I used to have a crippling fear of rats. I would scream and jump on a table at the sight of them, but I got over it long time ago. I still get anxious and feel stressed when I see roaches or when I'm at the edge of a high place looking down. What phobias are still on your list?
House centipedes. I'd never seen one until moving north. Not many things turn me into a princess but they used to, shrieking, freaking out.
Then the website "what's that bug" instantly calmed me when it mentioned their food source is spiders. I stopped smashing them after that.
Ticks and anything that resembles a reduviidae otoh.... nope.
My relationship with heights has changed a lot.
Used to have a phobia of dentists, then figured out I was having adverse reactions to the local anesthetic, now only the bill terrifies me.
Also improved my phobia of needles which isn't surprising since having blood drawn never worried me just people injecting me, so back to adverse reactions. Still not real good with moving heights, planes, ferris wheels, etc but that most likely has something to do with getting stuck at the top of one for half an hour in high winds when I was seven, trees, cliffs, etc. never bothered me. Can catch A plane if I have to but don't enjoy it.
One I got over? Snakes. I remember seeing one in a pet shop, being afraid of it, thinking "this is ridiculous", so a few weeks later, I went back and bought one. I'm not afraid of any snake I know can't kill me, now. Obviously I would still be very wary of a large constrictor or anything venomous.
Ones I still have? Heights. I'm okay as long as it's enclosed: I can happily stand on a glass floor. But walking over a high bridge, I can't go anywhere near the edge. Spiders over a certain size still give me the creeps. But the oddest one I have is plants. Not a running, screaming fear, but a real sense of anxiety if I have to touch the things. I grew some chillis a few years back, and got over it with those, but it's still there when dealing with garden weeds and such. I remember The Day of the Triffids scaring the living daylights out of me when I was a kid. I'm not sure whether that was the source of this phobia, or whether it played on an existing one.
We are born to fear heights. This seems to be hardwired into most non-flying species. The experiments with infants of many species (including human) was very interesting. I saw a documentary on that long ago. It can probably be found on youtube, now.
Basically, they made a "safe cliff edge" using glass. The babies all moved away from the edge, except for birds. Pretty cool.
As a child I was afraid of hte dark. I think it had to do with beign brought up in a religion. You lern to fear the unseen and inknown. It's poor preparation for actual life.
I'm not sure that's religious. It's just that to a child, anything's possible. Including the bogeyman under the bed or the face staring in through the window if you dare to open the curtains. As adults, we learn to push these things back into the realms of "so unlikely, they're not worth worrying about" but if my house alarm goes off in the middle of the night (usually because a tiny spider has found its way into one of the PIR sensors) I'm thoroughly checking every room in the house, in case someone did manage to sneak in and they're now hiding in a wardrobe, waiting for me to go back to sleep.
@NicoleCadmium Well, religion did teach me to believe in and fear the unseen and believe in the irrational. I feel it really messed up my thinking all through childhood.
I used to be deathly afraid of earthquakes. Living in California, I had been knocked around by quite a few over the years but after a big one about 20 years ago, I figured if that all there is, I can live I can live with it. Now, if there is an earthquake, I just think about surfing the land and hope none of the pictures on the don't fall off the walls.
I don't think I can classify anything I've experienced as a genuine phobia, nothing nearly so debilitating as that, but I have pushed through moderate anxiety. I have a tendency to feel anxious about various things, like taking on additional responsibilities or even doing something as simple as driving someplace unfamiliar, but I've decided that I'm going to say "yes" more often even if it's to do something that I initially recoil from.
“The Dream Catcher” made me scared to flush the toilet for years.
I had forgotten about the butt aliens until my youngest son reminded me.
Nope. Still afraid of spiders, heights, clowns, clusters of holes, Sam's Club, politicians, and basically any social situation ever
I did get over my fear of the dark when I realized demons devouring my soul (lol) would be preferable to living in a trumptopian dictatorship
My phobias still, and probably always will include lilapsophobia and acrophobia. The only one I've managed to conquer to any reasonable degree is my melanoheliophobia, or the fear of black holes. Can't really avoid those if one were to be created on earth, in a lab, so it's kind of a moot point to fear them. Just can't look at pictures of them though, even artist's renderings. Nope. Tornadoes and heights though? Those I can mostly avoid. I was borderline arachnophobic for over a decade, but I've encountered so many spiders at random now that I only get that awful frozen, tight chest sensation when I spy a dangerous one.
I got over my fear of snakes by getting a pet ball python. I'm still not a fan of snakes, but they don't freak me out anymore.
I guess I still have a bit of social phobia, but hardly anyone would guess it anymore once I'm out and among people. It's just really darned easy for me to come up with an excuse as to why I probably shouldn't leave my home.
I do have anxiety and panic attacks, but those don't really seem to have anything to do with anything - at least at a conscious level, so it's not really a fear of anything, just random fear.
Slowly, I'm getting over my phobia of being seen eating anything. I still can't eat in front of people I don't know, but the list of people I do know who have seen me eat grows a little longer each year.
I used to have a big problem with that. My father used to scrutinize every microsecond of me eating, and had an extremely extensive list of "table manners" that I had to follow, but not him or anyone else.
I don't think I really have a fear of that anymore, but I prefer to eat alone, and when I'm with others, the food is more likely to get in my mouth during the seconds they are looking at their own plates or anywhere but at me. If someone refuses to break eye contact, I'll eventually get the food in, but I might as well be swallowing a lump of sand.
@ElizabethI Exactly the same cause as my own phobia!