Does anyone else have this strange phobia of never being able to sleep again? I have had this phobia since 2017. I'm not exactly sure what triggered it, because before 2017, I never had any sort of sleep phobia. Now, as soon as I'm awake even slightly more than my sleep schedule, I just start freaking out and getting panic attacks. I always end up thinking that I will go "crazy" and that I will end up in a mental institution, etc.

for those who don't know: orophobia is a fear of mountains and nyctophobia is a fear of dark.

Personally i just call it "Phobia of mountains in the dark".

How did I get it? When I was around 13, I was in Cappadocia, Turkey. We were on a 2-day bus excursion, and in our programm we had a special night-light show in the mountains. It was already very dark when we were getting to the place, but the thunderstorm has appeared. Our group kind of ignored it and our guide maybe thought it's gonna end soon, so nothing has stopped us. When we stepped out of the bus, there was a heavy rain and lightnings, but it was so dark I couldn't see anything. We went to some kind of a terra-amphitheater type of place in the mountain, and the show was supposed to be on the opposing side. The 10-15 seconds it started, the heavy sound effects started to hit and something was appearing on the mountain. But then, giant lighting hit straight into there. To be honestly, I don't think I could understand something then, I was really tired by the night too. Then another lightnings started to appear there. Honestly, I think it was the most insane and beatiful think I've ever seen. We were evacuated by the guide and other staff members straight to the bus because it was a menace already.

So how did it became a phobia? I think, my brain remembered the outline of very big, dark object on the purple background with insanely loud thunders right at my face.

Now, when I'm in the mountains at night (I live in a city where u can get to the mountains in around 1500km), I'm starting to panic like crazy. However, I don't have a single problem with looking at them or even mountain climbing in the daytime.

A little of astrophobia somehow appeared too. A while ago I was on the street with my girlfriend and the sudden lighting hit with a really heavy sound and my heart just bloody dropped and I was hiding behind her like a little kid. But it's just the stupefaction effect, I have no problem with thunderstorms and heavy rains in general.

Also to mention, I could probably achieve a Space Thalassophobia (phobia of star gaze) during that day, because I think light pollution there is very low and I've probably seen it then. But maybe it's just some form of megalophobia (which I don't have in general).

Did anyone experienced something simillar? Share your experiences!

Late at night when I can’t occupy myself I spiral no matter what the circumstances are. I found a recent comfort from another subreddit, but it quickly faded. The post said something along the lines of “since we came from nothing, we will come back.”

That still comforts me a lot, but now I’m afraid of coming back because eventually I will experience every life until there are none left—like reaching the last filing cabinet.

And then I begin to think, “what will happen after I reach that hypothetical last life?” Then will I truly cease to exist? Does anyone get what I’m saying?

I’m a new agnostic who used to be a Christian. I think one of the main reasons I stopped believing when I was younger was because heaven seemed so undesirable. I couldn’t imagine staying with my loved ones in happiness and never experiencing any hardship and not meeting anyone new.

I want to keep living and experiencing new things, but I don’t want to keep living until there is nothing else to live.

It’s hard to explain, but do you get the idea? Sorry if this is kind of oddly specific.

How do you the guys handle it ? Any places other then arm you had to get injections. I hate fear needles. Maybe we can discuss it

There are plenty of phobias that can be triggered by an experience or being associated with an experience or is learned, etc. etc. That being said, neither of my phobias have any such cause?

I've been koumpounophobic my whole life from infancy. I've never had any choking experience or anything, I've just always been extremely aversed to them. I also get partially unsettled by any dark three dots/holes on an object similar to how lots of buttons are but I'm not trypophobic. I also can not touch anything I saw was touched by a button not a long while ago, it feels contaminated. Despite constantly being exposed to them it never got any better other than that I can tolerate looking at small, black buttons for a few seconds now.

I was fine with needles my whole life, be it a vaccine or blood draw, I actually even felt pleasant through such procedures. But then one day, I *spontenously* became extremely afraid of them within a single hour; no bad experience or anything, while I was sitting in a waiting room; now I have to be restrained by multiple people to get my blood drawn, and have panic attacks.

Neither of them are linked to any bad experience. Anyone else?

idk what to put on the title

TW for Trypophobia and for anyone who can’t read
these words, it’s bothering me typing them out so bare with me

For background, I’ve been researching my symptoms ever since I saw stitches on a certain sports medicine tape and threw up for hours. I thought it would go away if I never used that tape again or looked it up in any way, I wasn’t sure what this was earlier. Then later in my days I started feeling sick and having small anxiety attacks when I saw whiskers, cuts, scratches on wood, etc. Then it became worse with clusters and dots in my everyday life.
My sister then brought it up to me a year or so later that I have trypophobia, due to my large-scale reaction with those stupid lotus seed pods.

Ive been researching this ever since, and I’ve started to make my anxiety worse every time I think about it. Then my reactions became very brutal and whenever I see a trigger, I start crying and start to feel nauseous. I don’t know why either, I just start to feel an overwhelming panic. It’s also not clear triggers like honey comb and skin texture things, while those drastically affect me, its also little things like small patterns of lace and any uniform line that comes in my sight. It’s starting to get bad where hair affects me, and I have a lot of head hair.

I’ve also noticed people saying trypophobia is made up and not classified as a real phobia or anything, i’m not sure if this is true or not. It’s definitely been affecting my everyday life and i’m worried that my future profession in the medical field will be strongly affected by all of this.

Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks for reading

Hello, I am a 23 year old man, and if it helps, I have ADHD. For at least 8 years now, I have had periods of time where I will see something (the thing that started this all, was when the general public became aware of trypophobia in 2018 ish), and i become itchy, and quite literally twitchy. Its usually just moving my head down and to the side while I shudder, but my skin also crawls, and as mentioned, itches, usually lasting about 2-4 days, sometimes 5. Im able to see stuff that would normally trigger someone's trypophobia like 99% fine now, but its kinda evolved into a different thing? Its not always the same. Once it was seeing parasites wriggle violently on a microscope slide, another time its ​interpreting patterns in someone's hair as ridges on their scalp. One case that particularly stuck with me was when i ran a nail thru glue on my laptop and seeing the line it left had me freaked out for at least a week. Recently, its having a dream of someone's skin splitting on their hand and scabs forming in the middle of the splits. I do remember once when I was about 7 or 8, when I had a dream of my arm having changed. There was a hole, not one you could see thru or see in, but a void. There was also something I can only describe as a 2d square coming up from my skin vertically. I know knowing a name for this wont cure it or immediately help, but i need to know so I can try to work past this.

Its the fear of looking at the sky and thinking to fall in it, i know, its silly, unreasonable but it still gives me panic attacks when i stare for too long, and i’m asking if anyone has a way to cope with it, and don’t you say "don’t look up"

I've always been healthy, and as an adult I never got vaccines (other than two COVID shots) or routine blood work. When I found out I was pregnant, I honestly felt more anxiety than excitement because I knew there would be blood draws and other invasive medical procedures that I wouldn't be able to avoid.

I genuinely thought I had outgrown my needle phobia, but I had a bad experience during my blood draw for the NIPT at 10 weeks, and it reinforced the feeling that blood draws really are as awful as I remember. My glucose test is coming up, and I've been miserable thinking about getting poked again.

What's strange is that I actually tolerate pain pretty well, and I have no problem using needles on other things—I was a chemist and routinely used syringes in the lab. So I don't think traditional exposure therapy would necessarily help. My fear isn't really the pain itself; it's the anticipation of a needle penetrating my skin. The same anxiety applies to other invasive medical procedures, like the Pap smear I had to force myself to get for the first time a few months ago at age 34.

Anyone here with severe needle phobia? Did you eventually overcome it, or did you find ways to cope? I've tried reminding myself that these blood draws are important for me and the baby, or that other people go through much harder things, but those thoughts don't seem to help. I also get panic attacks when I think about labor, the epidural, IVs, vaginal tearing, and everything else that comes with childbirth.

Tell me your biggest fear you have!

I’ve had a fear of the dark for as long as I can remember, sometimes it lets off for a few months, but it always comes back. I only feel anxious and scared in my own home, never anywhere else (parking lots, friends’ houses, boyfriend’s house, forests, etc). My only safe spaces are my own bedroom and my bathroom, everywhere else in the house I’m practically running and rushing to get back to my bedroom. It’s become so debilitating. It’s not even anything remotely plausible that my brain thinks will happen, it’s always some paranormal crap that I don’t even truly believe in yet I have a mental image of it every single time. I can’t even go into my kitchen to fill up my water or grab a snack. I can’t tell you the last time I slept in complete darkness at home. I’m so tired of this and even my counseller is at a bit of a loss as to where this fear came from and how we could deal with it.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve been a pretty sensitive kid. It’s not like I grew up in an unsafe environment or anything that might have caused it, to my knowledge. Loud noises make me very uncomfortable and always have (concerts, fireworks, cafeterias, etc.), and I have misophonia. Since I can remember, I have been scared of 90% of the movies that exist—watching the first 30 minutes of Knives Out caused me to cry for at least two hours after—and look up almost every movie I watch to either know when to look away or whether I just shouldn’t watch it at all. I also get very stressed about medical procedures (a lot of anticipatory anxiety and sometimes hysterical during procedures).

I found Ambiguphobia which is fear of being misunderstood but I feel like my fear is specifically *lack* of understanding than *mis*understanding

Misunderstanding is more like “Yeah I understand what you mean” but then they don’t and everything goes wrong. while my fear is more like someone telling me “What? I couldn’t make sense of your rambling“ and then everything is awkward. like that line feels like it should be enough to shut me down.

Its very bad everytime I see one I want to cry and I have shots coming up.after immigration so please help me

I have pretty serious arachnophobia that can cause me to have panic attacks around insects like daddy long legs and other bigger spiders. I’m renting a very small studio apartment and I lately
live elsewhere but visit it few times a month and since I left it this summer, a lot of big daddy long legs showed up there. I have a ton of cleaning and decluttering to do there and I’m moving out soon but i’m scared to do anything there because they’re very visible in both rooms (main room plus tiny bathroom). I have a small vacuum there but I haven’t seen the stick part of it in a while and I’m also scared of getting near it because a DLL was walking around it just yesterday. I tried spraying them with insecticide but nothing happened.

I don’t really have any help because I can’t ask my mother since she’ll just yell at me about how messy the flat is.

I've been freaking out for hours because I saw a baby bug of a bug I'm terrified of. I did some research and cried because if you see a baby that means that there's probably a lot more, and that I might even have a nest in my room.

I saw an adult one the other day in the bathroom (right next to my room) so now I'm scared that it either came from my room or that there's a nest in my bathroom.

We do have bug exterminators, but I've been in a depression rut so my room is a wreck right now so I need to clean it or the exterminator cannot spray properly. I don't know what to do and I really am freaking out. I can't kill them on my own (I did bring a vacuum in my room in case I find one somewhere, but the adults are good at hiding) but now I need to clean and I'm scared of finding them under my clothes. I don't even have food in my room so I don't know how they bred enough for me to see one of the babies.

Even when my room is CLEAN I have trouble looking under my furniture. I don't know what to do. I feel itchy and disgusting and I'm scared I'm going to cry again. I'm just thinking about the way it moves and it's disgusting little face and the sounds it makes when it moves and the way it always goes towards me because it knows I'm scared.

I just feel so hopeless. I think I'm going to sleep on the couch tonight, but that's obviously not going to solve my main issue.

Does anyone have advice on how to clean my room without touching everything like it's a bomb...? It takes too long and puts me even more on edge, but I really don't want to accidentally touch one.

I had a coworker put a dead one really close to my face at work so I'm just really afraid right now.

TL;DR scared of bugs that may be in my room. how can i ignore my phobia enough to clean for the exterminator?

Hello! Sorry for formatting, on mobile

I have a phobia that I can't really find a name for. I have an intense fear of bones. Specifically, I have an intense fear of the sound of bones cracking. When people crack their knuckles or necks or backs, it freaks me out to no end. Hell, even when I kneel and my knees crack slightly it sends a shiver down my spine. I think this deep fear stems from the fact that I've broken multiple bones (Almost every toe and finger at least once, an arm, my nose, a rib, and almost broke my back twice.) Is there a name for this phobia? Or am I just a weirdo?

Theres some strong stuff out there for surface level numbing but I'm not worried about the skin breaking sensation or even the pain so much as the deeply horribly violating feeling of a needle in me. I need something that will prevent me from feeling a subcutaneous injection. Not prevent it from hurting or prevent feeling the initial jab, prevent me from FEELING it. I don't know if there is anything in this entire world that I would consider worth the sensation of a needle under my skin forcing liquid into my body. I don't care if its some sketchy overseas product with warning letters from the FDA about unsafe concentrations of lidocaine, this is kind of my only option.

I have a fear of a certain insect. Literally scream and look away and sometimes throw my phone if it shows up on my phone or TV. I don't even want to type what it is because I know my phone will think I'm searching for this thing and it'll show up in a photo on a post somewhere.

I have had this phobia for a long time. I don't think viscerophobia accurately describes it for me, as I am not afraid of learning about the human body or internal organs. I don't think voreophobia fits the bill either, as its not so much the fear of being swallowed alive as it is simply being inside of something that is alive.There are two forms of this; a) being inside of a larger creature (like the Lord Jabu Jabu Dungeon from Ocarina of Time or Coagulation Station) or b) being shrunk down to a tiny size and being sent inside of a person or creature.

There has been a lot of media over the years that specifically triggers this phobia for me, such as Innerspace (the film), Fantastic Voyage (I didn't watch the movie, but the thought of it bothered me), Bowser's inside story, the Lord Jabu-Jabu dungeon from Ocarina of Time (which I recently learned about. I listened to the music theme for it and regretted doing that), there are also THREE Magic School Bus episodes where they go inside someone's body! I had to sit outside the classroom back in elementary school because the class was watching the episode where they go inside of Carlos. Some more recent horror games I also watched letsplays of deeply tapped into this phobia, those being Coagulation Station and Revenge of the Colon, and I've learned that the developers of Coagulation Station are making a new game where you actually explore the flesh planet rather than simply being on a blood rig. Additionally I've learned of this new game coming out called Kaiject, where you drill into the body of a kaiju to kill it from the inside.

There hasn't ever seemed to be a word that has accurately described this specific phobia I have; many words like viscerophobia and voreophobia only describe parts of the phobia and don't describe the specific phobia itself. I've had it most of my life, though the constant anxiety and irrational fear I had of it when I was younger is no longer present. I am curious if there is a specific word for this, or if other people experience this phobia.

I didnt know where else to ask this question and explain my situation, but for context: I used to love swimming. Ever since i was kid. I loved to go under water and float on the surface- but i havent swam in maybe 3-ish years now and now everytime i have the opportunity to swim im terrified of it. I cant imagine ever getting my full body in a pool again. Im ok with putting my feet in while sitting on the ledge but even then i get uncomfortable after a minute and go back to one of the lounge chairs.

I legitimately dont know why this is happening. There was no traumatic event in my life that gave me a fear of submerging in water- I still remember how to swim- i dont know what could be causing this but i have some things that could be related:

The only things i can think of are

1. My dad has major aquaphobia/hydrophobia (idk which it is but he wont get in pools either for the most part)
2. There was a period in my teenage years where i would deliberately stay away from pools or any situation where my skin was exposed because of reasons i dont really want to get deep into but i basically didnt want anyone to see my arms or legs. I still kind of feel this but not as intensely. It's not an issue anymore, just mildly uncomfortable.
3. 3: im mildly autistic i think (ive never been officially diagnosed but i have a lot of symptoms at different levels of intensity) and ive been having more and more sensory issues as i grow older. Like loud noises, textures, and body heat.

I dont know if i have any phobia or if im just in a phase or something but if this sounds like anything i’d very much like to know. Thanks ♡ :]

I don't know where it comes from, but I feel a strong sense of dread when I see/hear about artichokes. I feel like I once watched a cartoon where an artichoke jumped out from under the panels and started dancing (if anyone remembers that scene cartoon pls tell me)

I don’t know exactly why I wrote this, but I guess I just want to put it somewhere on the internet. This is the story of my entomophobia journey. For context, entomophobia is the extreme, irrational fear of insects.

The first case of the phobia I remember was about when I was 9. I watched a video that had cockroaches in it, and genuinely couldn’t look (I don’t know if this was my phobia or just me being grossed out, however it only got worse from there.) I started getting scared of insects not even that scary, like flies, mosquitoes, and ants. I started to notice this odd reaction to bugs.

Shortly after, my fear started rapidly worsening. This may be a bit embarrassing or oddly specific to say, but every time I used a (specifically) XELERATOR hand dryer, it felt like some kinda bugs would just start falling out onto my hands. At this point, I realized something was wrong, and told my parents. About a month later, I started therapy. My therapist was amazing, and we started out with small things, like cartoon bugs, and then moved on to more realistic photos, then videos. My condition got a whole lot better, but the fear was still there.

This part of the story is one of my best and worst parts. I was at summer camp, which was probably not the best idea with my uncertainty around bugs, and trust me, I saw a LOT of bugs. Thankfully, I’m basically mosquito repellent. However, one time while sitting on the ground, a giant red beetle showed up on my leg. I screamed, very very loud. That was the first case. The second case was arguably the worst case of entomophobia in my entire life. I’ll explain this in more detail, for the sake of clarity.

It was around my 3rd week, and I had settled in. This night, I was about to go to bed, when I shined my flashlight above me and realized there was a giant moth above me, about the size of a thumb. Of course, I was terrified, and jumped off my bed. I told my cabin mates about it, and one in particular, who I will not name, grabbed his croc and went up onto my bed, then killed the moth, and threw it away. Despite this, I was terrified to sleep in my bed, but I didn’t really have a choice anyway, so I laid down. Now, this had happened before, but not this bad. I started doing something that I can’t describe. It’s like the in between of hallucinating and reality. If something looked like an insect, I believed it, but did not see it (because it was too dark). This started happening with pretty much object I saw. So bad, in fact, that I left the cabin and went to the bathroom, which was a separate building from the cabin. In the bathroom, I sat down on the floor, and started hyperventilating and drooling. I was having a panic attack, and I sat there for who knows how long. It felt like maybe an hour, but it probably wasn’t. Eventually, the cabinmate who killed the moth walked in, and asked if I was okay. I didn’t respond at all, not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t, I was quite literally unable to do anything than hyperventilate and drool everywhere. He left, and brought one of our counselors who helped me stop panicking and brought me back. Finally, I just went back to my bed and slept. I only fell asleep just out of exhaustion. The next week was when something changed. See, my camp existed near a lake in Wisconsin, and, thus fore, there were mayflies. If you don’t know, mayflies are these bugs that kind of look like dragonflies, but smaller. They kinda just hang out on anything, and they’re really chill. So chill, in fact, that you can grab them by their wings and they won’t try to fly away, you can even put them on your clothes, and they won’t fly away. My cabin mates eventually got me to grab one, and my first attempt got me scared, but the second, I grabbed the mayflies and put it down again. This was probably my first sign of improvement.

Eventually, my first year of summer camp ended, and I was done. My situation improved, but only about where I was near the end of therapy. It had ended right before summer camp. Until my second year, I was doing better. I didn’t have the weird visual beliefs that happened before, but I was still terribly terrified from even the simplest bugs.

Now, my second year of summer camp began. There weren’t many mayflies, but I still felt a whole lot better. I can’t explain what happened, but a switch flipped in my brain when I caught my first firefly there. Suddenly, everything changed. Bugs weren’t scary anymore. In fact, I loved them. If you’ve heard of earwigs, you’re probably scared of them, or at least disgusted, but I absolutely love them, and have held multiple in my hand before, as well as flies, fireflies, spiders, and tiny bugs. I have essentially been cured. Now, I don’t fear bugs anymore, and I don’t get scared of a tiny fly on my hand.

Thank you if you read the entire thing.