10 Incredibly Unusual Phobias That Are Actually Legit

There are quite a few interesting, strange, and memorable phobias out there. Some of them are pretty common, and expected. Take the fear of sharks, for example (galeophobia). Then, there’s the fear of snakes (ophidiophobia). Or the fear of the supposedly bad luck one gets from the number thirteen (triskaidekaphobia). There’s even the fear of clowns (coulrophobia) if you want to get really deep down in the weeds. But there are some incredibly strange and unexpected phobias even beyond those. And we are certain you never knew some of the strangest ones were actually medically documented and researched!

In this list, we’ll take a look at ten incredibly unusual phobias that some people have. Doctors and psychologists have actually had to help people work through some of these fears. It may not seem rational to most of us, but there are folks out there who have debilitating terror at the mere thought of these unexpected things. Are you scared of peanut butter? Or cooking? Or making telephone calls? Read on, then—you might be one of these people!

Related: 10 Inspiring Stories of People Who Overcame Adversity

10 Arachibutyrophobia

Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Seriously, that’s an actual medically documented fear. Of course, nearly all of us have experienced the feeling of peanut butter sticking to the tops of our mouths. And our canine companions very often tend to love that feeling! But for the very worst cases, arachibutyrophobia represents a terror-inducing phenomenon. And psychologists believe that it all has to do with the human body’s natural fear of losing its airway and choking to death.

See, since peanut butter is so sticky, it can theoretically coat the insides of your mouth and make it hard to breathe… if you take a big enough bite. The natural solution to this is two-fold: either take smaller bites, or just use your tongue to get all the peanut butter off the roof of your mouth. But some people become practically paralyzed with fear at the mere thought of peanut butter sticking inside their mouth and closing up their airway.

In the best cases, people suffering from arachibutyrophobia can eat very, very small amounts of peanut butter. In the worst cases, they must avoid it entirely. You’ve probably heard all about peanut allergies and children having to avoid peanut butter. But this is a new twist, isn’t it?^[1]

9 Mageirocophobia

Mageirocophobia is the irrational and severe fear of cooking. Most typically, this phobia can take on several forms, including fear of cooking after having some sort of adverse situation crop up like getting burned by food while preparing it. Doctors and psychologists typically recognize one of five kinds of mageirocophobia in the most severe cases with patients.

First, one may be afraid of spreading illness or getting sick due to cooked food. People with that version of the phobia may have gotten severely sick from undercooked food in the past, and are terrified of it happening once again. Second, patients may suffer from the fear of the actual cooking process. Like we mentioned, that could come from rational or irrational worries about burning themselves while preparing food.

Third, people may actually have such a significant and paralyzing fear of recipes—yes, recipes—that they freeze up and refuse to cook. Anxiety sweeps in when they see the list of things they have to do to make food, they get scared, and they shut down.

Other forms of mageirocophobia include the fear of food knowledge, which manifests itself in being extremely worried about the ingredients that go into one’s body and the possible poisons or toxins one consumes with modern food. It also involves the fear of food intake itself, which is most often seen among those with eating disorders. It sounds a little goofy, but mageirocophobia is a legitimate issue for a very, very small number of people. And really, how do you survive when you have a fear of food?^[2]

8 Telephobia

We all hate talking on the telephone. But if you REALLY hate talking on the phone, you might have something called telephobia. Put pretty simply, that’s the fear of talking on the telephone so much that it begins to negatively impact your life. The “fear of telephones” is mostly recognized as a social anxiety and not a physical fear at the sight of a telephone sitting on the desk or something. (Although, wouldn’t that be wild?)

The interesting thing is that millions upon millions of people the world over have some very mild form of telephobia. Various surveys done throughout the ’90s, 2000s, and 2010s all seem to show that people in many developed countries hate to talk on the phone so much that they feel anxiety about doing it.

Of course, most of those anxieties are of a very low-level intensity. For those people, experts usually use the term “telephone apprehension” as opposed to full-on telephobia. But regardless, talking on the phone seems to be a nearly insurmountable task for many people. Are you one of them?^[3]

7 Xanthophobia

Have you ever been so fearful of a color that you simply couldn’t look at anything painted with its hue? That’s exactly the case with xanthophobia, which is the fear of the color yellow. Imagine no bananas, no school buses, and no mustard! Even beautiful things like various kinds of flowers are a no-go for people who suffer from xanthophobia.

Like many things on this list, this might seem like a mighty weird phobia. But experts believe that many xanthophobia cases pop up after somebody has a traumatic experience, especially in childhood, which their brain later comes to associate with the color yellow. Thus, every time they see something bright yellow, their minds go back to that awful experience, their bodies seize up, and they become anxious about it all over again. The mind is a fickle mistress, isn’t it?^[4]

6 Ablutophobia

Ablutophobia is the fear of bathing, washing, or cleaning oneself. Yeah, this is about to get really weird—and gross. Most commonly, small children have some low level and underlying fear of bathing and baths for a variety of reasons. Not only is bath time not always so much fun, but going into the water can be scary for kids still getting used to the tub. They may understandably feel like they are drowning, even if Mom and Dad are right there to keep them nice and safe. And with the vast, vast majority of kids, their ablutophobia goes away as they age and never becomes a thing.

But for a very small number of people, ablutophobia is a persistent, lifelong condition. Some of these people are generally scared of water (AKA aquaphobia) and thus don’t want to be associated with it at all. Others are more fearful of the actual act of bathing for whatever reason. As for us? Well, we are pretty sure that we have ablutophobiaphobia… the fear of people who are too scared to bathe! Talk about a stinky situation!^[5]

5 Nomophobia

Are you scared of going somewhere without your phone? We all feel a little bit of anxiety (or maybe relief, to be honest) when we’re out and about without our phones in this day and age. But for some people, spending time without their phone can be a downright terrifying experience! For those people, the word nomophobia describes their condition. And the term itself is a bit of a play on words. First coined in 2008 in the United Kingdom, nomophobia is a combination of the words “NO MObile PHOne,” and plastered upon the -phobia suffix. Creative, right?

As for the actual condition itself, people who are overly connected to the digital world may feel a profound sense of anxiety and despair if they are asked to go somewhere or do something without their cell phone remaining nearby. That anxiety can also morph more deeply into a situation where they begin to stress if their battery gets low or their phone cuts out of service. Obviously, in this day and age, we recognize a parallel condition to nomophobia: cell phone addiction. It’s good to log off every now and again. Go walk through the park or take a hike out in nature. Leave your phone behind. Please…^[6]

4 Optophobia

Unless you are legally blind, your eyes are arguably the most important part of your body—at least when it comes to navigating through the world and living your life. But in very rare cases, people with perfectly healthy eyes absolutely refuse to open them. And the mere thought of being forced to open their eyes and view the world incites in them profound discomfort and terror. That condition is known as optophobia, simply defined as the fear of opening one’s eyes. That sounds ridiculous, right? Like we’re making things up at this point in the list? But we promise that we’re not! In fact, optophobia goes a bit deeper than just a goofy punchline or a weird ailment.

Many people who suffer from varying degrees of optophobia do so because they are suffering from a more generalized anxiety disorder on top of that. In many of those cases, these sufferers experienced some kind of traumatic event that made them want to shut themselves off from the world and not leave their homes.

Optophobia sufferers very often live indoors nearly around the clock and stay either in the dark or in a very dimly lit area. In doing so, they are trying their best to shut out the world after experiencing tragedy, terror, or something else terrible.^[7]

3 Globophobia

Globophobia is the irrational fear of balloons. For many people who suffer from this unique and strange condition, it can go hand-in-hand with coulrophobia—the fear of clowns. After all, clowns very often make balloon animals or have set-ups in which balloons are present. So maybe that makes sense: You pick up a fear of one of those things, and then the other one quickly follows because they are always associated in your mind.

Regardless, being afraid of balloons is sort of a strange one. For some people, the fear is so great that even just seeing balloons on television can produce intense anxiety. For other people, the threat of balloons popping and making very loud, abrupt noises can be triggering enough to cause the heart to race with fear and uncertainty.

In that way, globophobia can start innocently enough: A person could be scared half to death by a popping balloon when they were just a small child, and that fear can fester deep in their psyche for years until reappearing unexpectedly when they live out their life as an adult.^[8]

2 Ephebiphobia

Ephebiphobia is the fear of adolescents or teenagers. Those suffering from it are terrified that teenagers will misbehave or otherwise wreak havoc in public. And that makes perfect sense to us: Some teenagers are often loud, rude, unpredictable, selfish, and generally annoying. So, for people who suffer from ephebiphobia, when they see teenagers somewhere in the public sphere, they immediately become uncertain about their intentions and worry that something bad or unwanted is about to happen.

Interestingly, experts blame most cases of ephebiphobia on negative portrayals of teenagers in the media. From news reports about supposedly antisocial kids drinking and doing drugs to movies that glorify those things and so many more vices for young people, teens are seen as wild little people and loose cannons. And you know what? Ephebiphobics are right on this one. We’ll back them all the way. Ephebiphobia might be a pretty strange phobia, but teenagers sometimes do indeed create chaos. This is one strange phobia that we can actually get behind!^[9]

1 Ergophobia

Forget about ephebiphobia—we just found an even better phobia to back. This would be ergophobia, which is the irrational fear of hard work. No, seriously. People who suffer from ergophobia experience extreme anxiety related to work, thinking about their place of work or having to generally deal with the working world. Some fear manual labor and the difficulties of certain jobs. Others fear the thought of finding a job altogether. Obviously, this can have a huge impact on a person’s ability to lead a full life and make a living.

For some people, ergophobia sets in after a particularly grueling period at work, which leads them into a full-scale burnout. For other people, the condition flourishes after a particularly mean boss or superior on the job is especially cruel or vindictive. Either way, ergophobia prevents people from wanting to go to work, do hard work, or put in a hard day’s labor.

To be honest, we kind of like this phobia, too. We’re going to try it at the office on Monday morning. “Hey, bossman,” we’ll say. “We have ergophobia, and we can’t work today. Thanks for understanding!”^[10]