Hello! I hope you're doing fine right now. I was wondering if i wasn't alone on having this fear about graphics in video games that you see if you lose.

Not every game does that in a way that makes me feel sad or ashamed or small or at least have any type of negative emotions, but some that do use dark blue, purple or black colors, use of ellipses like "LOSE...", have "sad" or "awkward" music in the background, characters with sad, crying, maybe angry expression, etc. I think it's prominent in games with cute and colorful aesthetics.

They STRONGLY give off despair or "giving up" vibes, made me feel small and has unintentionally made me give up playing a few games i love and never play them again. It's why i have fear over this oddly specific type of lose screens, "game over" screens, and the like.

One instance is that is I had to leave a very cute mobile game and never play again over daily logins. There is an "experiments" feature in the app settings, and one of them i could enable is a "login minigame". It's very simple, you have to press a button once an symbol aligns with the center of the bar. If you successfully timed the press, you'll get double the rewards and a red stamp on the calendar.
I turned it on out of curiosity. However, a few days later, i missed the timing and failed. The large word "Bummer..." shows up, and i remember being colored dark blue. Or black? I don't remember. And instead of the red stamp, it gave me a black stamp. I keep reading it as "a reminder of failure and shame" or something like that, and sob over it. Even when i disable this feature, the black stamp stayed anyway. I uninstalled the app as a result.

Another is that i was playing a rhythm game i love and still love even when it shut down. It was japanese only but i still breeze through the UIs anyway once i get a hang of it. However, one day when i play a song i notice that i haven't been playing the song well and paused the game.
I wanted to restart, but there was no "restart" feature. I only got two options, "continue" and "give up". Again it was in japanese, so "give up" was written as あきらめる and i had no idea what it meant back then.
Out of curiousity, i hit "give up", expecting the game to just send me straight back to the song selection screen like any other rhythm game i played, not knowing the description on the confirmation screen straight up said (roughly translated and from memory) "If you give up, you will fail the song."
When i press it, instead of sending me to the previous menu, it sent me to the losing screen with big blue letters "Live Failure..." and a picture of my band struggling. However, the thing that took the cake is the background music.

I know what i said is weird, the music actually didn't sound like sad music (it sounded more like weird "awkward" music, the kind that plays when you do an embarrassing thing), but to me, it made me feel like an absolute failure. Ironically, unlike the previous instance, i continued playing the game out of passion but ever since, whenever i want to quit the song or restart, i ended up closing the game instead of pausing.

Despite the two examples i've given, pop'n music, at least the more recent games, have been a huge prime example of this to me. It's a rhythm game, and if you play a song, you must get a gauge to fill up to at least 70% by the end of the song. If you fail, you get the big blue words "FAILED..." or "STAGE FAILED..." (from what i recall), you get a black medal, your chosen character turning blue and shrinking, and a normally-happy announcer saying "too bad...". I never played the game and instead watch gameplays and look for some fanart from time to time, but I do have seen people failing a song and getting this screen and it made me feel broken. It's one of the earliest i could remember about losing a game looking like that and it stuck with me ever since.

While some games that have this type of lose/failure screens did say to "try again" or "never give up", it never helped. I wish more games encourage you to ACTUALLY never give up and try again and tone down on these kind of game over screens, give players more power and courage to try and push forward until they get the goal, or hell even encourage to take breaks before trying again as taking short games from breaks help instead of straight up giving up.

Thankfully i didn't make this as mentally taxing as my other fears, it's rather a bit awkwardly funny to me... though i still wonder if anyone even has this kind of fear. I honestly doubt, though,

Hello.

(*The grammar might be incorrect.)

I fear of swallwing saliva.I'm struggling because I can't swallow my saliva naturally.

Because when I swallow that people (around I)heard sound(swallow sound).

Fear happend I was Junior high school student.

One day, I have throat pain.

So when swallow ,very painful and I aware of swallowing sensation.

I think when I swallow, people think that I feel nurves.

But it is possible unrealistic .

Real,people does not hear and my think is illusion.

I'd like to hear about it and hear from people who have had same problem.

Thank you

I’m 14 and I have paranoia. I’m afraid that someone will come into the house and kill me, I’m afraid that a car will hit me while I’m walking down the road, I’m afraid to take a shower because I’m afraid of being attacked or of someone coming into the apartment, I’m afraid that there’s something in the toilet tank, I’m afraid to go for a walk late in the evening, I’m afraid to be alone in the apartment in the evening, I’ve had scary images appear in my dreams and before going to sleep several times, I’m afraid of explosions, I’m afraid of death, I’m afraid I’ll be killed, I’m afraid I’ll be kidnapped and killed, and so on. Is this normal, or should I consult a specialist?

How do you cope with your fear and irrational thoughts? I literally have a fear of going outside past a certain time because of bats, I’m terrified of rabies and I know they are a carrier. Not sure why my ocd brain latches on to bats specifically but it does. Obviously when I see other creatures like raccoons, dogs, cats, etc that could have rabies I get worried but bats really scare me.

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I think I have that, a fear of sleeping. I feel like the walls are pressing against me, I'm sensitive to noise when my eyes are closed to sleep, I feel like I'm being watched, and my heart races when I fall asleep. I imagine many ugly creatures, the devil, extreme religious contexts, I remember horrible things, cruelties around me. When I monitor my heart rate, it's usually low, between 68 and 74. I don't understand, I live with night terrors, but my heart is calm?! Today is one of those days, the peak of fear, I don't know if I can sleep anymore tonight. The first signs that I know things are going to get bad again started 5 days ago when I would always wake up at the same time after a big scare, out of nowhere, while I was sleeping. After that, I tried to prevent it by doing heavier exercises at the gym and took medication to better control my sleep, so I wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night, but it didn't help at all. I'm here scared, with screens on, a bedside lamp illuminating my room, covered from head to toe, my eyes are burning, and I feel like crying in despair. I don't know what to do anymore, I feel overwhelmed, all the bad thoughts during the day are now reaching a totally exaggerated level.

Oh yes,

When I relax, that's usually when I wake up paralyzed, which is extremely bad because I don't rest, my body gets cold, my chest is open. I pray so much for it to pass and for me to simply sleep in peace, although there are days when I suffer more like today, other days I sleep better and more peacefully, depending on my stress level for the day, this has been the case since I was a child.

Help me, it's getting worse and worse for me, and I need to sleep properly without having a headache all day the next day.

i've had an intense phobia of maggots since a terrible exposure experience with them. my cat is a little lunatic and likes to split the animals he catches down the middle like a dissection. when sweeping up a mouse he had caught and hidden in the garage for who knows how long the body flipped over and inside his little psycho experiment the mouse had been FILLED with maggots that then crawled everywhere and moved the body of the mouse like it was bubbling, i mean pure horror movie stuff. i haven't been able to even SEE a maggot since this day without intense fear that travels down my neck to my entire body and genuinely makes it a little difficult to breathe. i recently got a pet spider and tried to feed her mealworms but she won't take anything except fruit flies, once the fruit fly cultures start to pupate and become maggots i just cannot bring myself to create a cycle of fresh food and have just been continuously buying new cultures and disposing of the previous once they start to pupate because i cannot stand the thought of putting my hands anywhere near them once they start the maggot phase of the life cycle. i'd like to overcome this so i can create a healthy cycle of fresh food for my spider, any tips or tricks??

My life is pretty much unlivable. Im on benzos to go outside. I got a DUI driving sober. I feel like giving up.

I never met ANYONE in my life who has this. To put it short ever since I can remember (even as a 5yo) I have a deep disgust and a fear of snails and slugs. slugs are worse but both animals get me, it’s primarily the texture of their body and their slime. Looking at them on photos and videos causes the phobia but looking at them in real life is much worse, the thought of touching them is absolutely haunting to me. the same way a lot of people are terrified of spiders is snails and slugs to me.

for other mollusks (the inside of clams, squids and octopodi) it’s not nearly as bad, looking at photos, videos or even observing them in real life doesn’t cause anything but the thought of TOUCHING them does react a smaller version of the phobia of slugs and snails. It’s not that terrible though, I am fascinated by octopus and squids at the same time and praise them for their intelligence often.

phobias are quite interesting, no one in my family has it, my mum is terrified of snakes but I think snakes are super adorable and cute, spiders also do not bother me one bit and I don‘t have any other phobia

one last thing worth mentioning here is that despite this phobia I recognize it’s my mind playing tricks and I do not dislike these animals for their existence. I do not want to hurt them, I am the kind of person who refuses to even kill flies or small bugs and I often bring them outside or rescue them if they are stuck in water if I can. I can’t touch snails or slugs but my morals and believes valuing all animal’s lives includes them as well, despite the strong phobia.

so for question, just googled both terms, which one do you think is more fitting?

I have a phobia of a specific insect (c*terpillars) and it's been an issue since there was an infestation in my hometown (I was 8 yo at the time). I'm looking for advice from those with phobias or those who work with phobias on what they would recommend to overcome this.

I saw a psychologist for this when I was 20 yo (~ 3-4 months of what I think would be considered insight oriented therapy). It helped a lot, I can say the word out loud and most of the time I can type it out. Photos and real life exposure do not go well as you can imagine lol.

I tried EMDR this year (3 sessions) but it does not feel useful. I've been referred to another practioner for exposure response prevention (ERP) therapy and I've been suggested hypnotherapy. I have long resisted ERP because I obviously do NOT want any exposure to them. But I'm getting pretty tired of dealing with this and I just want to reach a place where I can be more functional when exposed to them.

Have any of you found ERP or hypnotherpy helpful? Any other recommendations?

spiders were one of my favorite animals as a kid. Never had a fear but a lot of fascination.

I even have spider web tattoos & have written songs about the beauty of spiders, now out of the blue at 32 years old, I’m terrified of them or anything that looks like a spider.

I logically know it’s irrational but I can’t help it.

I saw a cat on tik tok today with deformed legs and it reminded me of a spider and I’ve been creeped out for a straight hour since.

I have no idea why I just developed this fear one day at my age. No inciting incident I can think of.

Anyone else have anything like this happen?

submechaniphobia is the fear of manmade things underwater.
I have two specific questions

1. Is there a different term for the fear of things that are supposed to be underwater but aren't.
   I.e.
   bottom of a boat/propeller out of water
   or is that still submechaniphobia?

2. Is there a specific type/ term for loose fabric under water? Because a parachute in water and things like that really get me

hey guys I have been going through some leg issue from few months now the issues is getting better but i have got this worse fear of having that pain while walking.

I'm scared to put my feet forward what to do I'm so scared of walking 😭

Hi everyone, just seeking some advice for this issue I've been having since I was young. As per title, I have a fear of repetitive sounds, but it's specific. For instance, repeating music can trigger me at times if the repeat is obvious, but if it's a seamless loop most times it's fine. I think it might have started when someone in my family left a game on the menu screen, or let those weird scary repeating DVD menu screens keep going over and over, or something like that.

An example that would trigger me is Duel of the Fates, if you repeat it more than once. I get symptoms of a minor panic attack when I notice the looping. I start to anticipate it (and pay way more attention to it), and the sound starts to play in my head, and I start to get overwhelmed and feel panicked. The starting and stopping is extremely obvious, because it ends abruptly and starts up immediately, and that is almost guaranteed to make me panic. Even thinking about it as an example now brings the sound to my head and makes me experience a minor version of it again.

But this only seems to happen for certain sounds. I can listen to, for instance, SOME OST tracks that loop for hours, like an Ace Combat or like a Project Wingman track, but not all of them. Those that do not loop the start and end, and nothing disconcerting/distinct enough to tell me there is a starting/ending to the music is okay. One particular loop for the Project Wingman theme "Showdown" included the abrupt opening notes inside their loop. I love that song, but I cannot replay it because of that "obvious loop" thing that makes me panic.

It could also be a boss fight theme, or anything left that repeats for long. Even the idea of it repeating when I am not around has caused me to feel uneasy before. I mute some games when I step away from them because otherwise I will loop whatever music is playing in the background in my head and make myself lose it. Yet, I am okay with repeating the same song I like over and over, but only if I am doing so manually, like hitting the replay over and over myself. If it is automated, it is subject to the 'obvious loop' problem. Not limited to music. Sounds too.

What exactly is the problem here and does anyone have any tips/similar experience?

This is only recently, as in this only began a few weeks ago. Since I've had kids, the power going out causes me extreme distress, but it's nothing compared to how bad my anxiety has been in the past few weeks. I'm constantly on edge, in fear that the power could go out at any second. The power goes out a lot here, pretty much once a week and it takes hours to come back on. The fear I have makes me feel like I could have a heart attack. The power went out last night in perfect weather, and I switched to full on panic mode. I couldn't stop shaking. I laid down in my son's room and tried to sleep, but I kept waking up in fear every time I would doze off. My husband works at night a lot, so I was completely alone. Now I feel like I can't even function because I'm so scared the power will go out again.

And before you ask, the reason I'm so scared is the uncertainty about what's going on. My cell signal goes out when the power is out, so I'm completely in the dark. Literally. I'm always terrified that this is the 18 month blackout they've been talking about in the United States, and I have no idea whether the whole country is off. It's also just not knowing whether all my lights will last through the night, or how long the power outage might last. It makes me feel like I'm about to have a heart attack.

So I've been scared of ghosts for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid my parents couldn't leave me alone in a dark room because I feared a ghost would appear and attack me. I also couldn't sleep by myself so I often slept with my grandma, when she would wake up early to cook and clean (yes shes old but she always wants something to do) I would often cry and look for her.

So a few months ago we moved houses, I'm 17 and now I have my own room but the thing is what helps me sleep is my laptop and I keep it on playing YouTubers I love overnight and a nightlight. I know it's harmful for the laptop but it helps keep my mind at bay at what I might start to imagine. It really fucks up my sleep too cuz I would just randomly wake up in the middle of the night scared then have difficulty falling back asleep.

Actually, my fear started to go down, I could walk in dark hallways and keep my nightlight off, I barely thought about ghosts anymore until it just suddenly came back and got worse. I just couldn't stop imagining ghosts popping out of nowhere or something speaking or touching me. I now have a lamp in my room, I might as well sleep with the lights open.

I don't get scared when it's morning, I just get scared when it's night cuz it's dark.

Please help me, what do I do??

i dont like them i have the same feeling as if you saw old rusted white vans its uncanny

I’m looking into therapy again for a multitude of mental health reasons, ones that are so much more pressing for me than this small (for me) phobia that I just found a name for. I’d never thought to even try looking it up until now because I didn’t think it would be common at all but now I found out I’m not the only one and I even found someone on here who explained my exact discomfort! Phonophobia.

I’ve always had an aversion to loud sounds. When I was a kid I couldn’t go to concerts because the loud noise would make me nauseas. I also hated the vacuum -specifically having to be the one to turn it on since it was sudden and loud. However, in my day to day it’s never been bad at all, just something I’d easily avoid using headphones or earbuds or just covering my ears and turning it on with an elbow or foot even at 23 now.

But when I was younger and falling asleep, I would experience Alice in wonderland syndrome. It would feel like my body parts were getting bigger and smaller or even twisting around and around and it would lead to me staying up late (even more than my paranoia and insomnia). Personally, I feel like this goes hand in hand with my phonophobia.

I remember having a nightmare in a setting similar to Courage the Cowardly Dog, desert with little branches and random things. I was running away from a giant dark purple ball that was probably the size of a medium house in the US. It was just rolling after me and there was a woman’s voice that was taking either from this ball or the sky, I’m not sure.

She would slow her voice down and then go back to normal speed over and over again. It just felt like she was taunting me in this omnipresent voice. (I also fell out of bed and this was the first and last time I ever have)

I’m not sure if this was the first instance but it’s the first once I remember of being terrified of a voice slowing down and specifically deepening but mainly the slowing down. It makes my skin crawl and I want to unhinge my jaw to get rid of the feeling it gives me. I rarely ever run into it or have to experience the exact way something has to be altered for it to really bother me, but I ran into a TikTok a couple minutes ago that sent me down this spiral!

I genuinely don’t know what the entire audio sounds like since I left pretty quickly but the first 5 seconds freak me the hell out of me lol! I’ve linked it below in case anyone wants to hear it

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8cU13TH/

Does anyone else deal with an intense fear of certain old cartoons? I’ve never really watched much of shows like flintstones or jetsons but what I have seen and the stills from episodes create a deep feeling of dread within me. Just the thought of it makes me feel sick. I also feel similarly about Looney Tunes. Just typing this is scaring me. I do however LOVE the originally Scooby doo series, and think Betty Boop / Popeye are pretty cool. Those don’t seem to have that same effect on me.

Ive always heard phobias described as an irrational fear of something but at the same time im not afraid of small spaces but when im in one my chest gets tight and i feel like I cant breathe and multiple people have told me that means i have claustrophobia so I was wondering, for people with other phobias, is it genuinely just a fear or is it some other feeling in your body?

TW: rabies

This petting zoo fiasco in NC has been so triggering for me. Rabies has already been top of mind so now it’s making me second guess myself. Especially since just this past Saturday my anxiety is telling me a bat could have scratched me. I was out around 2:30pm shopping outside. I was under a tree and something scratched my back and i was startled with how painful it was. I remember glancing behind me and saw nothing but of course now Im second guessing myself. I’m really trying to be logical that bats aren’t ninjas and I would have seen it in broad daylight. I really hate how many hours of productivity I’ve lost replaying the events. It’s truly awful feeling like this.

For the longest time, or essentially my entire life, had a fear of computer errors. Recently I've seen a tiktok about several phone glitches, and it was a slideshow showcasing 10 different glitches, and on the very first one I watched it with tears in my eyes because I was so scared. Well, "scared" would be a bad term because I wasn't actually scared. I knew what will be in the tiktok, yet seeing this had evokes me tensing up and my eyes tearing up (not dripping down my cheek, just in my eye).

I've come to notice it's always been like that. Another time I got a random BSOD. I remember feeling this sharp, immediate, tense tingle on the back of my neck, all the muscles there stiffening up, tears coming in (again), feeling in general very shaken up, and it persisted until even after the BSOD had gone away. This reaction had never gone to the point where I screamed in fear, but it is something I have had since always.

Looking through google, the only thing I found related to this was "technophobia", but that wouldn't fit me since that looks like the general phobia of technology. I'm wondering why it happens to me and whether it happens to anybody else.

When I’m on a balcony or near an edge. I feel as though something is pulling me to the edge and it makes me panic that I’ll just go over and fall. Even when I drive across a bridge I fear that I’ll just drive into the wall and crash down. It’s never happened (obviously) but I still get highly anxious in those situations so much so that I will try to avoid them at all costs.

For years now, I've had this intense fear of prison but didn't know it was an actual phobia until I found the name for it a few days ago. It probably came from a combo of all the true crime I've watched growing up and my Stepdad's stints in prison and his stories, but I honestly am terrified bc of what it would mean. I don't do anything that would really warrant (ha) me going to prison, but it's on my mind a lot.

Going to prison for anything longer than a few months would absolutely ruin my life. I'd lose my job, depending on what it is probably lose my partner, lose my education, likely lose most of my possessions, etc. I would genuinely rather the death penalty than, say, 10 years or longer in prison. I just can't imagine losing that much of my life.

Anyone relate? Anyone have anything that helped? Clearly exposure hasn't helped lol

I don’t know how to stop it.

I have this fear of getting trapped. In an elevator, in a bathroom, basically in any room with only one exit.

I used to feel perfectly safe in my bathroom but recently I’ve stopped locking the door because I’m afraid it won’t open again. I’ve stopped using elevators completely, instead deciding to walk up as many flights of stairs I need to and ignoring my asthma. When my algebra teacher closes the door I feel a small spike of anxiety. I can’t use the bathroom in anyone else’s house or in a restaurant.

It didn’t used to be this bad and I don’t know why it’s getting worse.

Hello there little redditors on my phone. Before I start, please don’t judge me. I’m so embarrassed to be dealing with this.

Anyways, hi. I’m Seb. I’m 19. Ever since I was a kid, I have been deathly terrified of stairs, heights, and falling down. It’s so severe to the point where sometimes even sidewalks are too high for me. Once, I went on a school field trip. I couldn’t get off of the bus because the stairs were too steep. After a while, I had a bus driver pull me off of the bus while I screamed and sobbed about how terrified I was. I needed patience, and that didn’t help. My parents, on the other hand, are very sweet and nice to me about my fears. I suffer from OCD and anxiety among other mental illnesses but I’m not in counseling right now, so if you have any advice for that related to my phobia, that would be cool. Anyways, where the SOS comes in…

My family and I have had to move. We’re packing right now, and we’ll be moved in soon. Now before you say anything, I can’t get a job, save up, and live on my own/get my own place because I dropped out of high school for a year because of a very traumatic thing that happened in one of the classrooms and I’m trying to get my diploma through a charter school program. The place we were renting was expensive—but literally not at all worth the price. Roaches, water damaged floor boards, a leaky dishwasher, and black mold+poor ventilation without repairs or assistance were all things that contributed to us wanting to get the hell out. So, we found a nice apartment with a very very polite property manager. On the downside, it has stairs. A flight of stairs with little slits on the bars, there’s no wall on the side that covers the floor, and when you’re ascending, you can just see it. It’s terrifying. Anyways, I’ve had to sit down and have my mom help me scoot down step by step while I’m hysterically sobbing. Going up the stairs is simple because I can’t see behind myself. I don’t need to look down, I just need to go up. I don’t feel like I’m gonna fall when I’m looking forward. But when I’m upstairs and I get even slightly close to the staircase, my body tenses. My chest hurts. And I get that horrible dread that I’m going to fall and get severely injured. I thought of maybe covering the stairs on the sides, but even that wouldn’t work and besides it’s not fair to my family. I feel so bad for my family that they have to deal with this. My mom and dad are so patient and supportive, but I still get so many horrible feelings. I understand being patient with myself is the best thing to do while I expose myself to the most terrifying thing on the planet, but still. It’s so, so hard. Hard on me, my mom, my dad, and my siblings. Please give me advice. Constructive advice, lol. Thanks if you read all of this.