I wonder if so many people are afraid of cotton balls because of bad experiences as a kid getting shots. Doctors always use a lot of cotton balls, and maybe that starts the phobia.

I have a weird one, and I’ve never met anyone else who has this phobia. I am deathly afraid of insect wings. I don’t know what it is about them, they just look so creepy. Maybe it’s their thinness and transparency, so sometimes you can barely see them. I also am really, really creeped out by the networks of veins in them. Dragonflies are the worst because of how huge their wings are and the intricacy of the vein patterns in the wings. I cannot touch any winged insect and if I see a dragonfly I run like a bat out of hell. But even worse for me is seeing detached wings, and probably the worst experience I ever had was when we had an infestation of termites. Thousands of them came out of the walls and started dropping their nasty wings all over the floor. I was alone, and bawled as I frantically tried to vacuum them off the floor. Then I went outside, still crying and refused to go back inside until the exterminators came. It was embarrassing!

I don’t like butterflies either. The nasty powder on their wings. Shudder.

I’m also creeped out by really deep swimming pools (like over 10 feet) or extremely deep natural water where you can see the bottom.

And elevators. I hate them. I will not ride one alone. I’ll take the stairs, thank you, even if it’s a skyscraper.

There are celebrities with strange fears – and I stumbled on a complementary one http://www.fearofstuff.com/featured/10-famous-people-who-have-phobias/ that shows celebrity success stories despite their phobias.

Zombies! Mostly in movies and when somebody walks and moans like Zombie I panic!

Spit and snot…I don’t know where it comes from and it isn’t even about the germs…I think it is more about how it looks and feels…I don’t mind my own, but if I see boogers or get drool on me (I work in a setting where this happens frequently) I gag and start shaking and hyperventilating! I have to wash my hands if I even think that I got some on me. A Sociology professor of mine tried to make a point about socialization and norms and had somebody spit in a plastic spoon and brought it around the room…I had tears in my eyes and was shaking so bad that she excused me from class until that particular exercise was done. I went and washed my hands!

I also shake and hyperventilate when I have to talk on the phone, particularly when I have to make a call to somebody I don’t know…I never order pizza! I avoided going through drive-throughs for a majority of my adult life because I don’t like talking to somebody I can’t see…I would just go in and order my food to go. I’m getting a little better with this.

I am deathly afraid of deep water that I can’t see through. I think it comes from my childhood fascination with the Titanic (Long before the movie came out.) I watched any documentary and looked at all pictures I could find…It is about 2 miles underwater and the fact that it is so pitch black that far down scared me and I think spurred this fear of deep water.

I absolutely hate sharks, and don’t go into water where I can’t see the bottom. I’m even freaked out to go in the pool in the deep end alone sometimes, because to me the shadows start to look like big freaky shark-things. O_o

I also hate ants. Not any other bugs, even the huge ones that look like they had a run-in with a lab. Just ants…crawling…picking up little bits of food… *shudder*