Fear vs. Phobia

Would the word Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia strike fear in your heart? For most people it doesn’t, but there are people who this would make fear shoot through them like a lightning bolt even before they read it. Those people have a fear of long words, which that 36-letter word stands for. I know it seems funny to have a fear of long words, but it’s a real phobia. It’s just as real as aviophobia (fear of flying), coulrophobia (fear of clowns), or even numerophobia (fear of numbers).

Fears and phobias are continuously used interchangeably. Fears and phobias, I hate to say it, are not the same thing. Even though they are very similar; they still have differences. A fear does make you anxious and can make you uncomfortable, but a phobia is even worse.

Fear is a natural, human emotion. It lets us know there is a presence of danger or harm. A natural fear response can contain…

  • Anxiety
  • Queasy stomach
  • Shortness of breath
  • Feeling shaky

But fear symptoms are manageable, and you can still live life as is.

A phobia, on the other hand, has a fear response to an item that is not necessarily a danger or harm to them. The fear response to someone with a phobia mimics the exact symptoms of typical fear, but the object or action is not an immediate threat. Phobias engage the flight, fight, or freeze response to everyday objects or actions that most people aren’t bothered by or pertain no threat. Some phobia responses include…

  • Cold sweats
  • Crying
  • Nausea
  • Dry mouth
  • Hyperventilation
  • Heart palpitations
  • Panic attacks
  • Dizziness

Many people have a phobia of some kind, I know I do. I had a phobic attack in one of my classes just last week. I was in my psychology class, going over what we will cover in the class and looking at the syllabus. When we reached the topic of fears.

We all started to mention what type of fears we had; some said lighting, some said heights, some said in closed spaces, and I said spiders. For me spiders are my number one fear.

We all started to mention what type of fears we had; some said lighting, some said heights, some said in closed spaces, and I said spiders. For me spiders are my number one fear.

 Obviously, this whole thing was just a ‘fun’ exercise. The next slide on the power point was a big, hairy, creepy, dark, SPIDER. I could not handle seeing the picture of the spider and broke down into tears in my psychology class. All in all, phobias are no joke.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *