The day I thought would never come, where I would have to face one of my major phobias while writing an article for you fine readers, is here.
We will get to that later after my thoughts find a cohesive flow. Or maybe it could be I'm procrastinating because I'm already breaking out in hives as I type.
Phobias. Maybe it's presumptuous to say we all have one. But when you consider all the fears the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has identified, it can force you really examine yourself and revisit something so fearful, it's been buried in your head somewhere.
Fear of small spaces, spiders, heights, and even clowns. There's a reason why Pennywise was the main antagonist in Stephen King's It. The morbid clown is purely the stuff of nightmares.
Curious to hear about the thing that keeps people up at night, Redditor Green_Own asked:
"What's a weird phobia you have?"
The ASA may not have official names for these paranoia-inducing scenarios, but the following examples make these Redditors tremble.
Tremors And Scalding Liquids
"An earthquake happening while i'm deepfrying or in the middle of draining boiling hot pasta water."
Increase Of Intensity
"I get anxious when a sound get progressively louder, or beeping gets progressively faster, I don't know why."
Boo To The Residue
"Maybe not overly weird, but i get unnatural anxiety if i have anything sticky on my skin, jelly, jam, cola, that kinda stuff. I hate it. I have to get it off instantly."
Safety Measure
"Maybe not a phobia just a little paranoia, I always cover my camera with my finger when I scroll on my phone when using the bathroom, I'm deathly afraid I will accidentally FaceTime somebody."
There is the G-spot and then there is also the nope-spot.
Absolutely no touchy, 'cause these Redditors don't likey.
Portal To My World
"Having my belly button touched. Some part of me is sure you can just push through to my insides right there."
"I can't let my belly button get touched. It sends a physical like 'chill' type of feeling through my whole body. Idk what it is, if I have a whole bunch of nerves there for some reason, but I can't touch it or let anything touch it."
Literal Achilles' Heel
"Having my Achilles' tendon touched by anything."
"I freak out around shopping carts."
These physical or aural environments make some people want to retreat under the bed sheets.
Not So Grate
"Sidewalk grates. like these f'kers. always have an irrational fear that they'll collapse beneath me or whatever."
The Big Bang
"I hate balloons popping."
"I get extreme anxiety when little kids start squeezing them. It's not the volume of the noise, it's the unpredictability."
Labyrinthine
"I'm scared of being in a maze."
"Not sure if this will help but you can get out of any maze by putting a hand (left or right) on the wall/hedge closest to that hand and continuing to walk while maintaining contact with your hand, until you are out. It isn't efficient, but it is effective."
This brings us to my phobia. It's called submechanophobia.
Basically, it's a fear of a man-made object – like a giant building, statue, or shipwreck – that is either partially or entirely submerged in a large body of water.
In Long Beach, California, the retired British ocean liner – the RMS Queen Mary – was an operational hotel and museum which featured a dark room overlooking one of the ship's propellers submerged in a tank eerily lit from below. Guests traversed a catwalk around the perimeter above the tank to marvel at the huge mechanical device.
As a six-year-old seeing it for the first time, I remember being paralyzed while inside the room with my parents. I was genuinely terrified and never understood why.
Years later, I revisited it. I'm still intrigued by it – yet I absolutely remain fearful of it.
After recently discovering the term for my phobia, I felt validated for my genuine fear.
It was strangely reassuring but it will forever give me anxiety just thinking about it.
Okay. We're done here.
Redditor Jeffery_DahmerTV wanted to discuss the ideas that sound too crazy that they have to be true, so they asked:
"What is the most believable conspiracy Theory?"
In this day and age of alternative facts, it all seems like lies and truth.
Enlighten me.
Infection
Sick Computer Virus GIF by Achievement HunterGiphy"That computer viruses are made by antivirus companies to test their antivirus software."
astarisaslave
"Parents bought a new computer recently, the McAfee stuff was in there pretty deep to remove. The staff bogged it down, way faster afterward."
lt12765
War
"We are being goaded into waging culture wars that don't matter to keep us from waging class wars."
virgilreality
"Is this a conspiracy theory though? It would be if you assume it was engineered from the start, but this would also make it very unbelievable. But that existing conflicts had been fueled and taken advantage of by people in the position to for millennia is well evident I'd say."
Leseleff
Double Down
"Mattress Firm is a front for laundering money. There is no other reason for there to be so many. No one is ever even in there."
Free_Bingo
"Double down on this one! I have a Mattress Firm next to my job and I have never seen anyone in there ever. It’s been six years!"
cbcmama781
"I’m not convinced of this. Our local Mattress Firm is clearly baking $1k+ into their margins and then aggressively selling credit-based financing. Selling two or three a month probably covers everything."
Agloe_Dreams
Weather Issues
Climate Change Earth GIFGiphy"Those climate protestors that glue themselves to the road are hired by oil giants to make climate activists look stupid."
milanvlaman
"I feel this way about a lot of 'extremist' groups on both sides, that there are plants from the other side doing really stupid stuff just to discredit the idea."
Herr_Poopypants
The climate is changing. We have to come together. How is that a conspiracy?
That's All
Meryl Streep Pursed Lips GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"That the fashion industry purposefully doesn’t put pockets in women’s clothing so they have to carry purses."
diceunodixon
Financial Clean Up
"That the only reason that the US government doesn’t do anything with student debt loans is because then people would stop signing up for the army."
Brotastic29
"That and healthcare.
"When you join up you get healthcare fully covered for you and your family, and you can get a full college education.
If the government started providing either of those for civilians, no one would need to join the military anymore."
redF5veStandingBy
"I think so too. I know and agree with what that dude was saying but when I see or hear people use 'Army' as a way to generalize the military, it usually means that what they said is something they’re just repeating what they heard."
chefboiortiz
The Commission
"There's definitely more to JFK's assassination than the Warren commission made it out to be. Whether or not LHO was the sole killer, I find it fishy that the CIA was so desperate to hide information from the public."
Bitter-Record-3831
"There is a very well-done documentary that concludes it was an accidental discharge from a Secret Service agent in one of the cars ahead of him."
Babstana
"CIA probably considered the assassination a declaration of war against Russia. They’re probably covering up that they were about to start WW3 over it."
tangcameo
Dairy Pounds
"The Great cheese conspiracy. Each year the US government buys more and more milk to make more and more cheese. The US government is sitting on something like 2 billion pounds of cheese. Just to artificially inflate milk prices."
worfhill
"Not even a conspiracy, just an example of the government controlling the economy in favor of dairy farmers."
Glass_Pies
"I watched a documentary about this. It's actually true."
PreferredSex_Yes
They're Listening
government agent GIF by South Park Giphy"That the CIA posts questions like this on Reddit to measure their past and current work, brainstorm for future projects."
ZRX1200R
Ominous
"I have a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories. I believe the governments and 'leaders' of the world are actually rather incompetent, so much so, that they require the illusion of them being an ominous all-powerful all-seeing entity in order to remain in power."
"And to accomplish this they allow conspiracy theories like the Illuminati and etc to spread around to add a bit of urban myth to how 'powerful' they are."
"It's probably all a bunch of garbage Europe can barely communicate within itself you expect there to be some secret global order??? Oh, stop it haha."
SparkNoJoyThrw01
Sifting through what could and could not be true, could take forever.
Life is full of mystery.
"What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever heard teacher say in class?"
And Anyone With Such Closed Minded Views Shouldn't Be Teaching...
"Had the Head of the Department in college claim in class that anyone who actually needs accommodations for mental health issues should not be in college to begin with."
"This was while we were discussing 'Death of a Salesman' and the discussion had veered over to unhealthy pressure and social standards for success."- RavensQueen502
Wait what?!
"My very well-respected Biology teacher in college spent almost an entire lecture telling us that Jamie Lee Curtis was a hermaphrodite."
"It seemed oddly personal to him."- Urbane_Cowboy
Sad On So Many Levels
"Not heard but my freshmen year high school teacher once pulled a bottle of Jack out of his desk and took a shot during class."
"He was dying so towards the end I think he just stopped caring."- Mangothefello
Can't Take The Heat, Then Stay Out Of The Classroom...
"High school science teacher told my class that a kilometre was longer than a mile."
"Refused to budge when refuted and kicked out several students for doing so."- SupersonicDebris13
"5th grade teacher: 'Mount Whitney in California is the tallest mountain in the world'."
"5th grade me blurts out: 'No it isn't, Mount Everest is."
"Whitney is not even the tallest mountain in the USA, which is Mount McKinley in Alaska'."
"I got in trouble for 'contradicting the teacher'."- gtmattz
get out GIFGiphyIt's Not Just Students Who Are Bullies...
"I had a teacher ridicule a fat kid about his lunch choices in front of the whole class."
"He ran out crying as she was making fat guy blimp gestures and telling him he was going to be huge as an adult."- SnooOwls5859
Some Dramatic License It Seems...
"I had a literature teacher who told the class that he didn't believe in dinosaurs, because the universe is only a couple thousand years old."
"The bones were put there by Satan."
"Thank f*ck he wasn't a science or history teacher."- AllBadAnswers
of montreal dancing GIF by Polyvinyl RecordsGiphyEveryone Deserves Nice Acomodations...
"My English teacher told us that he genuinely believes that the Rothchilds own a hotel for aliens in the Bermuda triangle."- TroyLear77
Well, Then...
"We had this kid in our 6th-grade class."
"Very dark skinned kid from Africa."
"His name was Tajak."
"Every now and then when we'd line up to go to another class or lunch and the lights would go out some of his friends would go 'where Tajak at?'"
"Anyway one day we had a sub and we we're lining up for lunch, the lights went out and there went the 'where Tajak at?' and the SUBSTITUTE TEACHER who was also black went 'Boy you darker than night'."
"6th grade was f*cking wild."- 11221mikew
Sad Premonitions
"Psych teacher in high school told us that 1 in 10 of the people were friends with in high school would be dead within 5 years of graduating."
"At the time I thought it was hyperbole, but it turns out he was being conservative."
"3 of the people in my high school friend group were dead by the time I was 22."- Reddit
Do They Really Need A Reason?
"'Now girls, don't you let them boys touch your breasts'."
"'It'll give you cancer'."- jondru
Maybe Should Have Checked With The Geography Teacher?
"A teacher in Elementary school claimed during history class that the Colosseum was in Greece, as an Italian kid I was very confused, this was in Mexico."- Spascucci
So Much For Instilling Hope...
"Didn't hear this personally, but read in a book about a guy who recalled his teacher skipping chapters in a textbook and saying 'You will not need to know this when you are down in the mines'."- futanari_kaisa
The mark of a good teacher is that students will take everything they hear from them with them for the rest of their lives.
Though, the less-than-wonderful teachers may also say things their students will never forget.