A phobia is when you feel an extreme fear regarding an object, situation, place or certain type of people. Breathlessness, dizziness, nausea and fear of dying are few of the common signs that you get when you deal with a phobia. You tend to respond differently than others around you to the particular subject and start imagining things with high level of anxiety. There are a total of 4736 phobias altogether. And how many of that do you think you are aware of? Brace yourselves, because we are about to reveal to you 10 phobias that are truly insane and unbelievable.

1. Ergasiophobia

This is the fear of work. It causes psychological disability and dysfunction, making the affected people think they’re unable to work like a normal human being. These individuals are also suspected to suffer from a mental health problem like chronic depression or Attention Deficit Disorder.

2. Macrophobia

The fear of long waits. This can be be anything from waiting for someone over the phone to waiting for someone at a coffee table, from waiting to get your movie tickets to waiting in a queue at the shopping mall. This often leads to frustration and gets converted into phobias.

3. Triskaidekaphobia

This is a superstition-associated phobia. Sufferers become really superstitious about the 13th day of any month that occurs on a Friday. The English, Portuguese, German, Polish, and Bulgarian believe that this day brings unending bad luck. Hence, they avoid using or handling anything that is related to the number.

4. Neophobia

The fear of anything new. This phobia is also known as Cainotophobia or Cainophobia. In the initial stage, this fear is in the form of unwillingness to accept new things in new ways. This initial stage is notably visible in children or elderly people.

5. Pteronophobia

Ptenorophobia is a fear of being tickled by feathers. Sufferers may start showing signs of breathlessness after seeing a feather, even if it is far from them. It normally occurs in children aged below than 11.

6. Papyrophobia

This is the fear of paper. The paper can be a plain sheet or crumbled sheet i.e. paper in any form. The signs of this phobia are inflexibility, sweating, fastening of heart beat, screaming, etc, when the individual sees a paper.

7. Alliumphobia

This is an extraordinary fear of garlic. Affected individuals may get panic attacks and sever anxiety when they smell or taste garlic. They also avoid social interactions and often feel scared of what people think about them.

8. Melophobia

It is the fear of music. It is also referred as hatred towards music. It can be hereditary. The signs of melophobia are panic, short of breathe, irregular breathing, nausea, sweating,etc.

9. Omphalophobia

It is the fear of belly buttons, either of your own or others’. These people tend to think that their umbilical cord is still being linked to the navel and internal organs. And little did we know that our celebrity singer, Jenny Frost is one of the sufferers of Omphalophobia.

10. Agyrophobia

The fear of cross of crossing the road, streets or highways. This is the fear of getting injured while crossing the roads, or fear of being hit by vehicles despite the clear road. It also includes the fear of being helpless when being attacked on the street. The signs are anxiety, shortness of breathe, sweating, etc.

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11. Ombrophobia

Fear of rain. How bizarre is that? Ombrophobiacs are people who fear of getting wet in the rain thinking they might fall ill and die. They also can’t sleep when it rains. This condition is linked to chronic depression.

12. Sopectrophobia

The fear of mirrors. Also known as Catoptrophobia. The superstitions of being watched through the mirror also ends up in this phobia. These people sometimes tend to think that it’s the gateway to another world.

13. Anuptaphobia

It is the fear of being single or getting married to a wrong person. This often starts in teenage, and may get stronger as you grow into an adult. The factors behind this are poor self image, child abuse, denial of parents and being bullied. They fear rejection more than ever imaginable.

14. Androphobia

The abnormal fear of men. ‘Andros’ means men and ‘phobia’ means fear. This phobia is very different from misandry. Symptons are avoiding men to an extent that they don’t form any sort of bonding with them. This might be associated to their past experience with men, that is not so favorable.

15. Venustraphobia

Venustraphobia is actually the fear of beautiful women. It is believed that past experience with women is one of the major causes of this. Other than that, low self-esteem and poor social performance with ladies may also cause this. These individuals tend to feel exaggerated level of anxiety when are surrounded by beautiful women.

16. Obesophobia

This is the fear of gaining weight. This is also known as pocrescophobia. This is considered to be a very rare disease. It is the obsession of losing weight to extreme extent. This might be due the ongoing trend of being thin. They feel insecure about their weight even despite of all the weight loss. It is also associated with Anorexia Nervosa.

17. Consecotaleophobia

The fear of chopsticks. People who are affected with this phobia panic when they see a chopstick. They also avoid going to any place or events that are Chinese so they don’t have to see or use chopsticks.

18. Pneumatiphobia

The fear of spirits. It is very visible in children. This appears to vanish with age and in some cases they persist and result in a phobia. People who are affected with pneumatiphobia try to do everything possible to ensure they don’t come face-to-face with spirits. They always avoid dark rooms, going alone outside at night or even watching horror movies.

19. Liticaphobia

This is actually the psychological fear of lawsuits. Liticaphobiacs are very scared of being sued because of its consequences. These people are willing to do anything to make sure they don’t do anything unjust.

20. Sexophobia

The fear of the opposite sex. This is also known as heterophobia. This could be brought by some bad experience in childhood or recent times. Bad experience includes bullying, eve teasing or some sexual assault. For men, it can be due to his breakup with his girlfriend or his mother who had abandoned him in childhood. Whereas in females, it may be due to some sexual assault in past.

If there is any other weird and interesting phobias that you know, we warmly welcome you to share them with HNBT!