep feeling inside me that makes me want to scream, it makes my chest tighten and my anxiety spike so hard I can’t control myself anymore, the last time I smelled oranges I started sobbing in the middle of the street and almost pulled out a chunk of my hair before my friend moved me away.
I know the exact reason for this phobia, this happened in primary school, it was what was known as “Snack Time” and they passed around fruit and milk/juice, it was literally the best time of the day. On this day, I was sat at the table and picked an orange as did most people as they were the best, the heaviest and strongest girl in the class decided at this moment that she wanted to sit at the table behind me (bearing in mind the tables were only wide enough for a teacher to walk past sideways) and she decided that the best way to sit at this table was to sit right behind me, she put her chair behind mine and sat on it which immediately pushed me violently into my table and crushed my ribs against the heavy table in front. She spend all snack time like this even though I was crying at her and telling her to move because I couldn’t breathe. She cracked a rib sitting behind me (which my parents didn’t see as enough to take me to hospital) and the only thing I could smell that whole time was oranges and over time the smell just got to me more and more, constantly reminding me of the pain of not being able to breath and having one of my ribs broken slowly.
It seems silly because I was just a kid but that is just it, I was only a kid, that was one of the scariest experiences of my life so far.
The second phobia is common but for me it is severe and the worst phobia I have ever had, the fear of spiders. Just seeing the word makes me jittery. I hate it.
The reason I have this phobia is because in secondary school (it is good to know that I was bullied quite a lot in secondary school), it was just after P.E class and me and a couple other girls got changed in our changing room, someone knocked at the door and the other girls make me open it because they were busy, I knew it was going to be the horrible boys from the other side of the year but I tried my best to be civil with them anyway and opened the door only to get two boys throw a massive hand sized spider at me that hit me right in the hand that I had raised out of reflex thinking they were going to hit me, it was such a big spider that I screamed and almost fainted, they both laughed and ran off thinking it was a great joke but I stayed in the changing rooms for another 20 minutes after all the girls left crying because it scared me so much, I didn’t realise at the time but I was actually having a panic attack completely alone, I ended up washing my hands 8 times and sanitizing them another 4 because I could still feel it on me, every time anything touched me or my hair touched my neck I thought it was the spider and I would hit that spot thinking there was one there or scratch where it was.
I went to meet my friends but I was pretty much half conscious because I couldn’t breathe from panicking so much, all I could see was spiders, my friends laughed at me until they realised that I really wasn’t kidding an was actually terrified which led to one of my friends having to stop me from scratching a hole in my hand which was a bloody mess from me trying to scratch the feeling of the spider away.
This just gets worse and worse with every spider I see and my weird phobia fits have been getting worse because of it, my family didn’t help in the slightest, joking around constantly that there was a spider on me (Which was obviously a joke but really fucks me up) and would constantly laugh and tell me that I’m just being silly because “it won’t hurt me” even though all I can think about at those moments is that thing and my brain isn’t rationalising with me telling me that it’ll lay eggs in me, jump at me, bite me and I’ll die and other very silly sounding things but to me this is all very real when all I see is spiders crawling over the wall and floor trying to attack me.
Literally after an encounter with one of those monsters I will be out of it for a solid couple of hours trying to convince myself that I’m okay. I’ve came out of the panic attacks with bruises or cuts on myself before or chunks of hair in my hand. I completely lose myself and start hurting myself thinking that I’m covered in spiders or that they’re under my skin and it is anything but a funny joke to me.
They get so bad that if I see a spider in the bathroom I physically can’t go in there to wash until I’ve convinced myself that the spiders children can’t come back and kill me for killing or looking at their parent which could sometimes be days or weeks. Just looking at one makes me physically sick to the point I won’t eat for days afterwards because of the fear.
It’s physically debilitating and everyone just takes the piss out of me for it
So if anyone is being laughed at or having their phobias demeaned by friends or family because it’s just “Ridiculous” or something that you can “Get over” then I’ll be there for you. trust me I know what it’s like.
Also, the worst experience I’ve ever had which I stated in the top was that I had to kill a spider the size of my hand like I had to deal with in school and I couldn’t get my father to come and kill it, I was alone in the house, it took me 2 hours and 4 panic attacks to kill it with a 6ft pole and a sandal then it took me another 2 hours to calm myself down which had me blacked out for about an hour of that.
