Thursday, September 12, 2013

Of Phobias and Manias

So, the creative juices start hitting my head only when I am trying to sleep. Isn't it weird that you are trying to sleep and then something crosses your mind and there you go..!! One thing connects to another and another into a completely different one. And there you are, aboard on your train of thought which obviously does not have an end or limit to it. Aaaand, mind you, try to revert back from one point and you'd end up laughing at how absurd you can think and even how you link and think of one thing from the other. Just stupid!!

So.... I saw a bug zooming in my bedroom and I started thinking that Ok, I'm not afraid of bugs and insects till the point they don't bite me and they don't disgust me and I'm alright with it in my room. So then, what am I really afraid of? What do I fear? What is it I can't manage even to look at??? And I'm not talking about Fears of Life but simple day to day things that I fear and I might even be phobic of. Alright, now what do I do when I am nervous and in case I am in my phobia-panic situation, I'll try to run to my favorite habit and try to get myself as much involved in it in order to forget the horror. This habit turns on to become a free-time activity, and here I am bordering on being a Maniac.

So here goes the story on my fears and my stupid habits. Maybe, you also have some or can relate to this, I don't know. In my view, there's nobody who is not fearful of something or the other. Accept it! We all have our fears and different methods of dealing with them. And we all have some of those bad habits.

I can't bear being in enclosed spaces. They are too smushed up together with no fresh air getting in there. Take the example of a lift or elevator. When it goes up or down my ears are blocked due to the equilibrium balance or whatever it is but that is so annoying. With its lack of air and the overpowering, obnoxious fowl odors...Just great!!. Same with public toilets, you can't just move without hitting something or knocking something and every time i come out of it either my knee or toe or shoulder or elbow would be hurting. But this is something I can avoid. And believe me, when I traveled in trains, my pee got stuck somewhere in my stomach making me not having to use the toilets.

I fear getting water in my ears while taking a bath and even otherwise. When in a shower I'll try to keep my head away from water as much as possible. This is the reason I hate getting a hair-wash done before a haircut at a salon. I wash my hair before going there, and I'm making there job easier. Now, they just have to cut and style my hair. No washing, No water!!

I'm stressed out when I have to cross a road. I feel dyslexic when I have to. I'll watch and see sideways and check both ways even on one way. Still I can't get over it and muster up enough courage to just cross the damn road. I always need someone to help me. And when I'm alone there have been encounters where a car just missed me. I am a walking hazard on the road. I potentially put mine as well as other lives in danger because of my stupidity. And I don't know how to cope with it. I know I need fixing!!

I hate being sick. And, I have some food fears. Yes, I hate being sick due to eating some wrong food. I recently discovered that I am Lactose Intolerant. Therefore, please try and avoid offering me anything with whole milk in it. It upsets my stomach and digestive abilities and feels like a roller-coaster is rumbling through my intestines. Caution! ... And I can't take any seafood or fish down my throat if it has that smell, yeah! that fishy smell. I'll throw up but it can't go in.

Now the ultimate one! I have a huge fear of Lizards. In my teenage years many lizards got unknowingly killed by me (It's not my fault if they try to squeeze out of the doors at that very moment when I'm trying to close it.) And now I think all these years, they've conspired against me and they are after my life. How many of you have had that blessed moment when you find that there are 2 fat black lizards in your room?? And then these two turn out to be arch enemies! And there is a marathon in the room....Yayyy!! And what I can do is nothing but just run away..(This was the sole reason I could not watch parts of the movie Ek thi Daayan).... I accept, whenever I saw a lizard on the ceiling around the fan I'd get horrid mental images of it falling and hitting the blades and parts of it wriggling all over the room....Ewww!!  And and what can I say about them doing their "stuff" on the windows... then to make my already terrified soul more miserable.. And more disgusting is their laying eggs in the pen stand or jewelry box, as if just one or two were just not enough..... And to make things worse, this phobia has a name! "Scoliodentosaurophobia" .... Were you able to read that word in one go?? Me neither!! These lizards are definitely going to kill me one day. 
And i think I have not encountered some situations to know if I am fearful of them or not.

I have a habit of picking at my skin a lot. Any pimple, acne, blackhead, bump, blemish ends up making me look bruised. And you know why, because i can't control touching it...then scratching it and rubbing it and doing all sorts of operations on it with my nails.Any hangnails or cuticles around fingernails, I'd love to pull them out even if some blood oozes out. Why do I do this, 'cause I do. And i keep chewing at my lips all the time. I know it looks really bad and disgusting when I make weird faces but I can't help it, I just can't. There's actually a term for it under the list of OCDs(Obsessive Compulsive Disorders) and that its Dermatillomania. It has not reached to that level yet and I am trying to exercise control. I got really afraid when I realised that I do this to my husband also and I have an uncontrollable urge to pinch  a pimple on anybody's face if I look at them for maybe a few minutes.I just can't stand this ugliness. I hurt myself a lot due to this habit and i wish from my heart that nobody else does something like this.

I get the unavoidable urge to correct every grammatical mistake (that I recognize and understand) in a piece of text I read anywhere. Sometimes its too frustrating to read ambiguous. While on Facebook I get that feeling to scratch the screen of my computer and write the correct sentence where somebody has written it wrong. And same goes true if someone pronounces something wrong. I'll interrupt to correct that person in between of what they are speaking. My apologies if I did this to anyone, because I know it's so rude. I know that I myself don't know the super correct grammar and I'm not a master at pronunciations and you might find some mistakes in this post too. Yet, I do this and I can't help it.

Please do comment if you like this post and tell me about some of your fears also if you wish to. Share if you don't mind. I'd like to hear from you! Now I leave you to your train of thought!!

13 comments:

  1. You have almost unbundled yourself here...and I am able to connect those eeww...yayy words with your expressions when we guys used gather in canteen. :)
    These phobias and manias are somewhat of your age. To get rid of these, it would ask for a strong will with guided exercises to get out of it, with bunch of self-believe that one day you would be out of it.
    take care!

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    1. See, others I can cope with and I can live with. For skin picking I am exercising control. But Lizards, they say you can make pets out of them, take them in your hands, watch them...I'll die before doing that..

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  2. First of all its really nice to see your blog, & Yeah I have phobia to feel like that the far the friend is, the more likelihood is to loose the touch.
    By the way nice start, keep writing.
    And Yeah I can remember some incidents when you were trying to cross road during you Allahabad Prawas :)
    Take care

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    1. That is not a phobia the one you said.
      I did a lot of research before writing this post and I made sure that whatever I'm writing really has something to do with phobias and manias and has been categorized as that.
      I have some more things that I'll come up with later in my blog. Thanks for the support and interest!

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  3. oh so now u have a blog.....great!!!!
    and that pinching the acne and pimples habit of urs.....i used to like that stuff when u performed on me so from my side u r good to go......:)

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    1. Bhai I'm not good to go from my side. Its going out of proportions. Shikher also likes all that "khutur-putur" but I'm making that thing even more infected and hard to heal and after that those marks never clean off from the skin. It is really a problem.

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  4. Even I have the OCD.... that pimple thing is just wonderful & gives a lot of satisfaction to jerks like us :) :)
    Keep writing :)

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    1. Hey, yeah it does give a lot of satisfaction I agree. Its fine if I hurt just myself but when I do this to others and can't control myself is where the problem lies. Like for example, if I see someone with a lot of blackheads on their nose I would not be able to talk to them properly. My eyes would be fixated on that very spot and hands would be itching just to get all of them out of there at that very moment. Awkward!!

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  5. As I read this I kept thinking about that dragonfly stuck in my windshield wiper. You took it out for me. Then showed it to me as I quickly turn my head.

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    1. Hehe...see I'm not afraid of bugs! I like their colors... But no lizards for me...None!!!
      Now you know I'm a neurotic psycho! :P

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  6. Beautifully composed and written in a very simple manner so that it touches the reader and involves him in article. Really enjoyed it.

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  7. First of all I am so sorry for not commenting on your blog earlier.. but that doesnt mean that I din read it... I read it the second you gave me the link.. its just I got lucky today to get spare time from my roller coaster kinda schedule (yes after almost 2 months)
    About the post, well as far as I know you.. these are not your fears/phobia.. its just you!!
    I could easily relate with these things as I feel the same way for Lizard like you do... road crossing, ear thing, enclosed space, hate being sick all that, its exactly the same for me also.. so its just us!!
    For articulation, I would like to say, good research done chika!! Looking forward for another post of yours.. take care Love!! :)

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