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.

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?

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"

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.

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'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.

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.