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Trypophobia is basically the fear of closely grouped small/irregular holes. (If you don't know what it is, and you're going to Google it, ;~; you don't want to do this, it's scary.) Or in my case - I'm actually more scared of closely grouped small/irregular holes on any body part. I am not scared of honeycombs and the such (which is usually what most people with Trypophobia are scared of), but instead I'm just phobic of seeing small holes on someone's hand or face. Even worst is when there's maggots crawling out of those holes :D
I'm not actually even sure if what I have is Trypophobia, honestly. But trying to google the right term just gives me this.

I recently read an article about how Trypophobia was one of the most common phobias in the world (even though it's not *technically* a recognized phobia), so I was just wondering if anyone else on here has it. Now on the topic of phobias, what are y'all scared of? I mean, there's a post over thataway about sexuality, let's throw our phobias out here as well!

Where do you live that you know all these people that have maggots eating holes in their bodies? I don't know anyone who hasn't lost a fight with a machine gun that has a bunch of holes in them.

A coworker of mine hurt his arm - and at some point he got maggot eggs under his skin. They hatched or something during work and just poked their heads out. I will not lie, I was fucking screaming, he was screaming, I'm pretty sure we freaked everyone out.

Well, yeah, that'd be both rather disturbing and quite concerning. You're not supposed to have maggots growing under your skin. I don't think this is so much a phobia, as a "holy shit, you need a bloody doctor" moment.

EDIT: Now, if you're horrified of swiss cheese...

Yeah e.e My skin didn't stop crawling for a week, and that was the year where I washed my hands about seven million times, and made sure any wounds were washed and bandaged.

Is it a phobia if I'm still like super worried about it >.< or is it just me being traumatized?

Edit: most of my cheese doesn't have holes... and pictures online don't really scare me for some reason. So don't know.

There are worse things than maggots crawling around and erupting from under the skin like, for instance, gangrene (which is what the little maggots were helping your coworker avoid by eating decaying matter before it could get that bad).

That's true but it's still horrifying to watch *shudders*

Seems like I've heard a lot about trypophobia recently. It's a fun one to look up just for all the pictures of lotus pods photoshopped onto people's hands or faces.

I guess I have it to a mild degree but I think most people do. Not enough to get bothered by lotus pods and honeycombs but obvious stuff like that where it doesn't belong or where you're unsure what it is is a bit alarming. I think I'd have a hard time playing Bloodborne for instance. It was free this month and Malk's been playing by I decided to give it a miss because some of the videos were skeeving me out...Rom the Vacuous Spider, I'm looking at you .

I think it's completely normal to get freaked the fuck out by maggots in someone's skin regardless though... I've only heard of that kind of shit in cases of like, extreme extreme morbid obesity and the terrible hygiene that goes with it.

Yeah, it's getting super popular because of the photoshopped pictures and American Horror Story. 

Bloodbourne does have some freaky bosses :D 

No phobias come to mind. I used to be very scared of the dark when I was younger, but that passed. 

Weirdly enough, I was never really afraid of the dark. I'm such a scaredy cat, it's actually sort of shocking.

Think the proper term for my fear is megalohydrothalassophobia. Related to thalassophobia and bathophobia. Deep water that I can't see through freaks me out. If I can't feel land/sand beneath my feet, and can't see through the water my mind starts fabricating all manner of gigantic creatures. Gaping maws, eyes, shadows passing beneath me. I know that it's probably nothing, but when I'm in the water I'm extremely concerned about it. Can't really redirect my thoughts away from it if I'm actually in the water. I'm fine if I'm on a boat, but I've never really tested that with a small boat in a very large body of water.

Think it's actually a fairly common phobia as well. 

I think someone on here (was it mizal?) mentioned once that they had a fear of deep water (which is why they wouldn't play Subnautica), and Markiplier has that fear as well so yep! You're not aloneeee.

Megalohydroyhalassophobia sounds like a good word to just casually say. Too bad I'm really butchering the pronunciation right now.

They do have some interesting names. Cruelest one I can think of being, Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, the fear of long words. That one amuses me more than it should.

xD It's such a long word.

I used to know a song about that...

Probably this one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-V6FHWYtcg

The long word song.

Yup. That's the one.

When I was a kid, we had a rare flood that floated nearly an entire cemetery out into the local lake. They managed to locate almost all of the caskets, but some of them were empty and it wasn't worth the trouble or expense to dredge the entire lake for what little remains they might recover. Every once in a while, a fragment is found by a swimmer or fisherman and returned.

Anyway, while swimming in that particular lake I'd always envision a skeletal hand reaching up and grabbing my ankle. Still didn't prevent me from swimming there, though, because I was like a fish drawn to water. I wonder if those same thoughts would surface if I ever find the time to go back to that lake?

Needles and Blondes

There's a song by er Birthday Massacre about that I think.

Lol, I hadn't realized you were serious.

Well, I'm terrified of letting people down, but I think they just call that being a pushover...

Is fear of productivity a thing? I think I can make it a thing.

I mean, usually we call it being lazy xD

Achievemephobia?

Internal parasites was sort of an odd concern I had when I was little. I dunno I just heard about how tapeworms and such could infest your innards if you ate meat that wasn’t cooked properly and for awhile I was always concerned about it.

Probably why I still tend to over cook meat a bit (of any kind) even today.

The deep water one sort holds a fascination for me. Like it would be scary as shit if you were in the situation for real but I like looking up those creepy pics of some lone diver in the dark ocean that are being confronted by some underwater horror. Always got a minor sense of dread in Witcher 3 when you’re diving for shit in the deep dark seas (or even just sailing on open sea) You half expect some large sea monster to suddenly attack. Never happens of course but would have been cool though if they had put some special encounters like that.

Sometimes being near a big body of water at night I’ll visualize some excessively large creature just rising out of it. So yeah more of an odd fascination than a phobia.

Never got the big deal about the holes thing. Maggots are pretty revolting though.

You bastard! Meat is meant to be red and bloody! May as well feed you fucking leather.

EDIT: Had flies and maggots get into the dog crap bag in the outdoor metal trash can last year at one point. Takes a thorough cleaning of the can to get rid of them then.

Lol.

Here’s a weird maggot story. 

A fly got in the house and as flies do they generally buzz around being annoying. Anyway the thing landed on laptop keyboard and my need to kill it as soon as possible kicked in and I immediately slammed the laptop closed.

Well I figured better take the laptop to a table and get some sanitizer wipes because there’s going to be bug guts all over now. So with the laptop still closed I prepared to clean the laptop.

I open it up and to my surprise the fly was still alive. It was confused as all hell though which allowed me to crush it with a wipe before it could fly off again. Then that’s when I noticed there was these very small “things” on some of the keys. At first I thought it was part of the fly when I initially slammed the lid on it. But then I notice these “things” were moving.

Apparently this fly was carrying larva in it and when I crushed it with the lid, I forced all its babies out which were now crawling all over the keys.

I immediately began scrubbing the keys and laptop with sanitizer wipes and didn’t stop until I was sure I got all of the maggots off the damn thing.

We need a 'don't read while eating' trigger warning on this damn thread.

ew lol

Your experience with the witcher reminds me of when I played spore when I was younger and decided to swim too far from shore. That shit actually happend.

Here is a link for reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj3LjKAwiAc&feature=youtu.be

 

Don't even need to click, I remember it well.

Dark hallways upset me. Something about the act of traversing freaks me out. I love walking out at night, and I love being in dark houses, but hallways always freak me out. 

Mirrors in dark rooms have always done this for me.

Once when I was a kid I turned on the light and saw a horrible monster and it was just... wait. Actually, I just realized what that was. Never mind.

I am incredibly afraid of heights, but if I’m in a vehicle or someplace away from the edge of a high place, I’ll be fine. The thoughts of falling off scare me and I become petrified if I’m even eight feet away from the railings/edge. 

Also, I’m scared of spiders, but who isn’t?

I find larger spiders cute, and smaller ones creepy. Oh and Daddy Long Legs even though they aren't exactly spiders creep me the fuck out.

Have you heard of the animated series “Lukas the Spider”? It’ll change your mind about small spiders. Check it out on Youtube.

There no such thing as cute spiders because everything else aside their gross faces are alien and sinister and awful but yes, I don't tend to mind the ones that are big enough to not hide very well. Like, banana spiders are arguably horrifying to look upon by they're also huge and stay on their website where they belong. They're everywhere here but don't bother me at all.

Spiders, snakes, scorpions: all deserve death by fire.

I never really understood that. I mean, of course I didn't like being stung by scorpions as much as I was when I was a kid or all the spider bites, but that's what I got for not keeping my hands to myself. They just played a bit rougher than me, I suppose. And snakes can be super fun to a kid whose parent can't afford to buy them a bunch of cheap, crappy, plastic toys.

I like snakes >.< Used to have one, but he got too big to keep.

I think that my phobia is knowing that you have the time to wipe away the residue of Kiel's juice off of your lips but not move your ass when I post in your music thread. 

Chop, chop, move it. 

I can try :D just don't expect me to sing any of the parts as well, and we all good.

Do it at your leisure, but also give it your best shot if you can. I'll be expecting great things from your musical talent and, blah, blah, yah.

My current piano project is basically adapting the entire Nier OST. AKA the songs I liked from the OST which is basically the same thing.

Especially Wretched Weaponry, Bipolar Nightmare (Which is honestly the most metal name ever), An Beautiful Song (which I think won't be as powerful without the vocals, but I am hopeful >.>), and Amusement Park.

I guess I've given myself a case of enochlophobia by spending too much time working in the shop and not enough getting out among other people. I've started having panic attacks just thinking about going to town or into a crowded store. Guess I'll just have to grab the bull by the horns and force myself to get out more or else resign myself to being that crazy old hermit that every town needs to be well-rounded.

Crazy Hermit. Always choose crazy hermit.

Lol  That's probably the better option.

I know this sounds random, but I'm actually a psychiatrist specializing primarily in treating phobia-based anxiety disorders (usually social anxiety, panic disorder, and agoraphobia), but often fear of public speaking/flying in airplanes/blushing/sweating/seeing blood/vomiting/being around germs etc. etc. I've never yet specifically treated trypophobia, but the same techniques are used for all phobias (roughly speaking).

Also, I never got around to memorizing the Latin/Greek names for most of the phobias I treat (although I honestly probably should). :")  

The gamebook I am working on (Cabata's Quest) is my attempt to demonstrate how to treat most phobias (including the ones that have been mentioned on this forum). You are more welcome to check it out (honestly, I would be delighted).

The relevant chapters can be skipped to (using the "story-based index")... The "Progressive Memories" and "Progressive Snider Moat" chapters show you how to do gradual exposures. The "Intense Memories" and "Intense Snider Moat" chapters show you how to do versions of flooding and implosion therapy.

If you check it out, make sure to read the "caution" section of the preface. Reading the book itself can be an exposure/might be overwhelming/might need to be done slowly (in particular, if you have panic disorder or one of the specific phobias being described)...

And that, my friends, is how to kill a perfectly good conversation about phobias. :'(

Every so often I check out how much your word count has increased by- you've overtaken me by now so I need to up my game.

I'm glad to read that quantity is appreciated, and I hereby motion that, in my case, quality be ignored altogether. 

On the advice of Wibbons (and a supplemental off-line beta-reader), I am just about to cut two chapters, so the lead may soon be yours again! ;-D

 

I'm the opposite of Seto when it comes to spiders, small ones are alright but the big, hairy ones are fucking horrifying. Stems from something that happened to me on a Boy Scouts trip when I was 6 or 7 methinks. We went to a canyon, went through some caves, we came out and I got my foot trapped between a boulder and a smaller rock. Everyone just went ahead even though I was yelling for them to stop. I looked up, saw a bigass fucking tarantula just crawling down the boulder right next to my face. Jumped out of my shoe and bolted.

Aside from that, fear of the ocean, I forget the technical name for it. (Edit: it's almost exactly what Havoc has.) Also, crippling fear of heights. Can't go high up at all. Have nightmares every week or two of me falling from high places.

I think you’re just bad at being a mammal if you’re scared of water ^_^

At least he's not a fish :P
Besides, he's only afraid of the ocean, not the water.

If it’s for the same reasons as the other guy like he said, not being able to see or feel the bottom, then he’d presumably be just as fearful of deep channeled rivers and creeks, or possibly just murky ones, as well as ponds and lakes.

I did say kinda like what Havoc said. For me, it's just the ocean, because it's so vast. If it's like a murky creek or pond I'm not as scared, because it's small enough that I know Cthulhu isn't slumbering beneath its depths.

What about, say, Lake Michigan? The Great Salt Lake?

Those would probably fall into the same category as the ocean.

So ... cave diving. Yay or nay?

That's a definite nay from me, man.

I have the opposite of trypophobia. Like, if it's a lot of small things coming OUT of something, rather than a lot of small things inside, I have a problem. Masses of pumpkin/pepper seeds, worms/maggots poking out of things, carpet like masses of short tentacles, certain scars, "clumps" of teeth, the underside of a living starfish, those playdough things where you press down and shit comes out, that's all pretty irrationally gross to me. Not really "I have severe trouble approaching it" gross, unless it's stuff like the aforementioned worms and maggots in which case yeah, it's generally healthy to never approach them, but it does give me the general super-fucking-uncomfortable-but-not-life-altering fear that I feel like most people who have Trypophobia have.

When I was a kid, I was so scared of my own reflection that I couldn't fall asleep if there was a mirror facing me.

As a kid, I remember being afraid that my reflection would move or wink at me (or something equally horrifying and nefarious).

Not a problem I really had, although I remember this being the one moment in Mary Poppins that unsettled me as a kid. And mirrors in dark rooms specifically would freak me out, although that may have been a result of something I read.

Same, I thought my reflection was going to murder me and steal my life.

You lot certainly should be concerned about your reflections in the mirror. Mirrors are just windows of alternate dimensions, who knows what the hell the illusion is really hiding from you when you directly look head on.

Sometimes you might catch a glimpse of “reality” from the side of your eye if walking past one or looking into one in the dark, but purposely “peeking” on such things would certainly be considered rude and result in...escalation.

After all, would you want someone peeking in your window?

Play with mirrors at your own risk for while the window may appear strong, who knows if it really is ever as strong as it appears.

OK now I'm scared of mirrors too.

But if I sit down in front of a mirror with some pancakes and I see my alternate reality self doing it too is it possible to punch through the mirror and take their plate so that I have two? I'm fairly certain I could take me out in a fight, I don't look very tough.

My reflection is an asshole. I blame him for the missing socks.  

My reflection probably thinks the same about me. I'm always doing something to try and freak him out. It's a wonder that he hasn't abandoned me altogether.

Here try this. 

Boom. Phobia reinstated. Thanks. :-(

Aww :( it was supposed to do the opposite, since both the hair in the mirror and mine matched >.>

<.< or maybe I'm so boring that they slammed the door shut on me, and now that mirror of mine is actually a mirror.

Well, my hair was "2" inches, but my reflection's was "5"!

Then, when I launched an expedition to retrieve my missing socks, I was rebuffed by a cheap-ass force field. :-/

I'm gonna get that left-handed fuck!

Mirrors can actually be quite entertaining. All you gotta do is set one on the floor in a dimly lit room and turn a cat loose in there. It's hilarious!