We are all well aware of the fact that every person on this planet has some sort of fear buried deep inside him. But only the irrational, often exaggerated fears can count as phobias. Phobias always come to surface when people are expecting to face certain objects or situations.
And while some of the common phobias, such as arachnophobia (the fear of spiders) or acrophobia (the fear of height) are mostly harmless, it's not the case with all of them. There are phobias with devastating impacts. With that being said, there is no doubt that those irrational fears can literally destroy lives.
However, there is hope that with these phobias further explained, we can understand the people who suffer from them.
While the strive for knowledge might seem to us as the most normal thing in the world, there are certain people among us with the irrational fear of learning. However, we must separate people who have this phobia from those who simply DON'T WANT to learn anything.
We call this fear gnosiophobia. And those who suffer from it can experience the physical symptoms such as heavy breathing, nausea, shaking, pounding heart, loss of control. Furthermore, it can bring about a social isolation and the development of some new phobias.
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Ambulophobia, the fear of walking, often goes along with agoraphobia - the fear of public spaces. It seems logical as these people are afraid to show their fear of walking in public. They can't fulfill the expectations of others, thus they are stressed out most of the time.
The fear of falling, one of the rare fears we are born with, is also attached to ambulophobia. But however natural being anxious about the possibility of falling might seem to be, with ambulophobia that's not the case. It is a serious condition that goes far beyond any natural fear. And some people might end up being in a wheelchair, even though they are perfectly capable of walking.
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This is the phobia that scientists can't seem to quite understand yet. Some patients claim that they developed this phobia because of the nightmares they've experienced. And although it's entirely possible that some past trauma can cause the fear, the problem might just very well be the depression or an anxious disorder of some sort.
In any case, this is life-threatening given the fact that people can die from lack of sleep.
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Cibophobia is a very serious condition in which the person is afraid of food prepared by someone else or food that contains unknown ingredients. However, let's not confuse this phobia with anorexia, where the fear of gaining weight is at the center of attention.
If not treated, cibophobia can get much worse, causing even more obsessive behavior. And over time it can damage the health pretty seriously. Also, let us not forget the social rejection these people are facing because others perceive them as spoiled and too picky.
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Panphobia is very unspecified fear, not yet registered in medical literature. It is because of that fact that this phobia can be particularly dangerous. But broadly speaking it can be seen as the permanent fear of some unknown evil.
At first glance, people who suffer from it live a perfectly normal life. But in truth, this irrational fear of some esoteric, dark force can literally drive them to insanity.
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