View Full Version : Random/innocuous things that cause you great anxiety?
Does anyone on here get great anxiety about random things that most people would otherwise find seemingly innocent and/or trivial/unimportant in the grand scheme of things?
P.S, Please try not to get too personal or overly politicised in this thread.
I suspect everyone on here gets this.......:roflmao:
Robotic things. Not the sci-fi type AI robot, I can watch films with interactive robots on etc. But the more real life things; toys that move on their own kind of thing, when my son was little he activated a Darth Maul toy in Woolworths that moved jerkily waving a light saber around, I had to leave the shop rapidly. Also went for a visit to a shoe manufacturer (a work trip) and in one section of the factory there were these huge (they seemed huge) robotic arms that picked up an upper, turned it round, put it somewhere else and did something else, I could hardly breathe.
I think it all started with a Tippy Tumbles doll when I was a kid.
I've never heard of Tippy Tumbles but isn't it awful how childhood trauma stays with you. Good job you were too young to watch Twizzle on children's TV..(Don't google it!)
MyNameIsTerry
21-12-21, 06:34
China dolls. The stuff of horror movies. I keep expecting them to open their eyes or move their heads.
Not scary, just freaky.
I've never heard of Tippy Tumbles but isn't it awful how childhood trauma stays with you. Good job you were too young to watch Twizzle on children's TV..(Don't google it!)
It might not be the right name, my friend had one. It did a forward roll all on it's own. So tempted to google Twizzle, better not though.
Dolls, clowns.
The voice disguiser on the telephone featured in many films :scared15:
Eerie portrait paintings that seem to follow you with their eyes.
Wearing masks. Seeing people wearing masks.
Seeing an ambulance or a medic.
Eggs (but I'm getting better)
What about you Lencoboy?
Buttons - but I'm much better about them now.
Chocolate or plastic catkins?
Call me Edwin
21-12-21, 10:25
With me it's not real things I react to, but random thoughts about random objects or events. I tell myself that they mean nothing, it's just the mind wandering, but it then bothers the hell out of me... and it's the bothering that bothers me (if that makes sense)... I should be able to let the mind wander without it bothering me.
Chocolate or plastic catkins?
🤣🤣 definitely fine with chocolate ones and wood too predominantly plastic.
Dolls, clowns.
The voice disguiser on the telephone featured in many films :scared15:
Eerie portrait paintings that seem to follow you with their eyes.
Wearing masks. Seeing people wearing masks.
Seeing an ambulance or a medic.
Eggs (but I'm getting better)
What about you Lencoboy?
As for me, the letter 'S' pointing directly towards me from either the left or right (but not within a word or sentence) has always given me the heebies, even though it's completely physically harmless.
I've always hated eggs, the taste, smell, and even the look of them, especially the fried and scrambled varieties.
As for your fear of people wearing masks, it's most ironically the norm in many situations for obvious reasons right now!
Dolls, clowns.
The voice disguiser on the telephone featured in many films :scared15:
Eerie portrait paintings that seem to follow you with their eyes.
Wearing masks. Seeing people wearing masks.
Seeing an ambulance or a medic.
Eggs (but I'm getting better)
What about you Lencoboy?
Yes, ambulances are quite triggering aren’t they.
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i.e. Trivial Bugbears (https://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?244233-Trivial-bugbears)?
FMP
i.e. Trivial Bugbears (https://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?244233-Trivial-bugbears)?
FMP
This thread is more specifically about unusual anxieties and fears, rather than mere annoyances.
Probably not unusual, but... parties. Going for a work meal tonight. Normally this would be mildly anxiety inducing. After years of living in long shirts and slacks, though, I've bought a dress, tights and actual makeup. People will comment, and I'm a bit afraid I'll look like a clown.
I worry about needing a pee when there are no handy toilets or toilets that may be out of order or such like... on a plane/bus trip for example... all harks back to a time I was flying down to Spain and had a few beers and 20 minutes out from landing felt I better nip to the toilet... so I gets up stands in the queue, 3 folk in front of me... all tremendously slow... as Im about to enter the tiny toilet the seatbelt light pings on and Im told to go and sit down... I literally had one foot in the door and... I said 'I would be 1 minute'... but got literally pushed back to my seat.... by now busting to go and had to hold it in until we landed... proper horrible feeling. LOL. Now I plan in advance. :)
I worry about needing a pee when there are no handy toilets or toilets that may be out of order or such like... on a plane/bus trip for example... all harks back to a time I was flying down to Spain and had a few beers and 20 minutes out from landing felt I better nip to the toilet... so I gets up stands in the queue, 3 folk in front of me... all tremendously slow... as Im about to enter the tiny toilet the seatbelt light pings on and Im told to go and sit down... I literally had one foot in the door and... I said 'I would be 1 minute'... but got literally pushed back to my seat.... by now busting to go and had to hold it in until we landed... proper horrible feeling. LOL. Now I plan in advance. :)
I totally understand your concerns.
It does seem that toilet facilities happen to come way down on the priority lists of many managements, and they often have trouble comprehending that. Worst is, when they suddenly decide to close certain toilet facilities to the general public (especially when there's nothing actually wrong with said facilities) but still leave the signage up, which IMO amounts to false advertising, and indeed, laziness.
Usually to save a few quid over running and maintenance costs, even if the facilities haven't actually been 'misused' per se!
This thread is more specifically about unusual anxieties and fears, rather than mere annoyances.
:okay: Same difference.... but anyway....
FMP
Lencoboy, regarding face masks, I'm referring to any covering of the face. Those cut outs of famous people, balaclavas, Masquerade masks. Musicals like Phantom of the Opera, Cats and so on. Don't like any of them. On me or on anyone else.
Lencoboy, regarding face masks, I'm referring to any covering of the face. Those cut outs of famous people, balaclavas, Masquerade masks. Musicals like Phantom of the Opera, Cats and so on. Don't like any of them. On me or on anyone else.
I can reason with you there Carnation, as those particular masks/face coverings can creep some people out.
But I was merely mentioning the irony surrounding the wearing of face masks in response to this pandemic, which is now the norm.
Buttons - but I'm much better about them now.
Oh I've read about this, there are others its a named fear isn't it, but its rare - Koumpounophobia
This thread is more specifically about unusual anxieties and fears, rather than mere annoyances.
You don't need to justify :) I'm sure there is no problem AT ALL with your new thread.
AnxietySufferer
23-12-21, 14:55
I have terrible health anxiety and sometimes the things I freak out about will be so minor. My mum will literally be like, so what if it is that thats so treatable why are you freaking out so much :yesyes:
Yes, Lencoboy. Very ironic and must be very uncomfortable for so many for many different reasons.
Yes, Lencoboy. Very ironic and must be very uncomfortable for so many for many different reasons.
But a necessary evil though.
Oh I've read about this, there are others its a named fear isn't it, but its rare - Koumpounophobia
Try saying that after a glass of wine....
I don't know how its said before a glass of wine ! :D
Oh I've read about this, there are others its a named fear isn't it, but its rare - Koumpounophobia
Off to google. Although I must admit that I am kind of feeling special that I can say I have a really long fancy name.
Apparently Steve Jobs had Koumpounophobia. That explains the polo necks.
Apparently Steve Jobs had Koumpounophobia. That explains the polo necks.
How does it feel to be a Koumpounophobic, Catkins? It would be a marvellous question to have on "Mastermind" or "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"
Do you know what set it off in the first place?
How does it feel to be a Koumpounophobic, Catkins? It would be a marvellous question to have on "Mastermind" or "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"
Do you know what set it off in the first place?
I'm actually quite pleased that it isn't just me to be honest. I kind of always thought it was. I'm mostly OK with them now, well I say that, I guess I'm not totally OK, I would still choose a garment without buttons over one with, and men wearing dress shirts buttoned right up but wearing no tie I find incredibly unsettling.
Where did it come from? I remember as a kid my nan used always knit me these crew neck cardigans with plastic buttons on that would always be too large for the button holes. For some reason it was always deemed appropriate for them to be buttoned right up and I can remember what a faff it was trying to do that and my mum would have a right fiddle to do it, and then you'd have the obligatory photo to send to my nan to show that we were wearing them.
Maybe it's to do with that? Who knows? But a button jar, with spare buttons in, is the stuff of nightmares to me.
Hopefully you don't come across too many of these randomly these days? Must be a throwback to tight/restrictive buttoning-upping to please your nan in some way?
Hopefully you don't come across too many of these randomly these days? Must be a throwback to tight/restrictive buttoning-upping to please your nan in some way?
Which in itself can be a recipe for discomfort among some, especially us Auties.
Thankfully most of us seem to be a bit more laid back over the way we dress nowadays, provided we're not looking like full-on scruff-bags of course.
Let's face it, me and my dad only ever wear ties at weddings and funerals.
I look like a scruffbag :roflmao:
I look like a scruffbag :roflmao:
Well I can't see any photos of you so I therefore can't comment!
Goofygirl2015
05-01-22, 00:56
I got a microgreens gardening kit from my niece for Christmas and I was just saying things like that and planting seeds give me anxiety. I guess I am afraid of messing it up so it's easier to do nothing with it which gives me a whole other kind of anxiety.
I got a microgreens gardening kit from my niece for Christmas and I was just saying things like that and planting seeds give me anxiety. I guess I am afraid of messing it up so it's easier to do nothing with it which gives me a whole other kind of anxiety.
Fear of failure, possibly.
AuntWithIssues87
20-01-22, 20:55
Gum!! I don’t like the way most of it looks or feels and I certainly do not like listening to people chewing it.
Gum!! I don’t like the way most of it looks or feels and I certainly do not like listening to people chewing it.
I'm sure I read somewhere once that some autie children get freaked out by bits of chewing gum stuck to the underside of tables, etc.
On a similar note, although I can now laugh about this, when I was about 5 my mom's ironing board had this yellowy-coloured strip of sponge/foam that was shaped like a potato chip (French fry in the USA) stuck to the underside, and it used to freak me out big time, even to the point of developing a full-on phobia of said ironing board!
Needless to say, it put me off eating chips for about 6 months or so, and I had to have circular-shaped chips instead.
Luckily that ironing board phobia was only short-lived, and just a passing fad.
Just out of interest, has anyone ever felt a sense of discomfort over certain stimuli (a sound, sight, smell, taste, touch, or all or perhaps a combo of some of those stimuli) that initially passed virtually unnoticed but became more severe and intense over time to the extent of causing crippling anxiety?
That's happened to me a fair few times throughout my life, even to the point of other things associated with the discomforting/feared subjects/situations also starting to cause pain and anxiety.
I've had smells that have taken me back to an unhappy/traumatic situation. I guess almost like a flashback.
The strange thing is that they can be smells that I will have smelt before but if I'm feeling vulnerable or going through a bad time anxiety wise they can suddenly effect me. Fortunately for me this doesn't generally continue and when I'm feeling better in myself the smell doesn't effect me again.
While it doesn't cause great anxiety (and I've mentioned this before), beeping noises (like when a vehicle is backing up etc.) irritate the hell out of me. I know 100% its a leftover from cancer treatment. A dozen or so patients would be a large room with stations so to speak, where we'd receive chemo. If a line got occluded, the machine would beep. That inevitably happened several times while I was getting me dose of chemo. I would end up getting up and out of my station, take my chemo machine (which was on wheels) and go roam the halls on the floor I was on to get away from the sound. The nurses even joked about it with me. They would hear the beeping and then it was "There he goes" as I walked out of the room.
Other than that, and its funny because I'm a musician and perform to oft times crowded rooms of people, crowded stores get on my last nerve sometimes. Like today... We do our shopping on Sundays early to avoid the crowds but I wasn't feeling great this morning so we didn't get out until later in the morning and by that time the stores are buzzing with shoppers. I guess its because I'm old and crabby but I hate dealing with crowds taking their good 'ol time when I just want to get in and out. But again, it's not great anxiety as much as its irritability. And I also assume that for me, that's how stress/anxiety manifests itself. When I was dealing with 'scanxiety' after treatment, it was the same thing... I got irritable and had little patience in the weeks prior to my scans. Fortunately, the doctor gave me a non SSRI chill pill I could take in the time leading up to the scans that really took the edge off ;)
FMP
While it doesn't cause great anxiety (and I've mentioned this before), beeping noises (like when a vehicle is backing up etc.) irritate the hell out of me. I know 100% its a leftover from cancer treatment. A dozen or so patients would be a large room with stations so to speak, where we'd receive chemo. If a line got occluded, the machine would beep. That inevitably happened several times while I was getting me dose of chemo. I would end up getting up and out of my station, take my chemo machine (which was on wheels) and go roam the halls on the floor I was on to get away from the sound. The nurses even joked about it with me. They would hear the beeping and then it was "There he goes" as I walked out of the room.
Other than that, and its funny because I'm a musician and perform to oft times crowded rooms of people, crowded stores get on my last nerve sometimes. Like today... We do our shopping on Sundays early to avoid the crowds but I wasn't feeling great this morning so we didn't get out until later in the morning and by that time the stores are buzzing with shoppers. I guess its because I'm old and crabby but I hate dealing with crowds taking their good 'ol time when I just want to get in and out. But again, it's not great anxiety as much as its irritability. And I also assume that for me, that's how stress/anxiety manifests itself. When I was dealing with 'scanxiety' after treatment, it was the same thing... I got irritable and had little patience in the weeks prior to my scans. Fortunately, the doctor gave me a non SSRI chill pill I could take in the time leading up to the scans that really took the edge off ;)
FMP
Endless high-pitched beeping sounds can drive any otherwise sane person to distraction, especially as they seem to be virtually everywhere these days, but it seems most people manage to just put on a brave face most of the time.
Seriously, why do designers and manufacturers of electronic devices have to design such products to emit such sounds when switching functions and/or scrolling through menus?
They must assume that most people nowadays are hyposensitive and actually crave such torturous sensory overload.
Ditto for loud adverts on TV, YouTube, etc that often assault us with no warning, especially the Jet2 Holidays adverts with Jess Glynne's whiney high-pitched vocals (in the UK at least).
And don't even get me started on the OTT loud background music that plagues a lot of films, TV dramas and documentaries these days, of which I often find unnecessary and often detracts from the subject matter, and not forgetting poxy in-yer-face on-screen text!
Before Christmas I was watching a video on YouTube produced by a Warwick-based plumber, whose project was to remove a 'sunken' bath from a house somewhere on his manor.
The house looked like it was built sometime during the 80s (the outgoing bathroom suite was light blue, typical of the 80s era), and that particular property had a stepped-down section on the side, in which the 'sunken' bath was actually built into, but accessed from and as part of the (upper level) bathroom, with the 'sunken' bath nestled in an arched 'recess'.
The 'sunken' bath was eventually replaced with a (step-down) shower cubicle in the same 'recess'.
That 'sunken' bath in that 'recess' would have been the stuff of nightmares for me as a child, especially as it looked pitch dark in it without the lights on.
Even today as an adult in my mid 40s I still would have felt extremely uncomfortable using that bath.
Structural constraints aside, it seemed on the face of it like a rather oddball design, which also may have posed a
H & S hazard, especially if an unsupervised, curious little kid was to accidentally tumble head-first into it if it was full of water!
But the architects and builders obviously never gave that as much as a second thought at the drawing board stage;
such haphazard designs would probably be highly condemned in new-builds today in 2022!
Hearing someone cutting their nails makes me cringe :ohmy:
Hearing someone cutting their nails makes me cringe :ohmy:
And even worse, if people don't clean up the clippings afterwards, ewww!
MyNameIsTerry
01-02-22, 15:29
Hearing someone cutting their nails makes me cringe :ohmy:
Poor Mrs Doyle :ohmy::roflmao:
https://img.gifglobe.com/grabs/fatherted/S03E08/gif/jw5vOGJdrgiW.gif
MyNameIsTerry
01-02-22, 15:33
Just out of interest, has anyone ever felt a sense of discomfort over certain stimuli (a sound, sight, smell, taste, touch, or all or perhaps a combo of some of those stimuli) that initially passed virtually unnoticed but became more severe and intense over time to the extent of causing crippling anxiety?
That's happened to me a fair few times throughout my life, even to the point of other things associated with the discomforting/feared subjects/situations also starting to cause pain and anxiety.
I've had smells that have taken me back to an unhappy/traumatic situation. I guess almost like a flashback.
The strange thing is that they can be smells that I will have smelt before but if I'm feeling vulnerable or going through a bad time anxiety wise they can suddenly effect me. Fortunately for me this doesn't generally continue and when I'm feeling better in myself the smell doesn't effect me again.
There were some studies about how the anxious brain used smells. You might be interested in a thread I posted about years ago:
https://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?171097-The-Power-Of-Smell
I used to be scared of the sound of cold water tanks refilling on older-style DHW systems after the hot tap had been run for a lengthy period, especially the high-pitched shushing sound of the water running through the pipes in the entire system during said refill operation.
Ditto for the sound of some toilet cisterns refilling.
Also, open-front type toilet seats used to freak me out when I was little, but luckily I never needed to sit on one to do a number 2.
I'm OK with them now though.
MyNameIsTerry
21-02-22, 07:17
I always viewed open front toilet seats as a bit weird.
I always viewed open front toilet seats as a bit weird.
They have always been mandatory in non-private toilet facilities in the USA.
Here in the UK they are generally optional, at the discretion of the site owner(s), and unlike Stateside, non-compulsory.
I've never seen one fitted to a home toilet though, which I suppose could be done if really desired by the homeowner/tenant, but not really necessary, and would most certainly seem a bit of an oddball choice.
Similar to the installation of drain-off cocks (the things you attach hosepipes to and open with a special key to let the water out) not being warranted on upstairs radiators in houses with two or more storeys.
Me too Lencoboy, with the tank refilling.
Sometimes when the boiler fires up too.
Me too Lencoboy, with the tank refilling.
Sometimes when the boiler fires up too.
At my grandma's old flat in West Bromwich, the central heating boiler was behind the gas fire in the living room, and the sound of it firing up and the flame roaring used to freak me out when I was a little kid. Even my grandma hated the sound of it herself, and was glad to get away from it when she moved to Tamworth (to another ground floor flat approximately half a mile from where we live) in 86.
She had a similar type of gas CH system there, but with a much quieter boiler.
Perhaps my anxieties about certain sounds as a child could partly have been learned behaviours from my grandma, and/or possibly genetic.
My mom told me she was terrified of pneumatic drills when she was a kid, and the one day when there were roadworks near where she lived one suddenly started up while she was out playing, and she rapidly legged it back home screaming in sheer terror!
MyNameIsTerry
21-02-22, 12:09
Drain cocks on higher levels wouldn't be much use since they would only drain off what is above that point. They are used in central heating systems to drain the whole lot out so they are at the lowest part of the run.
There's nothing stopping you putting them anywhere but it would be a bit pointless.
Our new boiler lighting sounds like something off the starship Enterprise.
Drain cocks on higher levels wouldn't be much use since they would only drain off what is above that point. They are used in central heating systems to drain the whole lot out so they are at the lowest part of the run.
There's nothing stopping you putting them anywhere but it would be a bit pointless.
Our new boiler lighting sounds like something off the starship Enterprise.
Exactly Terry.
That's why they're rarely ever seen on upper floor plumbing period, unless it's in a self-contained property like a flat or a unit in an office block, etc.
They aren't particularly handsome looking things either.
MyNameIsTerry
21-02-22, 16:00
I suppose some creative person could always knit a drain cock posing pouch to smarten them up. Business opportunity right there :yesyes:
I suppose some creative person could always knit a drain cock posing pouch to smarten them up. Business opportunity right there :yesyes:
A true willy-waving opportunity!
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