Fears and Phobias

Since the dawn of time, the human race has had fears. Fears that kept them safe, and fears that plagued them and future generations. Fears that in today’s date have no rhyme or reason. Phobias have been around since the very beginning of the human race. Whether you’re afraid of spiders, the dark, bugs, or even that dark shape in the corner of your eye, it’s all a fear that has been with humans for as long as we can remember. 

Phobias come from our very first ancestors who had very reasonable fears of the world. Our ancestors had to be scared of snakes if they lived in an area where snakes are common, which is why some of us hate snakes and some love them. If your ancestors lived in a place where snakes weren’t a threat, then odds are you don’t have ophidiophobia. The same goes for most of the other phobias. However, there are still some phobias like nomophobia, which means being without mobile phone coverage, that have been added over time to best fit our society. Phobias were created to help us stay away from dangerous things. It helps us create common sense to not walk right into a bears cave. Phobias and fears, in general, helped us stay alive in a time where everything wanted to kill us.

Fears keep us alive by telling us that putting our hands in holes in the ground would be a bad idea. They tell us that if a big animal is attacking us we should either run away or fight back. They keep us alive by making us fear threats. Phobias are the glorified version of fears. They are the irrational fear of a thing that can sometimes be contradicting the purpose of the fear in the first place. “A person with a phobia either tries to avoid the thing that triggers the fear or endures it with great anxiety and distress,” says Harvard medical school. By having phobias, we think that one thing is really dangerous and that we are in danger of it; for instance, if you have arachnophobia you think spiders will hurt you and that they are a danger, but nowadays this fear is irrational (unless you live in Australia). Phobias are anxiety disorders and even have treatments available if the phobia is bad enough. “Approximately 10 percent of people in the U.S. have specific phobias, 7.1 percent experience social phobias, and 0.9 percent have agoraphobia,” Very Well Mind mentioned in their post saying that with all the people in the world, someone is bound to have the same phobia as you, you’re not alone. 

Phobias include hemophobia the fear of blood, algophobia the fear of pain, and entomophobia the fear of insects. All of these came from our ancestors who had a reason to fear them. Then some people have a phobia of monsters and demons, while some of these manifested from today’s problems and shows, it still makes you wonder. As far back as we can remember monsters and demons alike have plagued our minds, and not just in recent times. Which brings up the question, did our ancestors see something, or is it just our imagination running wild? Either way, it gave us horror shows and stories. So in many ways, we should thank our fears, and sometimes even our phobias, no matter how crazy they are. We can also thank whatever evil watched over our ancestors to make this phobia a thing.