[ELI5] What is a phobia anyway?

Question

For example, let’s say, arachnophobia.

I’m pretty sure a lot of people are more or less a bit afraid of arachnids. Then at what point does this phenomenon count as “arachnophobia”? How does the effect of seeing images and videos differ from seeing them IRL? Do arachnophobic people react uncontrollably in some way in these situations?

Same logic applies to other types of phobias such as megalophobia or trypophobia etc.

In: 0

Answer 1

Phobias are different for everyone, but what constitutes a phobia vs a normal fear is how much it detracts from your daily life. Phobias tend to ruin your whole day/week, and cause panic/anxiety attacks and things like that.

For example, if I’m afraid of spiders, I might not want to go to bed if I know one’s in the room but I can walk up to it and kill/remove it. However if I have a phobia of spiders, I couldn’t even do that—I’d be crying and having someone else do it from far away, and probably lose sleep over the idea of if there was one spider, there is probably another. My roommate has a phobia of moths (but no other insects) and they can’t even be in the house if there’s one. We get the perimeter of the house sprayed bi-weekly with insecticide. They can’t go to any outdoor events at night just in case there are moths there, and we can’t keep the outdoor light on because it attracts moths at night.

To give an even more real example, I have a phobia of balloons. A lot of people say “oh I don’t like when they pop either!” But that’s not it. I cry when I see one. I fear the shape, the colors, the squeaky noises they can make, their material, and—of course—how they pop. I don’t go to any events that might have balloons, not even birthday parties. I had to plan alternate routes on campus (HS and college) to avoid going near balloons (and god they are everywhere, for every occasion). Balloon photos unnerve me but they aren’t real balloons, so the fear isn’t nearly as much. Balloons being everywhere all the time makes me make big changes to my everyday life, while people who “don’t like them popping” wouldn’t have to make those changes.