“I’m terrified! No, petrified. No… There isn’t a word strong enough to describe it. It’s like I have flu, only with my heart pounding, and it HURTS! Nauseas, dizzy. I can’t stop shaking… Is this what a heart attack feels like? At least that would get me out of here, not that I want to be in the hospital. But maybe…ANYwhere but here. SOMEONE HELP!!!” – excerpt from my 8th grade journal

Any guess what I was referring to? I’ll give you a hint. It stinks, can turn blond hair greenish and sounds like “swish, swish”…or, when I’m around, “AGGGHHH!”

Yep—swimming class. I don’t know where my fear came from, but others in my family share it and trust me, it had nothing to do with the stench or hair tint. And although I made a huge personal step by dipping fully below the water and floating for the very first time about six years ago (I call this swimming), the mere thought of chlorinated swimming pools inspires nausea. *Pauses for a ginger-chew.*

Specific phobia, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, involves “marked and persistent fear and avoidance of a specific object or situation,” including, but not limited to, the fear of heights, spiders and flying. Roughly 9 percent of the U.S. population experiences them, 21.9 percent of whom with severe symptoms.

To someone who’s never experienced such fear, they seem ludicrous. But when you have a phobia, it seems like the most logical thing in the world. When people tell me they don’t recall not knowing how to swim, that it’s as natural as breathing in and out, I’m as dumbfounded as they are when I share my need for floaties and, most preferably, dry land.

Some of the more common phobias, according to MayoClnic.com, include fear of: enclosed spaces (claustrophobia), heights (acrophobia), animals (zoophobia), flying, storms, dentists, injections, bridges, tunnels and my personal fave, water (hydrophobia).

Social phobia involves intense social shyness and self-conciousness. Agoraphobia, which affected Sigorney Weaver’s character in the film, “Copycat,” involves fear of open places with no simple means of escape.

Uncommon phobias, which are debilitating to a very few people, include:

• Ambulophobia: the fear of walking
• Anablephobia: the fear of looking up
• Arachibutyrophobia: the fear of peanut butter sticking to your mouth
• Barophobia: the fear of gravity
• Cataptrophobia: the fear of mirrors
• Chionophobia: the fear of snow
• Chromatophobia: the fear of colors
• Chronomentrophobia: the fear of time
• Genuphobia: the fear of knees
• Geumapobia: the fear of taste
• Hypnophobia: the fear of sleep
• Mnemophobia: the fear of memories
• Peladophobia: the fear of bald people
• Siderophobia: the fear of stars
• PhobiaPhobia: the fear of fear itself (Okay, I made that one up. But it’s possible, no?)