Acrophobia

Many people have phobias of some sort. I have seen people who are afraid of chickens, cats, frogs among many other things. Probably the most common phobia is acrophobia --- afraid of height. I have this one. I am coping a lot better as I get older, but when I was a child, I had a lot of problem with it. I couldn't walk on the cross bridges to cross the street. I still don't like going on any kind of bridges and I will avoid if possible, but in general, I can handle better.
Phobia is very different from being just afraid. I am afraid of dark places especially after watching ghost stories on TV, but I don't have a phobia of dark place. When I'm on high place, I am O.K. if I am surrounded by high fences, but I can't go somewhere with low fences or no fence around. I just can't go to the edges. I think I'm on alert at the high place even if I was surrounded with high fences, but I don't go panic. It is a totally different feeling from just "don't like" or regular type of being afraid.
I also noticed another kind of fear watching google earth. Google earth is a program that will take you anywhere in the world. It shows the earth and you can quickly go down to wherever you want to go, but the way you look down from the high place and the speed of going down make me very scared. I think it is similar to being scared of height. Somehow these are related, but I get overwhelming feeling using google earth. I am afraid.
If you think about it, it makes sense to be afraid of height. You can feel that you might fall down from there, but being afraid of google earth is strange, but that happens. I know that I am not going to fall anywhere watching computer screen, but the sensation of moving on top of mountains and oceans makes me uneasy, especially on top of oceans.
There is a list of phobias online like wikipedia. When you look through the list, you might find more. I have a few more things.

Fear of butterfly --- Called mottephobia. I think I am almost overcoming this phobia. I still don't like real butterflies, but I don't have to run away so badly now.

Fear of human figure dolls --- Called automatonophobia. I never liked human shaped dolls like Barbies, but I was particularly afraid of Japanese dolls with kimono. Unless their face is made like cartoon, I can't look at their faces. If the doll looks more human, I am more afraid of it.


Image by Renato Ganoza on flickr