Mental Health Notes

2 Sure Fire Ways To Deal With Phobias

by Alicia Sparks, NAMI Affiliation Leader on April 3rd, 2008

Anyone who knows me well (and even several people who don’t know me so well) know that I suffer from severe arachnophobia. (Well, I don’t really suffer, per se, until I’m faced with one of those eight-legged bastards. As long as the area I’m in is free of spiders, I’m pretty much free of suffering.)

I also have a phobia of:

• Toilets. Specifically, toilet tanks. (Once, a few years ago, I flushed my toilet by pouring buckets of water into the toilet bowl because the little plastic doo-dad - inside the tank - that is connected to the handle - outside the tank - became broken. I did this for three days - until someone could come by, open the tank, and fix the problem for me.) However, I’m not opposed to being scared of toilets that are not, for whatever reason, connected to the floor; old-fashioned toilets with the tanks high above; and overflowing toilets. Actually, old-fashioned toilets and overflowing toilets send me screaming - literally. Sweet Jesus, just typing this and looking at all those pictures has me a bit dizzy.
• Large plumbing/water system parts. Specifically, large pipes. Like this, this, and ESPECIALLY THIS. Of course, if I ever saw this in person, I would die.
• And, to wrap up this trifecta of really bizarre phobias, I also get the willies around large pieces of equipment/machinery, such as this, this, and definitely this. However, those willies would turn into flat-out panic if I were to run into any of these kinds of things alone.

So, why am I disclosing such embarrassing information? (I mean, honestly, do you know anyone else who’s afraid of toilets for Pete’s sake?! No, really, do you? Maybe we could form a support group.)

Well, initially it was because I was going to comment on poor Memphis basketball guard Derrick Rose and his public freak out last week when he was confronted with a needle to stitch up his gaping hole above his right eye. I was going to, you know, be all supportive and offer advice on how to handle phobias.

However, after hashing through my own phobias while trying to determine what some good pieces of advice for dealing with phobias would actually be, I came to only two conclusions:

1. Stay away from the subject of your phobia.
2. In the event you’re unavoidably confronted with the subject of your phobia, get the hell out of Dodge.

It seems as if Rose already has that down pat.

So, do you have any suggestions on how to deal with phobias? I’m all ears eyes!

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