Phobias To Say The Least...

Phobias... 

The meaning of phobias, according to the dictionary is a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.

After studying psychology, reading the books that talked about the subject, I realized that I developed a lot more phobias than I thought I had. Most phobias originate from extreme past traumatic experiences. Highly sensitive people are more prone to get phobias...

Here are the ones I have and maybe that you have as well.

*Agliophobia*

Fear of pain, Unwarranted, persistent irrational fear of pain.  

*Thantophobia*

Fear of death or dying. In my case, it's more losing someone because of death. 

*Kainotophobia*

The morbid fear of anything new and changes. Not knowing how to deal with anything uncommon. 

*Eremophobia*

Fear of being alone or of loneliness. 

*Altophobia*

Fear of heights.

*Pistanthrophobia* 

The fear of trusting people due to bad experiences with prior lovers. 

*Bathophobia* 

Fear of depths, associated with the sea or water bodies of various type. Bathophobics are also known to fear mountain valleys, cave or even tunnels. My phobia mostly consists of bodies of water like the sea and caves. 

*Atychiphobia*

The abnormal, unwarranted, and persistent fear of failure.

*Atelophobia* 

Fear of not being good enough. An anxiety disorder where the afflicted person feels like all they do is wrong. 

*Hemophobia*

Irrational fear of blood. Which may cause physical reactions that are uncommon in other fears, fainting.

*Autophobia*

Fear of abandonment and issues related to it. It may be extreme in some cases. Some will live in constant fear that their 'world will collapse' if their protectors or loved ones abandon them. In my case, it isn't extreme, but it is a phobia that I developed at a young age. 

The last one isn't considered a phobia, but more a fear...

*FOMO*

Fear of missing out. 

A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder, that build up quickly caused mostly by traumatic experiences, panic attacks may be frequent. Children who have a close relative that developed anxiety will most likely develop some type of phobia. A traumatic event like drowning experience may cause the person to fear water, deep water. 

There are many phobias, over 100, and every single one of them may impact your life. The common ones are:
Social Phobias which is also referred to as "social anxiety disorder." This is extreme worry about social situations that can lead to self-isolation. ( I went through it and to get out of it, it's impossible by yourself, you need others to be better).
Specific Phobias which mean that people dislike certain situations or objects, but to be a true phobia, the fear must interfere with your daily life. 
Agoraphobia which is a fear of places or situations that you can't escape from. Some fear of being in large crowds or trapped outside the home.
Substance abuse and depression may also be the cause of many phobias. I had a close friend who became an addict of a certain drug, and he developed a few phobias because he was using. He would always look behind him in fear someone would come up from behind to kill him. He has help now, but at the time, it was impossible to talk to him without him freaking out about the government listening to our conversations. Imagine how difficult it must be to live with these phobias, to be fair he didn't have much of a life, he was always afraid, always on his guard, always seeing the worse in people. 


If you have a phobia that keeps you from living, from going outside, I suggest you talk to someone close to you or get help with a stranger. I don't recommend you stay in these fears. 

"Having a phobia has changed me." - Willard Scott

~Bella

The Book of Symbols 4...

Shell

From time immemorial, we have held conch shells to our ears to hear the surflike sound - the eternal tides of life that engrave their markings upon us. The human ear resembles a shell, gathering vibrations of air in its outer cavity called the "conch," and directing them through the winding passages of its shell-like inner ear as sound, symbolically evoking an interior listening. "He who has ears to hear let him hear," said Jesus of the hidden meaning of his parables. Images of the Buddha with elongated ears suggest that listening with the inner ear includes keeping silent, meditating on what has been said and opening ourselves to the resonance of the source. 

Shell-shaped and oversized, the ear of the Grand

Buddha suggests wise listening. Detail from a carved

cliff face, 713 C.E., Leshan, China

We have also raised the conch shell to our lips, trumpeting as gods of the sea might have, for the sound of the conch was said to lull the tumultuous waves of the sea.That the conch comes from the deep associates it with the underworld. The Mayan deity Quetzalcoatl mythically descends to Mictlan, the abode of the skeletons, as a dead conch that has fallen silent, so that worms may bore into him in order that he come to life again inside (Moctezuma, 138-9).

Figure, perhaps a deity, emerging from a shell,

showing whorls a growth. Effigy vase, painted

terra-cotta, Mayan, 600-800 C.E.

Shells are mysterious sea treasure, in beautiful shapes, sometimes symmetrical, often ridged and whorled, reflecting stages of growth. The recesses of a shell are reminiscent of the sacred spiral, labyrinth, and center. The intimation of marine life is also an allusion to the hidden life of our interior world, sometimes surfacing, leaving its evidence in consciousness, sometimes not. A shell is an exoskeleton serving to protect the vulnerable creature that dwells within. But shells are also delicate, easily broken, not the tough carapace of defensiveness. We speak of coming out of, or going into, one's "shell," suggesting a gradual, tenuous exposure to the world, or of retreat from it, in privacy, refuge or withdrawal.

As if incised by the waters of eternity- a stone conch 

shell. Aztec, ca. 1486-1502, Temple Mayor, Mexico.

The shape and depth of some shells, the lush pink of their coloring, brings to mind the female vulva, associating the shell with the allure and mystery of the feminine, and with incarnation and fertility. Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love (to the Roman Venus), materializing out of the ocean's foam, is borne ashore on a seashell. In his celebrated painting, Odilon Redon depicts the open, vulva-shaped shell, its soft opalescence infusing the sky and the goddess lying, yet standing, asleep and yet waking, as in a vision. We adorn ourselves with shells, remembering the goddess and her beauty, her seductions. The shell and its evocation of the uterine salt-sea, the moon, tidal ebb, and flow imparts a sense of birth and rebirth; early Christian art made the empty shell an image of the soul's departure to immortality. 

The Birth of Venus, by Odilon Redon, oil on canvas,

ca. 1912, France. 

~Bella

Little note: I won't be able to post on Friday so I'm going to post tomorrow instead. Sorry about that, but you'll still get a post :)