The Phobia List

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (defn.) - a fear of long words

What a cruel, cruel word! It must have been a real sadist who came up with that one. Wonderfully ironic, but still cruel. Fortunately I doubt there are many cases of it. Plenty of claustrophobia, arachnophobia, acrophobia, but not hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.

I've actually managed (for the most part) to conquer one of those fears thanks to rock-climbing. That fear being acrophobia; a fear of heights. Not that it was ever a debilitating phobia, just a nagging feeling I got when standing near edges.

My mate Gareth has an interesting policy on his phobia. He too is scared of heights, a little more than I was, and told me recently that he'll probably never bother to battle this phobia because it's unlikely to handicap him as he goes about with his day-to-day life. And fair enough, he has a very valid point. 

Now alcohol may have mired my memory of that night, but I'm sure the conversation ended with Gareth shrugging his shoulders and announcing "it's all good".

Oh what a wonderfully Australian phrase that is! That and "she'll be right, mate". Two phrases that seem to really capture our Australian laissez faire philosophy; our optimistic indifference, our low standards and naive faith that the seas won't get too choppy.

A mentality that is a far cry from Woody Allen's New York neurotic-ism. A far cry from the sort of neurotic-ism that immigrates into a psychoanalyst's chair; where those neurotic-isms are given labels, and those labels are then deemed phobias. And suddenly we're in a world filled with ablutophobics and clinophobics and glossophobics and hydrargyophobics and a million other phobias - all too numerous to list in one blog.  

I know Australian's have their fair share of fears; snakes, spiders, small spaces, etc... but as a nation, when compared with other developed countries, I wonder whether our 'laissez faire "she'll be right mate"' approach has actually helped our phobics live with their fears and not be so debilitated by them. Or am I just talking out of my arse here?


** For a good laugh (or if you want to diagnose yourself without the help of a psychoanalyst), check out http://phobialist.com/.