There’s nothing embarrassing about being scared. Fear is a core part of being a human being, and it protects you from potential risks. That being said, some fears are irrational and make your daily life much harder than it should be. If you’re frightened by butterflies, party balloons, flags, and cotton wool, it’s going to raise some eyebrows if you mention it aloud.
In a fascinating thread on AskReddit, netizens spilled the beans about the rarest phobias they have or that someone they know struggles with. We’ve hand-selected the most bizarre ones to share with you, and you can check them out below. Some of these might sound fake, but they are completely real!
Meanwhile, be sure not to miss Bored Panda's interview with the author of the intriguing thread, u/nitin_is_me, who shared their thoughts about phobias.
#1
I can't deal with anything eye related. I can't use contacts or put in eye drops. I have to look away if others are doing it. Even watching my girlfriend put on make-up gets me.
I can watch gory horror scenes, but the second eyes are involved I'm a total baby.
Image credits: Pissed_With_A_Boner
#2
Mine is arachnophobia, which isn't rare, but I believe it's much more rare that people claim.
Most people claiming arachnophobia simply don't like spiders, or worry about their bite, or slightly fear them.
I am truly phobic. There's no logic or reason. I am not scared of bites, even tho I grew up knowing multiple people who lost large amounts of tissue from brown recluses, & black widow bites are VERY common.
The only thing I fear regarding the bits is the fact they'd be TOUCHING ME.
And I actually try to avoid saying anything about it, b/c people think I don't like the creepy crawlers & so they WILL purposely put a daddy longlegs or harmless house spider on me as a joke.
But I've been trapped in a room, helpless & crying, because a spider is between me the door. I want to throw up when I see a larger one.
And the hypervigilance means I see so many more spiders than other people. I'm constantly terrorized.
I envy rare or even most others. You can easily avoid most fears like heights, clowns, drowning, etc. Other creature fears like snakes are rare. Spiders? I know exactly where 5 are in my home right now. 🥺.
#3
I’ve had bouts of casadastraphobia which is an irrational fear of falling into the sky especially at night. It’s worse if I’m laying on my back. Yes I know it’s impossible but it’s very similar to the fear of vertigo if you were to look down off of a tall building. It sucks.
Image credits: Killybug
Verywell Mind points out that, as per the American Psychological Association, there are 3 main categories of phobias:
- Social phobias, which revolve around the fear of social situations that are potentially embarrassing
- Agoraphobia, the irrational fear of being in places that are difficult to escape from, like crowded places
- Specific phobias
The latter, specific phobias, can be further subcategorized. They typically fall into 1 of 4 types, including:
- Fears of the natural environment
- Animal-related fears
- Fears linked to medical treatments or issues
- Fears related to specific situations
#4
Cynophobia. I'm afraid of dogs. People just can't understand.
bUt My DoG iS nIcE, hE tEh BeStEsT gOoD bOi, AdoRaBlE lItTlE fLuFfBaLl
No.
Just… no.
Image credits: Mysterious_Dr_X
#5
Agoraphobia.
People think I don't have it because I'll never put myself in any situation that might induce it.
So I generally ask them who they think they are to think I'd put myself in any position to feel stuck in my phobia, just to lift their doubts. And then I avoid them like the plague.
If people don't believe it and ask you to prove it, they're a piece of s**t. If you're someone that doesn't believe someone has a phobia of something, simply because they've never been exposed to it in front of you to see their reaction, stop. You're an a*****e. Find a *healthier* hobby than making everyone else miserable.
#6
It’s not rare, but people sometimes make jokes or refuse to believe my OCD because it’s illogical / inconsistent. For example I get triggered by spiders and crickets but not by ants or moths. I don’t get why it’s so hard for people to understand that OCD is by nature illogical. My brain has categorized some insects as contaminants and some as harmless. It’s not a choice, it’s just how the disease works sometimes.
The Anxiety & Depression Association of America notes that, based on data from the National Institute of Mental Health, specific phobias affect around 9.1% of the United States adult population.
On average, phobia symptoms generally begin in childhood, when the person is around 7 years of age. Roughly 1 in 8 (12.5%) American adults experience a specific phobia at some point in their lives.
#7
Not rare in how often it's mentioned, but needles.
Like, an actual needle phobia. Stop telling me it doesn't hurt that much, I'm well aware, that's not what a phobia is. When I was 12 I had a perfectly healthy tooth pulled without anaesthetic, and the dentist had to twist. It's not the pain. .
Image credits: LocationOld6656
#8
I am agoraphobic. I was severely abused 3 years ago, resulting in, not only a terribly broken mind/psyche, but also 3 broken bones.
He isolated me for a whole year. I did not know at the time, but he told my friends I didn't like them or wasn't interested in being their friends and some of them believed him.
I am healing, and I do my best to go just a little further every time I leave the house (if im capable of leaving).
People refuse to believe it because I used to be so outgoing and spontaneous. I used to travel the world and hit the road for road trips on whims. In 2021, Google maps timeline yearly review feature reported that I'd driven 1.5 times around the world, in terms of mileage.
My husband had never even heard of agoraphobia when we met, so he struggles to understand sometimes. Don't get me wrong! He really tries. Same with my best friends. I imagine its just hard to understand because I am still very much not who I was.
Therapy has done wonders for me. I recently started going in person and my therapist told me how proud she is of me.
#9
I have a fear of buttons, as in clothing buttons. However, not a fear of buttons that are attached to clothes more like random unknown buttons. If i touch them it causes me to gag and sometimes vomit. I believe it's called Koumpounophobia.
I've had this reaction since i was a small child. In kindergarten they used to have a cookie tin full of buttons for crafts. I couldn't touch them.
Image credits: delroy13
Some of the most common symptoms of someone suffering from a phobia include increased blood pressure, sweating, and nausea, as well as chest pains, chills, hot flashes, shaking, dizziness, a dry mouth, confusion, and a choking sensation.
According to Verywell Mind, some of the most common phobias around the world are:
- Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders
- Ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes
- Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking (guilty as charged)
- Acrophobia, the fear of heights (hi!)
- And social phobia, the fear of social interactions
#10
Hair. I know it’s insane. I’m disgusted and so freaked out by hair that’s not attached to someone. I can’t touch my own hair out of the drain without some layers of paper towel. A pube or a leg hair in the bathroom from my husband makes me want to puke. Random hair in a public sink? I’ll have nightmares about it that night.
Edit to add: what a revelation and relief to find out I’m not the only weirdo who would genuinely scream and puke if someone touched me with a random hair off a chair or something 🥹🤣.
Image credits: macaron1ncheese
#11
Goats... I know it's a weird phobia but their eyes are terrifying. Their horizontal pupils scare the living s@#t out of me. It's an irrational fear. I've scuba dived and met octopuses with similar horizontal eyes and I wasn't afraid. But somehow goats are terrifying. I can't explain it.
Image credits: Pretend_Analysis_359
#12
Haphephobia. Intense and irrational fear of being touched. I have screamed at people at work, including a supervisor. A coworker hugged me, and I'm so stiff for hugs that she asked if I was ok and if she hurt me 🫠.
There are very few people who can touch me and not make my skin crawl.
When someone walks by and grazes your arm, I feel the sensation for about an hour exactly where I was touched. Cashier gives you change and their finger tip barely touches your hand? I feel the lingering burn of stranger on my skin. I realize it isn't real, but ugh please don't touch people 😭.
In fact, being scared of public speaking is so incredibly common that, by some estimations, the vast majority of people (77%) have this fear at least to some extent.
Meanwhile, some of the rarest phobias include the likes of spectrophobia (the fear of mirrors), chiclephobia (the fear of chewing gum), and the long-winded and aptly named hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (the fear of long words).
#13
Not me but I had a friend who is afraid of inflated party balloons, which I learned about the hard way.
One time for my birthday my gf at the time had arranged for my housemate to let her in 2 friends in and they spent a few hours blowing up balloons and filling my bedroom.
The next day my neighbour (the friend in question) asked me about the surprise my friends left in my bedroom, told her to go check.
She screamed and ran back home crying which I did find odd. Wasn't until an hour later that her bf called me a c**t for making her go into a balloon filled room. Only after I looked very confused did he ask if I knew about her phobia, I did not.
Image credits: uitSCHOT
#14
I’m terrified of people in costumes. I can never go to disney land 💔.
Image credits: General-Weekend-3072
#15
My brother is terrified of butterflies. He says it's something about the way they move. He found out when we went through a butterfly house at a theme park. They wouldn't let him go back out the entrance so he was army crawling and sobbing through the whole place. It's super irrational. He's shoved his girlfriend into the street to get away from them and he'll jerk his car out of the way.
Image credits: dumplingdoodoo
The author was over the moon that their post got so popular. It was an unexpected surprise, and they said that they're "super happy" that it resonated with so many people.
"I’ve always been fascinated by weird phobias, especially the ones that sound absurd to others but are very real to the people dealing with them. I myself had the phobia of dandelion seeds in childhood, and I'm still scared of centipedes," u/nitin_is_me opened up to Bored Panda.
"One day, I just thought, 'What if I ask Reddit about the rarest, most unbelievable fears people have?' and the responses were way more intense, hilarious, and heartfelt than I expected," they said.
"I think it [the question] resonated [with the internet] because everyone’s got something irrational they’re scared of, and it feels good to know you’re not alone, even if your fear is cotton balls or submerged pool drains," u/nitin_is_me told us.
#16
Police. I get very nervous around the police. I think it's because I know they're armed and have the power to arrest people. I hate getting in trouble and always do my best to follow the rules, but always paranoid I've done something to draw their attention. Also I haven't experienced trauma because of the police if anyone was wondering.
#17
Bellybuttons. Seeing one isn't a problem, but seeing one being touched...I'm really not confortable even writing this.
Image credits: MicroCosno
#18
Anything man made in water. I can’t go to a swimming pool because of drains, ladders, those floating things that separate lanes etc. I wouldn’t go in water near a pier or bridge or a boat. Even if someone put a plastic chair in a pool I would get panicked. .
Image credits: Jadeinda
"Some comments genuinely caught me off guard. Like, someone said they panic at the idea of man-made stuff underwater, like buoys or pool ladders. Another person's friend had the fear of inflated party balloons. Stuff you’d never think about, but it’s all so real for them."
According to the author of the thread, if you have a phobia, you shouldn't let anyone gaslight you into thinking that your fear isn't valid because it's uncommon or sounds silly.
"If it’s affecting your daily life, it’s real. I’d say talk to someone. Whether it’s a therapist, friend, or even just strangers online (Reddit’s great for that, honestly), a lot of people find that just putting a name to the fear and hearing 'me too' makes it a bit easier to cope."
Internet user u/nitin_is_me said that they're very grateful to everyone who shared their story. "I think posts like these show that we all have our weird wiring, and that’s okay."
#19
I have a phobia of clusters of holes (trypophobia) people always think I'm joking until they see me physically shudder.
Image credits: Afraid_Stay1813
#20
I don't see mine yet. I have a fear of tall staircases with spaces between the steps or winding where you can look over the rail and see straight down. It's not heights. It's stairs. Any stairs where you can see through them. So there's a tower in this state park we go to where you can see through the slats the whole way up and I can't do it. Or I'll force myself to and then can't get down.
Image credits: Hedgehog_Insomniac
#21
Tokophobia. Fear of pregnancy.
Image credits: Okurai
What phobias do you have, dear Pandas? How do they affect your daily life? How do people typically react when they learn about your fears? Have you ever successfully conquered one or more of your phobias?
This is a sensitive topic, we know, but if you find the courage and you’d like to open up about your experiences, feel free to do so in the comments at the bottom of this post.
#22
Horses. Their faces are too long and they are just generally spooky.
Image credits: Odd-Following-4952
#23
You would never catch me swimming with dolphins. Too smart, too smooth, too many teeth.
Image credits: bubbarae91
#24
Lumps. If there's a lump in food that's not supposed to be there (eg lump in custard) I have an involuntary reaction where I spew whatever's in my mouth, with ungodly force. I don't think about it, it just happens.
It's lead to very embarrassing situations. Now I do my best just to avoid those potential landmines. Funnily enough, if the food is supposed to have lumps in it, then I'm fine. So I'm fine with sago pudding - as long as the sago hasn't clumped together into a bigger congelation.
#25
I knew this guy in high school who was absolutely jacked for the time and had some weird phobia of cotton balls. He ended up telling a friend somehow and then he got pranked by people stuffing a bunch into his locker. When he opened it he freaked out super bad and it was a bit crazy to see. After he was done freaking out he got super pissed and wanted to fight his friends who did it. It was very unexpected to see.
Image credits: Lakiteflor
#26
I'm scared of vomiting and diarrhea. If I'm feeling like I'm gonna have either of them it's full on panic attack. Having IBS does not help.
#27
Emails and phone calls.
Image credits: GSh-47
#28
I could not drive over bridges as a teenager.
My school was quite far and across the river but there was a little car ferry you could take. I took that, even though it took longer.
It was that way for a long time until, one night, was going out with friends and I was following them (pre cell phones so you just had to follow). They must have driven me over every bridge there was. I went from absolutely freaking out to more or less being ok with it. However if traffic is bad and we’re stopped on the bridge… and you can feel it “bouncing” I still shudder.
#29
Large human statues like the Statue of Liberty. It's a form of megalophobia. I can't even look at photos of them and not enjoying writing this.
Image credits: Roots_Manuka
#30
Escalators. I had a traumatic experience on one and I still have a physical anxiety response when I get on a fast-moving downward escalator. I thought it would go away over time but 20 years later it hasn't subsided.
#31
Down escalators. I’m fine going up but I just can’t go down. I think it’s because the step is moving away from me and I’m frightened I’ll fall. It stems from when I was little my parents were watching the local news and a child was wearing wellies and they got caught in the machinery when he didn’t step off quickly enough. Strangely a good friend and I were talking about this one day and he said you aren’t going to believe this but that was me!
#32
Not rare per se but I absolutely hate flying, and it surprised me how dismissive and even sometimes cruel people can be about it.
#33
Some puppets really freak me out.
#34
I'm genuinely repulsed by long (usually fake) fingernails. And I'm not talking about "long" like most would define it, I mean basically anything that goes past the fingertips. To the point where if I'm paying for something with cash, and the cashier has those kind of nails, I will move and contort my hand in a way so when they give me my change the nails won't touch me. I could see a woman that literally checked every box on the list of features I'm attracted to, and if she has the nails, I'm immediately 100% disinterested. I know it's irrational, I know it's stupid, but it hits me on a primal level that I cannot explain.
#35
Cotton wool, whenever I see it I think about the feeling between my teeth, and if I try to avoid thinking about it I think about it expanding until it is.
Image credits: Ladyinthebeige
#36
I’m mycophobic. I will cry and scream if I have to touch a mushroom in the outdoors or clean out something with mold. Especially those pancake looking mushrooms on trees, or the weird ones that like ears, the jelly ones, ones that look like nets…. NO
The only thing I can tolerate is clean, cut mushrooms from the store. And ONLY certain kinds. I’m still not a fan of eating them though.
Image credits: chanyeol2012
#37
Cockroaches
Not on a normal level my heart rate jumps i hyperventilate and panic i wont even go inthat room even a picture scares me.
#38
I don't know if it's rare, but bees/wasps/etc. My sister and I broke a hornets nest when I was a year or two old and I got covered in them. Don't have a memory of it, but my subconscious remembers. It's not as bad around bees anymore as long as they don't get too close, but wasps are still public enemy number one. Just the sound of them buzzing triggers a fight-or-flight response. I've had full-blown panic attacks when they've gotten into the house and no one else was around to k**l them for me.
And I guess it's not so much that people refuse to believe it, more than they get exasperated whenever I react to one being too close. Like, yeah, I know it's probably not going to sting me, but my brain doesn't care about facts and logics, it has identified that thing as a threat and acts according 🤷♀️
Fun fact, though: the only time I've been stung since that incident is when I stepped on a dead bee while I was walking barefoot in my kitchen in the dark.
#39
Emetophobia (everything that has to do with throwing up).
#40
I don’t like listening to heartbeats for example whenever they put it as sound effect in movies . Also for the other person eg my significant other to lie her head on my chest and thus me “feeling “ that she listens to my heart.
Weird thing is now that we listen to our baby’s heartbeat I can listen to it the whole day :).
#41
Chickens.
I'm absolutely terrified of chickens.
Their bawk bok bok bok fills me with intense anxiety and dread.
We had them on a farm when I was a kid. The chickens were fine until we got a red island rooster (if you know, you know). One morning I went to get their eggs while the flock was roaming about. It turned into an ambush and I was ganked by the chickens and my dog had to save me as my legs were shredded by them. Been terrified ever since.
This doesn't extend to chicken as a food, thankfully.
#42
I fear that at any moment, a space disaster happens without warning. Like the sun exploding out of nowhere, earth stops spinning all of sudden, earth colliding with another planet or an asteroid killing me or something.
Image credits: Dunder6002
#43
When I was a small child, I was terrified of the moon. But only when it was a crescent moon! 🌙 Full moon was fine. I still cannot fully explain why, but I think it just seemed evil-looking to me, like a big creepy grin in the sky that followed you wherever you walked or drove - it was always there, leering down at you. I used to make my parents close all the blinds when I knew the moon was gonna be crescent. I’m pretty sure looking back I should have been assessed for autism, haha.
#44
Talking into phones, radios, speakers etc. Idk what it is, it seemed to just develop around the age of 18 where I would burst into tears if a phone was ringing and nobody immediately answered it. Through constant exposure I’ve managed to mostly get over it, I still feel uncomfortable and stressed but I can deal with it now. I do always keep my phone on silent though.
My uncle has a phobia of buttons. Like, he could never wear a shirt with buttons because it just repulsed him.
#45
Sleeping with objects above my head.
I just can’t help but be worried it will fall and I’ll die or be severely injured no matter the object.
I think I watched too many disaster movies as a kid with earthquakes shaking the house and things falling from the walls or ceilings lol.
#46
Im not sure if it is, but my family says it's a phobia. (So kinda the opposite to this post I guess.) Here it goes....
Shortbread.
It makes me so f*****g angry. I hate everything about it, even the name. I have the strongest feeling of pure hate and disgust towards it. It makes me so f*****g angry. To me, It's the food version of ISIS. If my husband tries to add some to the trolley when shopping, I WILL raise my voice or cause a scene. (Which is completely out of my character) it can NOT come in my house. I will not touch it with my hands. It can NOT come near me. It's putrid, vile, filth and if you offered to pay off all my debts just if I would eat some, I'd tell you to f**k off. I don't know how to articulate how strong my feelings are towards it, and I don't know why I have these feelings or if they actually constitute as a 'phobia'. As long as it f***s off!
#47
Driving. Idk what it is but every time I try, I am guaranteed to have a full on fight or flight meltdown where I’m sobbing and feeling like I can’t breathe. It just feels like TOO MUCH and TOO FAST. I don’t know what to focus on but you have to focus on EVERYTHING. I can’t tell if I’m too far over in the lane and I have to focus on that while focusing on speed and if someone is trying to merge or if I’m trying to merge or when I need to slow down or if someone is driving unsafe nearby or if a person is walking in front of my car in a parking lot or crossing the street when they shouldn’t be and then I have to make sure I don’t lose focus of literally everything and space out while driving a death trap on wheels.
#48
I’m afraid of ship wrecks and submarines. I don’t even know why but just thinking about it makes my heart rate rise.
Image credits: sanara-p
#49
Giant flags.
Image credits: MopOfTheBalloonatic
#50
Manmade objects that are underwater. They're just f*****g eerie to look at.
