Top Five Weirdest Phobias

Everyone is scared of something. Being afraid is one of our many human emotions that we experience all the time. Of course, being scared is completely different from having a phobia. According to dictionary.com, a phobia is a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or a situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it. You may have heard some of the common phobias such as Acrophobia (fear of heights), Brontophobia (fear of thunder and lightning), or even Arachnophobia (fear of spiders). For every common phobia however, there are some that most may find funny and for others, just plain weird. Here are the top five weirdest phobias:

                                                                                                                   

5. Anuptaphobia (Fear of staying single)

Symptoms include excessive sweating, dry mouth, incapacity to speak or think clearly and nausea. People who suffer from this phobia tend to choose partners without thinking and quickly get married without seeing the consequences. For someone with Anuptaphobia, finding the ideal partner is more important than other things in life and to remain single is very scary for them. Treatment for Anuptaphobia includes talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and desensitization.

4. Omphalophobia (Fear of belly buttons)

Not a lot of information is known about this phobia since it’s rare. People who suffer from Omphalophobia get really upset when anyone tries to touch their belly. They even get disturbed when seeing someone else touching their belly button as well. There are no treatments for this phobia.

3. Nudophobia (Fear of nudity)

Symptoms include rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, trembling, dry mouth, and anxiety. People who suffer from this phobia know their fear is irrational but still get anxiety nonetheless. They worry about seeing people naked or being seen naked as well. This could be due to them thinking that their bodies are inferior to others or that their nakedness leaves their bodies out in the open and not protected. Treatment for this phobia includes behavior therapy, anti anxiety medication, psychotherapy cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy.

2. Cacophobia (Fear of ugliness)

Symptoms include dry mouth, dizziness, heighten senses, and breathlessness. With Cacophobia, people who suffer from this are scared of ugly people or situations. It could be that this person views themselves as ugly due to being born disfigured or may have suffered from some sort of trauma which immediately associates with ugliness. Or maybe this person could be living in a run down, poor neighborhood.

1. Venustraphobia (Fear of beautiful women)

Some guys feel insecure or have some sort of intense fear when a beautiful woman is around them. This can lead to poor social performance which will deepen the phobia even more. Venustraphobia is the result from having bad experiences with women. If a person ends up having a lot of failures when dealing with beautiful women they end up fearing to approach them.

*article was published on the November 2010 issue of The Scribe

*article was featured on dogtay.tumblr.com on September 2010