A phobia (from Greek: φÏŒβος, phobos, "fear"), is an irrational, intense, persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, or people. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. When the fear is beyond one's control, or if the fear is interfering with daily life, then a diagnosis under one of the anxiety disorders can be made.
I hate going to the dentist. I’ve put off getting my teeth cleaned for a year (yeah, yeah – I know, too long) and when I finally got my butt there today, I was handed the devastating news that I have to have two crowns replaced. (Gee, no wonder that tooth has been bothering me! There’s a damn hole inside the crown. I guess the "ignore-it-and-it-might-just-go-away" method doesn't work after all. sigh.) I had a tooth break in November and had a crown done just before Thanksgiving. So that’s going to be three crowns in the space of 2 ½ months. Aside from the fact that I’ll be paying for my dentist’s new boat (which he was kind enough to remind me that he could only use if we get more snow and fill up the lake), dental work is one of my worst nightmares. And spare me the emails about getting what I deserved – I fully understand that am getting exactly what I deserve. The punishment fits the crime.
Now, for most people, going to the dentist (or the doctor, or flying for that matter) isn’t a big deal. But for me, it’s a pretty full-blown phobia. The kind that can result in panic attacks and difficulty sleeping the night before. I understand (intellectually) that such fears are totally irrational. In my case, I was a child of the 50s and in that era, many of the older dentists – mine included - didn’t use Novocain on children; it was felt that children didn’t have the same pain receptors. Did it ever occur to them that if you have to bring in someone to sit on the child while drilling on a tooth that there’s probably some pain happening? As my dentist has explained to me, patiently and a million times, fear that originates so early in childhood is so deeply rooted that it’s very difficult to eradicate. So, hand me a Xanax and some nitrous oxide and I’ll muscle through it.
Likewise, my fear of doctors is rooted in a childhood incident. I had open heart surgery at the age of 4 and in those days (those carefree 50s again; don’t believe the hype about everything being perfect in the 50s!) parents weren’t allowed to stay in the hospital with children overnight like they are now. Someone asked me recently if I remembered anything from that ordeal. Damn right, I do! I remember being rolled down the hall to the operating room, being confined in a wheelchair for a couple of weeks, and screaming bloody murder when my parents left my room to leave for the night. These kinds of experiences result in deep seated, uncontrollable (and believe me, I have a black belt in therapy) and debilitating fears. In short, a phobia. When you have a phobia, you become a master of avoidance. Hence, the time I’m going to be spending in the company of the nitrous oxide machine.
So. I have phobias and fears. I'll bet you do, too. We all do. Sometimes there are reasons for them, sometimes not. In doing a little research for this post, I came across an amazing Indexed Phobia List. I personally can claim dentophobia, aviophobia or aviatophobia or pteromerhanophobia (take your pick – I kind of like the last one – sounds more impressive), and iatrophobia. There are lots of interesting ones on the list. Who knew that the fear of an erect penis is called medorthophobia and that if you fear wine you’re oenophobic. Please understand that I am not mocking or making light of phobias. I know from first hand experience that they are real and they are incapacitating and can absolutely control your life if you let them.
So, I was wondering. What are you phobic about? I’d love to hear your responses. Maybe you’re helping buy YOUR dentist a boat, too! I’d love to have company in that dark, safe place in my closet where I’m hiding from the doctor!
At least I don't have ophidiophobia!
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Comments
sierrasong, the Xanax and nitrous oxide have saved me a few times at the dentist. I even fell asleep once! I think the dentist might have done that on purpose. :)
About five years ago, I suffered a major toothache and, out of sheer desperation, went back to see a dentist. I've more 0r less kept up with it since then: I've had two root canals, four crowns, and a few fillings replaced. With any luck, I'll be able to keep my teeth, though; so I haven't suffered as much as I might have given my many years of major neglect.
What's even worse is my morbid fear of doctors: I haven't had a check-up in years. Once I no longer needed birth control, I stopped seeing my ob-gyn, who was my primary care physician, or what passed for one. I have such severe white coat hypertension that I can't even go near a doctor's office or hospital without having major panic attacks. I even had to resign from a nonprofit board I was on once they started holding their monthly meetings at the local hospital: just parking in the lot and walking into the hospital for the meeting left me shaking and on edge for hours.
Sometimes I actually find myself wishing that I would get injured or knocked out so that I could be hauled into the hospital totally unaware and have my blood work, etc. done while in an unconscious state, just to get it over with.
Now THAT'S phobic!
I have developed a big fear of going to get a check up. This started a few years ago when my husband was diagnosed with cancer. I can't bring myself to go, it's really, really stupid.
And now for an even stupidier one: I get a panic attack when I have to get my oil changed. I do it, but I drag my feet about it. Again, that might have more to do with fear of what they'll find and of the bill.
They used to be my only phobia, but now, I have Arachnophobia added to that list...I have my reasons. :-)
rated
Two words to tell your dentist whenever you dread it. Nitrous Oxide. Costs a little, but worth it. They can shove nails under your fingernail beds and you won't care!
I am terrified of cats, I have nightmares of cats attacking me.
Using a escalator to travel down.
I did have panic attacks when in airplanes when I was in my 20s. I had never been on a commercial jet until I was 18 and I had no idea what to expect. I feared every dip and tilt and change in the engine sound signaled an imminent crash. I would get so shaky and often start crying. If someone asked I usually told them I was on my way to a funeral. I managed to keep getting on airplanes, though, and eventually got over the intense fear. Not that I like flying now. I just don't totally freak out anymore.
I'm slightly claustrophobic and mildly acrophobic. My wife has a fear of bridges -- is there a "Phobia" name for that?
Dentists don't bother me.
The result of the accident was not a lingering fear of trains (that would be too simple!). Instead, for years I was afraid of crossing bridges, riding buses, taking elevators over the twelfth floor. But the enduring effect of the train crash is a permanent, intractable phobia of flying - something I loved as a child. This fear has ruled my life and curtailed and tainted it in ways too complicated to mention. I truly believe I would be a completely different person had that lumber truck not raced to cross the tracks in 1968.
Also, I'm afraid of heights (acrophobia?) but have no difficulty with airplanes. Proof that the whole thing is irrational.
A few years ago I came across a fear that I will not dive into. I was scheduled for a MRI on my shoulder. I went without concern as it was only a half an hour for the MRI. When they moved me into the tube my shoulders were scraping the side of the machine, the top of the machine was very close to my nostrils. I noticed my breathing became rapid, I tried to bring it under control but couldn’t’. My heart was beating rapidly. I lasted no more than five minutes and opted out. I had discovered a mild case of claustrophobia, enough to know that I could not take any more of this.
I later had the MRI but with the use of a sedative, something that my pride had to swallow to accept.
Now that Boa, nice snake. Somewhere I have a picture of my eldest daughter when she was about 5 with her pet Boa, a small 3 ½ footer around her neck while she was energetically riding her hobby horse. The snake loved the warmth of being wrapped around her and was small enough to not be a problem. My daughter was allergic all animals with fur, she asked for the snake.
Now before anyone thinks I am crazy to allow a Boa to be wrapped around my daughters neck, an even larger snake can easily be unwrapped it were to constrict by a child. Also they only constrict that which they look to eat. They also will not defend themselves if that potential meal (read mouse) attacks and they are not hungry.
MY daughters have no fear of snakes as you might expect
The Pea's only irrational fear is of being murdered.
Thanks for the post :)
I've posted my fear of being trapped in a submersed car on my page.
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=77030
Good luck at the dentist. I'm trying the ignore it thing right now but I will eventually have to drag myself there.
Natalie - I'm with you on flying and, to some degree (more as I get older) heights!
Emma - better living through chemistry
Mary Joan - I have a small mouth, too. My dentist always has to remark on it...
Montanarose - I think you and I were twins separated at birth. I share the doctor fear AND, I've also had fantasies about having a general and getting all the checkups and such while I was unconscious. Seriously messed up, I am.
T&D - I can understand (and share) your fear of checkups. I'm afraid of what they might find...
Julie - The downhill thing - it's especially pronounced on a snowy road. Going up is usually no problem. Coming down, I drive like a snail.
Greg - sorry about the snake picture! And yes. I'm a huge fan of nitrous.
Moana - I'm always afraid that I'll miss the first step on the down escalator and hesitate forever...makes the people behind me so happy!
1_irritated - I wrote on your blog. I don't know how I missed your earlier posts. We too, are twins.
Susan - I have also been known to cry on planes. And leave nail marks on the seat arms. It's humiliating.
Jane - Driving is also getting harder as I get older
Procopius - fear of bridges is...Gephyrophobia
Ann24 - what a terrible accident. I can see why you're afraid. Fears seem to generalize after something like that. I think it boils down to the mother of all fears, the fear of death/dying: thanatophobia.
Faith - I understand. I don't fear my dentist per se, I fear the possible pain, I think.
Wakingupslowly - sorry about the snake picture!
buckeyedoc - do you think you could go to the dentist in my stead?? Oh - there will be drilling involved.
Folkmuse - I think you're like lots of other people who don't understand an extreme fear until they experience one. Then it's time for a sedative! I can't do an MRI without one, either! Don't worry about the pride thing. Cut yourself some slack. (I had a tough time with this too; I'm still ashamed of being so scared.)
Peanut/Pea - fear of murder is pretty understandable!
Odette - do you have Xanax on hand for the flight? You're like me. Several days away and you're obsessing already. Can I ever identify with that...
Sarah - dark IS scary sometimes!
Melinda - I'm going to read your submersed car post. If I can get up the courage!
Thanks to all of you for your comments - you've made me feel less alone. And that's a good thing. Now, who among you is free to come hold my hand on the 19th and 21st when I have to get all this drilling done?
Hopefully they are liberal with the gas.
Not sure what caused it really, although I did have a bad accident when I was younger that I try not to think about too often. I only hate the dentist and doctor when "puppies" are involved. People always assume it's the needle- it's not. Give me shots in my arm, shoulder, butt, whatever. Just don't go near a vein. I will pass out.
Heights. Or more accurately, falling from same. I don't get upset if I'm inside while up on the eleventy-first floor. I'd have to hurl myself out a window in order to fall. But I'm in no hurry to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building and then go outside and look at the view. I still think of those people in the WTC who jumped out the window on 9/11 and shiver. What courage it must have taken for them to let themselves fall. I can understand why they jumped, as my next big fear is of being burned alive. I can't think of a worse way to go than that.
Spiders. I know, MOST species of spiders are very benign and they definitely have their place in the ecosystem. I don't deliberately go around with an intent to harm them. If they're outside, I leave them strictly alone. But I can't STAND them inside my apartment. I can't go to sleep if I know there's a spider in my room somewhere.
Snakes...well I don't fear them, as I rarely see them except behind glass.
Driving up steep hills in a manual transmission car especially when there's a stop light at the top of the hill. (This explains why I don't go to San Francisco, much!)
Suicide bombers.
Nuclear war.
That about covers the biggies.
Actually, I am afraid of the day when I won't be a teacher anymore. I once took a real estate class and freaked out about taking the state exam--not because I don't do well on exams but because if I passed, I might leave teaching--and that's terrifying for me.
Right -- when I feel better, I'll be more afraid of a spider than being tortured by spiders. Some people never get the 'big picture'.
You ever see Dustin Hoffman in '_Running Man_'? Which are you more afraid of -- a dentist, or THAT dentist? Wasn't that also where they thought he'd swallowed a bag of Diamonds? Now, unless my memory fails me, there are three ways to get it out for the first hour or so, and then only two --- but if you are in a hurry, there is only one, and it does NOT require anesthetics. I happen to know from personal experience that a piercing abdominal wound which has not nicked or ruptured vital organs had the marine quite alive and well, on IV's, three and a half days later until we could clear a 'safe' LZ. The same might be true of you if all they were looking for was a plastic bag -- who would you rather do the work -- a trained surgeon or Doctor K-Bar who constant forgets to close.
So, I guess I was wrong -- Torture is not to be afraid of -- a shrink told me so. So it MUST be a phobia -- since a '-phobia' is an unreasonable fear - most people must look forward to it.
OHHHHHHHHH! You are a woman and I'm but a mere guy -- I don't believe I've ever looked forward to trying to poop a regulation foot-ball! -- and most women I know find it a very spiritual release! And many would like to do it a couple of times or more in their life! -- Hot Damn! -- my doc WAS right! -- well Dog Gone! Who'da thunk!
They are VERY expensive -- take a fair amount of training, and now-a-days you don't even smell the burt tooth and tissue because the super high volume fan was designed by computer -- and they can now spray enough water that your tooth doesn't explode from the heat -- or melt things too fast -- and the great thing is that it cauterizes as it blows the living crap out of all the bad-guy cells that get in the way! -- bad cell wall -- just like Jericho attached to a humongous shop vac -- if it's weak and about to die or is rotten and full of water that boils up and ruptures all around it -- you just suck it up into a shop vac under the floor boards and once a week a cabana boy comes around and cleans out the tank --- just like with RV's --
But wow -- if you think a drill is expensive -- I don't think you want to even think about a LASER or MASER working on a tooth -- several years ago my dentist told me that for her to buy a machine and be trained would cost her about half a million, but she could charge more and see more pt's per hour!
MY DENTIST is Vietnamese (generation N-G)and he uses hand files except to open up the very first hole -- "I can feel the decay better with a file- and I don't destroy the tooth by using a drill -- a drill will cause the tooth to heat up and micro fractures occur and pretty soon you don't need to grow your practice beyond a simple attrition. So far ALL the work he's done has been to repair work that a drill in the hands of a very good dentist did -- and that's when he told me the secret that is never told -- drills are for production line work - BUT you pay a price, .... well YOU pay a price. No heat, no water splashing, no whirrrrrrrr of a drill, and no drill bits that go dull, but you'll use to the very last possible moment before they break -- he uses water to wash out the decay from what he's chiped out using the drill -- all dead meterial to start, and a small amount of compressed air to dry out the inside before he packs it. How long will it be until he has to replace fillings like he's doing with my old dentists fillings now? Well, it just depends on a lot of things, but because when you hand-file you have a greater surface area for the amalgams to hold, and you can layer them in so many different configurations -- he might never have to re-do a filling. And I know that with my former dentist who left holes as large as moon craters -- he sometimes will lay one kind of amalgam and riddle it with holes and corridors, and after he's worked on another tooth, he will go back and lay harder amalgams throughout it - so that one anchors the other.
I too went to a dentist who felt tht children didn't feel pain the way adults did, so why waste any kind of '-caine' ---- woah! --- just a flash thought -- did they ever use CO-caine in a dentists office? Just a quick thought -- but I went thorugh 4th grade before the old dentist retired and we got one who started us on novocaine -- but I have little residual fear -- and now with Peter -- wow -- if I were a woman or gay, I'd swoon over him -- and unless i'm gay far beyond and so deep that even my knowledge that we are all bisexual at a basic level -- **I** !!!!!!! - DO-!!!!!!!!!!!! SWOON over him he's so gentle and good looking. And because he does things by hand -- the old fashioned way -- he doesn't need a dental assistant.
Of course I'm the one who loves to look at my own colonoscopy and have the doc take me in and out and explain really cool stuff to me -- so maybe my assessment is a bit off, but I don't think so, it's two different things -- and when he worst you hear is the conducted sound of his picking -- and he's thinking of getting disposable ear-buds to over power the intraostio (I made that word up, but I think it's real) trasmitted sound so you don't even hear him scraping the decay off the inside of your tooth -- and files sure are cheaper than drills -- and drills sure are cheaper than LASERs or MASERs.
So there ARE alternitives, and for mass production and a greater income, the LASER is your option, but you could outfit an office and pay an entire staff for what the machine costs you -- and don't forget to put in the training -- and OMG -- do NOT but your tongue into the plane of the LASER -- ouch! - no blood, but a world of hurt!
I had a student who had a 'split tongue' as in a snake -- each with it's own spike and stud in it: greater pleasure for my boyfriend she said. Quick! hand me the waste paper basket I said.