If my secret identity is ever uncovered and I'm held for interrogation by the bad guy's goons all they would have to do is even threaten to unwrap a pack of cotton wool and I'll tell them everything I know.

I never really minded the sound of fingernails down a blackboard at school. ('m not saying that I enjoyed it, just that it didn't reduce me to the cringing, ear clasping wrecks I would see around me.)The reaction of my classmates to the old blackboard torture is what the feel of cotton wool does to me.

The squeak ... the squeak ....

But something that looks solid from afar, but when you get near is made up of hundreds of tiny identical components.

I don't know why, but it makes my skin crawl. Even thinking about it makes me shiver. Brrrr.

makes me want to do a "Van Gogh double" and chop off my own ears. Most people probably think of this as a very comforting sound, but not to me it isn't. I will leave a room to avoid it.

Milk from a bottle or carton, just can't do it... although I will share any other form of drink without any over elaborate wiping of the bottle neck.

Cigarettes (when I smoked), if anyone asked for a drag I would give it to them but never wanted it back... but I had no problem sharing a doob.

Clowns.
Dead fish.
Maggots.

If anyone wants to re-enact my worst nightmares*, just put the above together in any combination you want.

*and I sincerely hope you don't.

you can use it against me. It's more available than Kryptonite but equally devastating.
I made the mistake of telling the FPO and she added this to her armoury.

I shall keep it to myself.

*gah* just thought of it. Curse you Brookster.

And specifically man-made ones. Tall buildings, the London Eye, the Eiffel Tower, the CN Tower. All of the above are cordially invited to fuck of and die.

I'm fine with mountains, cliffs and flying.

Oh, and I don't like balloons, but only because I don't like sudden loud noises and a balloon is really just a sudden loud noise waiting to happen.

do you want me to lie on the couch? You wouldn't want to be in my head

The bottom bit of an apple-core, the stuff that grows out of a potato if it's been in the cupboard too long, the bit on most root veg where it joined the root. I won't touch it. Don't ask me why, I don't have an answer!

A quote to remember: "the only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."

.. and not the couple next door. Balloons, fireworks. Makes me leap out of my skin, heart goes like a hammer, and frenetically look around with the expectation of being attacked. Reckon I must have got shot in a previous lifetime. Most probably the trenches in the 1st World War.

urrrghh!

Dams, wiers, locks, that sort of thing. And walking over bridges at night. Don't like it. I have absolutely no idea why but it sparks off something very deep inside me.

Well, I'm agoraphobic. Not housebound, but quite restricted. The degree of restriction ebbs and flows, depending on how stressed out or down I am.

At my best I once travelled to North America (and back) by plane, and I'm not still not sure how I managed it, but it was ok. At my worst I will take detours to avoid busy roads and bridges in my area.

I'm also afraid of heights, but that's a bit more of a normal phobia, and therefore slightly less embarrassing. Only my wife and best friend know the extent of my problems - I can talk about it here though because nobody knows me.

I know no one likes it, but I'm petrified of it. My body goes into some kind of lockdown and will attempt to prevent me throwing up no matter how much I need to. This caused me untold misery when I had salmonella several years back. I'd say the grand total of chucking up in my life is still in single figures; maybe teens.

I read a Charlie Brooker article where he revealed he suffers from the same thing. Apparently it's called emetophobia.

Particularly in formalised work situations. Commonly known as 'the creeping death' as a meeting room full of people are sometimes obliged give their name and role.

I used to have a monumental stammer as a child and through my teens. It's still part of me now though only ever shows up if I'm particularly over-stressed or very very tired.

I state it as an irrational fear because 99% of the time when it is my turn to chirp up I'm as fluent and articulate as all get out. It's the residue of similar situations I put myself through when growing up that still make my heart pound in anticipation. All that gurning prior to pushing a response out. And during and after the range of looks you had to put up with; from pity to unabashed amusement.

Oh dear. So I still hate having to say who I am. But I can, so don't worry!

*carries home made name badge all the same just in case*

... or anything with a similar pattern. Not me, but rather, the wife. This might be akin to Five Centres 'identical components' phobia above.

Particularly half-hearted ones such as when a golfer putts out for a bogey.

Crowds of the 'Come on Tim' variety, particularly at Wimbledon.

Of the finger and toe variety, removed - possibly even torn - from the offending digit and then left lying around. It. Makes. Me. Freak. Out.

Only ever done it a couple of times but I was convinced that I was going to fall over and get a finger lopped off by a passing blade.

We went camping at the weekend. It's a great way to remind yourself why we have nice warm houses with floors and roofs and food that's cooked all the way through and why you don't live with your friends.

I slept very well for the twenty minutes between the tent next door finishing their shouting lessons and the owl going off like an organic car alarm about four feet above my head. None of your romantic t'wit t'woo nonsense, this one just went WOOOOOOOOOOO! like a sarcastic klaxon. My heart tried to burst out of my chest and run off into the bushes. The nocturnal bastard did it several more times but here's the thing... you never knew when it would happen, just that it would. I lay in a sweat dreading the next one with my ears on red alert. So that's phobia number one: noises that haven't happened yet.

In the morning I went to the toilet block and found there was a queue outside the two cubicles. By the time I got into one there was a mixed sex line of about six outside and a family happily washing up their breakfast bowls beyond the adjoining wall. I suffered a complete failure of the bomb bay doors. The negotiations between my brain and my alimentary canal would have rivalled those over Suez, but nothing was going to emerge. I could hear the crowd breathing outside. I started to panic that I'd been in there too long. What's an acceptable tenure? Three minutes? Ten?

I gave up and prepared to leave and remembered just in time to fake flush. It's probably not an irrational phobia if humiliations like this actually happen, but public defecation is definitely one of mine . I blame the owl.

If I can see through them to the water below. Can't walk at the side of a bridge either, so can never lean over and look into the water.

Don't have to be high above the water either, 6 inches above would still have the same effect. It's not the height at all, I love being at the top of tall buildings, on planes. And on tall buildings I can look out over the edge of a balcony or roof without worry. It's just bridges and piers over water.

I don't like having to use the only spare urinal. Proximity issues I suppose. But I hate it on the very rare occasion that I use public loos for a sit down pit stop. Being colour blind, its not that easy to see if the tiny bit of red or green signifying whether the booth door is locked or not is red or green. Meaning I wander along surreptitiously pushing the doors, one by one, like George Michael on a night out. The worst part is finding one of those people who think its perfectly acceptable to use a booth without locking the door.

And other peoples poo smell is awful. I really don't understand why mine smells ok and other peoples is plain disgusting. But it is.

It's lucky I'm at home.

.

would have her teeth drilled and filled without anas..aneas..annae..painkillers, but had to be dragged kicking and screaming to have her hair cut. And my current boss is reduced to shivering snivelling by...hedgehogs. Fear of flying, or heights or deep water, rational. Hedgehogs and haircuts? Highly irrational. Oh, and Leedsboy? You're wrong. Me, summer zephyrs across an alpine meadow, the rest of you.....

People who eat with their mouth open, or make a lot of noise make me want to hurl. I've had to ask to move table when in a restaurant more than once because of this. Slurping during drinking has almost the same effect, as does munching ice cubes. I have to leave the room.

I won't wear them.
If you're wearing them - don't touch me.

JUST DON'T!

Other peoples fingers in my ears.
And yes, evrey woman in my life ever has insisted on doing the latter.

who is scared of cheese.
Does not matter whether it's brie, cheddar, dairylea triangles or whatever, he just hates the touch sight and esp the smell. If anyone takes out from their shopping bags a nice piece of camembert he will leave the room, but quickly.
Now that's an odd one!

doesn't sound very irrational, but wait, there's more.
I don´t mind onions finely chopped up and put in a dish, I use them myself when cooking. Or fried onions are not too bad. But it´s the translucent sliver of a cooked onion that will send shivers down my spine and if I come across one in something I´m eating I will retch

An alien life form, they are not meant to be eaten - they still seem to be alive even after cooking.

I have a phobia of my bank statements and can't bring myself to open them, obvious as to both causes and consequences. But an even more powerful phobia of spiders (I'm a traditionalist at heart). And just this week, the double whammy - I was in the bank and their bloody TV screen in front of the queue was showing some nature programme which suddenly switched from hummingbirds to a full-screen bird-eating spider. Can't get it out of my head now.

Are they really that evil that they can instinctively tell how to torture us just that little bit more?

If one is in the same room, I have to either kill it or leave.

I hate the claustrophobic feeling of all those people and I have to run and escape at any cost not caring who gets hurt

Luckily I rarely go to gigs.

No, hang on.

Well its worth all teh terror and sweating for me.

Yes I am mental

f*cking freak me out.I have to chant in my head to block out thoughts of them.

Spunges with big holes repulse me.They remind me (I think) of skin decaying

Snot makes me want to run.

And .... dry paper in my mouth.

So that's me then!

I met a woman once who hated, absolutely hated, the colour brown - to the point of phobia.

About 10 years later, I met another woman who told me that she always makes an effort to wear brown because she "feels sorry for it".

This information was given voluntarily, by the way. I didn't ask them, "what do you think of the colour brown?".

Are you lot auditioning for 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time'?

I know it's common, but it is irrational.

I always feel better after a dentist visit. I can't remember it ever really hurting. I am always surprised at how little, if any, pain I experience.

Yet...7 years have passed since I last went to one. And I only did that because I had toothache.

The expense does put me off - but in the main, it's the unique smell of a dentists' surgery, the chair, the sucking plastic pipe thing, the mouthwash, brr...

Many years ago, an older work colleague shared with me that he hadn't been to the dentist for 27 years. Why? Because his teeth have never hurt. For convenience sake, I wheel out that argument sometimes.

Reading this thread in conjunction with the one a few weeks ago about rituals that the massive have is most enlightening.

What a bunch of dysfunctional freaks we are!

I once met a woman on a training course who was terrified of flyovers and/or large bridges and would not drive over one even if it meant a 50 mile detour. This course was in east Hull, this woman lived in Immingham which is about 30 miles away. Her route (avoiding all flyovers and the Humber bridge) would have been 120 miles each way apparently, she spent over 2 hours working this out then got her husband to take a day off work to drive her there by the short route while she closed her eyes tightly at critical points. The poor sod waited 6 hours in the car for her, I asked why he didn't just drop her off and go and do something more interesting than just sit in the car and her response was "He doesn't like going out on his own".

Obviously both Word readers!

ARRRGGGH, a 70's thing I suppose, the thought of catching my toenails in them, not that I have exceptionally large toenails you understand (come to think of it toenails are pretty horrible), oh and nylon socks for the same reason... gotta go and lie down in a cotton lined room

Green Day
Muse
I bust a nut to turn my radio off anytime I hear one of the above
other shit I fear:
marzipan - gie's me thi dry boak
falling over - leg's ur fuck'd
goin' deef - as the song says "I'd rather go blind"

For some it's spiders,for others it's Public Lavs,for many it's other peoples cutlery.For me,it's Luke Haines.....I have a fear,not really irrational,that if I ever meet him,I may accidentally leap on him and smash his stupid face off.No idea why,he's never done me any harm.I just accidentally read his silly book in the library and thought...'what a cxxt !,'well,so would you,if you could be bothered to read it.Personally,I would'nt bother if I were you,it's shit.My liberty means alot to me and my 2 brothers-both called Len-and I would hate to jeopardize it by suddenly meeting Luke in a street or on a path somewhere.

You did say irrational. I don't like heights either but I think that is pretty rational.

My son now shares my phobia. We visited an urban farm, which had a butterfly house. I passed. My GLW and twins went in. "what do butterflies eat?" asked my son. "little boys" said my GLW. Cue screaming, a rapid exit and a second phobic in the family. My GLW is still embarassed about it.

I get get shudders just seeing them in pictures, yet I'm drawn to touch each and every one if I'm in a shop, leading to more shuddering, perspiration, palpation's, as for having to wear and fasten one...give me death or give me a grandad shirt.

And forget Daleks and Regan's spinning head, the times I hide behind the sofa is when the James Bond type takes a brand new shirt from the box and just puts it on....by heck I'm cringing just thinking of it

.... I puke within 10 yards of the spawn of the devil.

Semolina pudding gives me nightmares as well.