Phobias, phobias, phobias. Whether you admit you have them or not, phobias are relatively common. You may know a few, but I bet you’ve probably never heard of these strange fears.

Trypophobia

As CNN puts it, Trypophobia is “an intense and irrational fear of holes, bumps and round clusters.” Ok. A fair warning: you probably don’t want to look at reaction-inducing images if you think you may have Trypophobia, and this article contains some of those. Despite the fact that it may sound obscure, Trypophobia is relatively common. Lotus pods often cause anxiety attacks in people who are Trypophobic. If you want to see some images that may cause reactions, check out this CNN slideshow. Common Symptoms? People experiencing reactions may have panic attacks or goosebumps. Weird.

Chirophobia

This one is not to be confused with Mysophobia, a fear of germs often resulting in compulsive hand washing. That one is weird too, but… fear of… hands? Like some other phobias, this could be genetic, but often you could get it from having a traumatic experience while young. Symptoms include sweating, nausea, irregular heartbeat, and inability to enunciate. Basically, people just get nervous. It depends on the seriousness of the fear, of course. There is medicine, but it can only suspend the fear: most phobia medicines don’t solve fears. They can only temporarily lessen symptoms. Some people with this fear are afraid of hands rubbing together or other hand movements.

Euphorbia

The big question here is why anyone would be afraid of good news. Just like most phobias, it is often triggered by a past event. Perhaps… hearing so many good things you never want to hear anything positive again? Actually, you could get this fear from hearing good news that turned out not to be true. For example, someone might have thought they won the lottery but found out the got the right numbers but the wrong date. People with this fear often do not express and joy when good news is told. Some even become nervous when good news arrives.

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

The person who named this one either had it in for people with this fear or and a really cruel sense of humor. Whatever the case, this fear was poorly named. It describes the fear of long words, even though it is so long itself. One has to wonder what event would cause you to fear long words. A bad LA teacher? Too many required reading books? Imagine trying to describe your fear to others. At least it’s name is so long no one would try to say it to you.

Aurophobia

Aurophobia is the fear of gold. Gold specifically: not money (there is a fear of that too). It’d be hard to leave your house because gold-colored things are relatively common. Perhaps slightly weirder than the fear of metal, Autophobia usually is not a severe fear. How could you get it? Well, usually it would be caused by a past event (just like almost every other fear!) involving some sort of gold-related shock. Getting hit with gold? Losing gold? This one is definitely weird.

Nomophobia

Last, but certainly not least, it’s… Nomophobia! The fear of being without a cell phone! Perhaps by freak chance, the web page I researched this on had and add that said, “Slow is the new broken. Improve cloud performance!” This fear includes being afraid of running out of minutes, losing service, battery, or, of course, being without your phone. One 2008 study showed 53% of mobile users get anxious when they couldn’t use their phones. Over 50% never shut their phones down. And the numbers are increasing. Honestly, though, this one’s not that surprising. In an age where we are so reliant on tech, a phobia like this was bound to arise. And really, isn’t there a phobia for everything?

Thank you for reading my article. I will have many more in the future so look for those if you like this one. I didn’t have a ton of time but there were several others I wanted to include. Who knows. Maybe I’ll make another of these someday.