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I am afraid of abandonment, being left behind, and of being wrong and ridiculed for it. I needed a lot of work to overcome these.

Until recently my biggest fear was becoming my father. But due to recent events, I've realized I'm extremely paranoid about hallucinating. I feel like that's the only wall between me and insanity, although technically I realize that hallucinating dosen't necessarily mean you're insane. I have a constant paranoia (especially when I'm driving) that I'm either seeing something that's not there, or not seeing something that's there. So now those two fears are tied as my biggest fear. And I suppose that the only other fear I really have is of lotion. It's not really fear, it's just an extreme dislike, although I have been known to run from it if it's coming toward me. Yes, I know I'm weird. Yes, I'm ok with that.

Usually certain fears have a traumatic experience attatched to it, although some don't always. You don't have to be bitten by a spider to be afraid of them. You don't have to have been left on the side of the road by your parents as a child to have a fear of abandonment. But those events could and probably would contribute to the development of a phobia. The textbook way to overcome a fear is to "face it". But that can't always work, and often dosen't work for certain fears. It may work on a fear of heights or a fear of snakes or something, but something like agoraphobia or claustrophobia..."treating" them that way could potentially cause a break down or psychotic episode, depending on how intense their fears were, of course. "Overcoming" fears is something that varies from person-to-person. There is no comprehensive way to "treat" all fears.

Edit: Oh, and iolitefire, agoraphobia is the fear of open spaces, and claustrophobia is the fear of enclosed spaces. You've got them backward, there.

"Encarta Dictionary Tools" says: "agoraphobia-fear of open spaces: a condition characterized by an irrational fear of public or open spaces." I've never been told otherwise, which is why I looked it up in the first place.

And a friend of mine once beat the living hell out of me with a notebook because there was a spider smaller than a dime (legs included) on my jacket. I was fine to just brush it off, but she felt the need to savagely beat me. She had a nice green briuse shaped like a four-leaf-clover on her arm from my response for several months. Just in time for St. Patrick's day.

I happen to be terrified of big wide open places (agoraphobia) and being alone.

My father and I have that duty. Mother is terrified. Once, there was a rather large wolf spider on the carpet in the foyer. Mother walked in, saw it, screamed, and jumped about 15 feet backward. I was standing there laughing, and she said, "oh, it's one of your fake bugs, isn't it?" and started to read down toward it. I would have stopped her, but the spider moved first. I got a few slaps on the wrist for that one, even though technically I didn't do anything.
...I have some crazy spider memories.

I was horribly afraid of spiders...so the universe decided to give them to me as a not only a totem but also as a trigger to "Listen up! The Universe is trying to tell you something!" So, obviously...we had to come to some sort of truce before I jumped right out of my skin.

So now, I've just got the good ol fear of failure in its place. Nothing like trying something new, loving it, then having to talk yourself into continuing secretly scared to death that I'll never be super good at it. Sheesh, when will I learn just to go with the flow and learn just for the sake of learning?

I'm insanely claustrophobic.
i don't even like being hugged.
underground places and caves are the worst.
parking structures too.

I also cannot stand people standing behind me, but i think that's more spazziness then phobia....


but by far my strangest phobia is sticky things.
i cannot handle stickers, tape, anything like that.
WET sticky things are even worse.
I've been afraid of them as long as i can remember.