Phalangophobia and Other Phobias

A phobia is an irrational fear. A lot of times the person with the phobia realizes just how irrational the fear is, but that doesn't change anything for him. You should never make fun of a person afflicted with a phobia, but you could use phobias to create an unforgettable character, one whose fear puts him or her in amusing situations.

Barophobia is an abnormal fear of gravity. Gravity, according to the dictionary, is the force of attraction by which terrestrial bodies tend to fall towards the center of the earth. How does one get away from that? It's not like you would be walking down the street and have 'gravity' come up and start a fight with you. If there really is such a fear, how would one live? I guess one could become an astronaut and live his or her life just floating around in space?

It would be interesting to create a character with this phobia just to see how he or she would try and deal with it.

Batrachophobia is the fear of amphibians. There are people who are afraid of frogs, toads, newts, and salamanders. I highly doubt that a person with this phobia would even consider having a frog as a pet. People with this phobia would most likely tend to stay well away from streams or ponds for fear of encountering one of these creatures. The phobia can be so severe that the person may not even be able to stand looking at photos of any of these animals.

One would expect a little girl to have this phobia as she was growing up, maybe. What would be fun is to create a character who was a big, strong, macho man, seemingly not afraid of anything, who had this fear.

Chaetophobia is an irrational fear of hair. This isn't so much a fear of the hair on one's own head as it is the fear of stray hairs from other people and/or animals. You know how clean your hair is, but you don't know for sure how clean another person's hair is. This phobia can affect how you live and where you work. It can affect your daily life. Talking to an extremely hairy person could throw someone with this phobia into a panic attack.

How would a person with this phobia react if he or she were trapped inside a beauty salon? This person could just walk out the door, but a killer is chasing him or her and to walk outside would almost certainly mean death. Would your character stay in and face the object of his or her fear? Or would your character chicken out and go outside to face the killer?

Optophobia is the irrational fear of opening one's eyes. Obviously, a person can't walk around all the time with his or her eyes shut, so how would one deal with this? He or she will open the eyes for just a few seconds to see what surrounds him, but will then tightly shut them once again. This fear could be caused by watching a horror movies where the only way he could block out the horrible events taking place on screen was to shut his eyes. It could have been triggered at a sporting event where she witnessed a horrible injury. He could also just be afraid of seeing something that will frighten him or cause him displeasure. Would a person with this phobia need to have a seeing-eye dog to guide her around?

This phobia would obviously be a hindrance to one's life. Create a character with this phobia and explore how he or she deals with it. How does he manage to keep a job? How would she manage to clean house or cook dinner?

Phalangophobia is the fear of injuring one's own fingers. I am personally acquainted with this one. No, I don't have a fear of my fingers being hurt, but my husband does. I could not find a name for this phobia, so I gave it one myself. He plays the piano, so maybe that could be why he is so afraid of finger wounds. If we are watching a movie and a character gets a finger chopped off or something, he gets sick. It makes him sick to hear about other people's finger injuries. He is so afraid of them that if I cut my finger, no matter how badly I am injured, he can't help me out at all. He won't even look at it. And, yes, it has happened before.

This phobia would probably be most common in those whose hands are a vital part of their work. I can see a surgeon, a pianist, any type of musician, or even a writer with this phobia. Create a character with this phobia and make him or her face what they fear.