nice try Freddy Krueger, or jigsaw, or pennywise or whoevery you are.

I'm afraid of drinking through a straw. I'm convinced (against all logic) that I'm going to inhale it and choke.

However, I recently started drinking through a straw again at my dentist's recommendation, to protect my teeth from carbonation. I have a set of reusable metal ones. They don't trigger my phobia at all. Maybe the texture makes all the difference.

An ex was afraid of butterflies but not moths. They could explain what their were afraid of but not why it applied to butterflies and not moths.

My SO loves butterflies but is afraid of moths.

I’m not afraid of either. I’m afraid of being incapacitated though, so things like ledges or working under a car makes me uneasy.

Fear of losing my teeth. Spent about 5 years with dental braces, teeth pulled (permanent and baby to make room), and oral surgery to have a tooth exposed to pull down slowly in place over time. I have some fucked up dreams, but nothing disturbs me more than one where my teeth are breaking, cracking, loose, or falling out. Maybe it is a bit of dental PTSD.

Fear of right wing extremists taking over the world

Heights. There was some movie or show where people were hanging from a skyscraper window after an earthquake, and I regularly have vivid nightmares about it. It’s not to the point of a phobia but a really strong fear. I went up the Seattle space needle with my husband, and he was clowning against the glass while I was only able to stay in the middle. Had nightmares about him falling or me falling off it ever since.

I weirdly have a fear of spiders, but only irl. And am relatively fascinated by them when viewing them on pictures/video.

I grew up in the country with an in-ground swimming pool that we heated with a solar cover. When the cover was retracted/rolled up Bullsnakes would hide inside. There were quite a few times when they'd hastily slither out unexpectedly, and I've been pretty freaked out by snakes ever since.

Long loose hair for some reason

Bears, even though I think they're really cool. It's gotten worse over time. I've seen a lot of videos of idiots interacting with them, getting too close, leaving food out at campsites, etc.

Plus my ever-declining faith in humanity, it means the likelihood of a bear I would encounter being made more dangerous because of other people is high.

I used to want to go to the Adirondack mountains, but after reading reviews about one of the main camp areas being overrun with black bears (due to eating human food) that's no longer on my bucket list.

Even on a fairly recent camping trip with a friend with equal knowledge about bear safety, they left a plate out with some meat grease overnight. We heard all sorts of sounds and the plate was far from the eating area in the morning. Like can you not leave a welcome present out for the apex predator, please?

Not weird

spoiler

My biggest fear is that the Nintendo Switch 2 won't be able to dispense coffee.

Corny jokes aside, germs.

I'm horribly afraid of heights and can't even stomach a normal wall climb (like with a harness and everything) without quivering like a leaf.

Also most BIG bugs, especially if they have a lot of legs... though I think I'd probably be fine with a tarantula, for some reason. No idea why. The small ones are usually fine, minus wasps and hornets.

I'm kind of afraid of the dark too, but it's also not really about the darkness itself. I'll find myself vividly envisioning things like a snarling wolf suddenly lunging from the darkness to tear my throat out, or a large, unhinged man sneaking up behind me, or some shit like that. It usually only happens outdoors in rural areas where nights are much darker, which allows my imagination to run more wildly than usual. Thankfully, I live in a city now.

I used to be afraid of looking at mirrors at night. Idk what it's called, spectrophobia maybe? Well, anyway, one night I took acid and happened to look at a mirror while blasted off my mind. Staring at it felt so disappointingly mundane that I laughed at myself for expecting anything to go wrong. Lost my fear permanently.

Someone's gonna die. I'm gonna get injured and go broke with medical bills. Heights. Crosswalks. Riding a bike in traffic. Driving in the city. I'm gonna go blind. I'm gonna get dementia and alzheimers. Shit times will happen again. Our country will go full fascist. My fiance will leave me or be assaulted or be sick. A recession catches us at a bad time. Climate change is worse than we expected. A lone star tick will make me allergic to meat. My asshole will never heal. AI is going to replace me.

This is as good as it gets. Everyone struggling to rent, find jobs, finding out that a substantial portion of people around you hate you.

Bees, but only because I'm allergic.

Knowing I'm dying as I actively die is probably my greatest fear. -Not everyone gets to be as lucky as those people on the OceanGate sub. -They really had to shove their privilege in our faces. -I say good riddance to bad rubbish!

I don't know the official name of this fear, but seeing the world spin around me makes me shut down (say goodbye to driving around roundabout highway exits, carpark roundabout ramps, jet boat spins, etc.). Even typing this out is hard.

Ironically, I (think) I would be ok if the spin is counterclockwise.

Just dying in general.

But hopefully before then I'll have lived a long and fulfilling life.

Yooo me too! Moths freak me out more, but butterflies are pretty close. I usually just hide under a big blanket whenever a moth makes it into my apartment and let my husband handle it, but he recently moved out for work. I only cry a little bit when I have to confront them myself 😎

I also can't stand Jellyfish to such a degree that I refuse to go into any open water. Even stuff like lakes and Rivers, which probably don't have Jellyfish, but the idea just freaks me out too much.

Not a huge fan of snakes. It's not to phobia levels, but I get a huge adrenaline rush when I see one, even if a fraction of a second later my forebrain identifies it as harmless. I love being in nature, so it's just something I have to deal with.

I've had several rattlesnake encounters and it's at least one guaranteed nightmare every time. The dream is always the same: I'm standing somewhere at dusk, often barefoot. Under a nearby, low object I see a rattlesnake. Then I see another to the side. Then another behind me. Then I realize they are everywhere.

I really hate ticks, so I appreciate their rodent killing service. But if we never ran into each other again that would suit me fine.

Death, and tight spaces.

I have a pretty bad fear of spiders. If one is in my immediate vicinity, I generally get pretty spooked. Images of them freak me out too.

There's this huge one that spun a web right outside my window. I'm leaving it alone, but I can see it every day as I'm working. It's one of those with the big orbs for an abdomen.

Aliens. Ever since I was a child and watched an alien documentary with my parents on yhe history channel, and my dad kept saying that they were going to abduct me. I've sat in my room motionless before, watching an unexpected alien movie or show on TV, because I was afraid they would teleport into my room and abduct me. I sometimes still fear the dark because I feel as if aliens might sneak up on me. Im in me 20s now and still feel that tingle when I hear alien music or watch something about aliens alone.