Anxiety comes in all forms.  Whether you are struggling to finish an assignment for school, scared of bugs, or stressing from a sickness, anxiety can attack from all different aspects of life.  In fact, anybody who has experienced anxiety (and that is everyone) has experience the affect that it can have on a life.  It should not be surprising, then, that anxiety can cause an anxiety disorder in people who experience a significant anxiety.

An anxiety disorder is defined as a mental disorder characterized by high levels of anxiety causing symptoms of headache, sweating, spasms, fatigue, and exhaustion.  There are many different types of anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and phobias.

This article will focus on the anxiety disorder of phobias.  Phobias are defined as a disorder characterized by an intense, often irrational, constant fear of certain entities.  A person suffering from this anxiety disorder will display a desire to avoid the feared entity, often causing an interference with the individual’s ability to live a normal life.  The anxiety that comes with phobias may seem completely illogical and inexplicable to the outside eye, but to the person suffering from the anxiety disorder, the fear is very real.

Due to the thousands of different phobias, they are considered by the National Institute of Mental Health as the most common form of anxiety disorder.  They found that somewhere between 8.7% and 18.1% of Americans suffer from a form of this anxiety disorder.

Phobias are designated into three major categories, all of which are sub-types of anxiety disorder.  These three categories are social phobias, specific phobias, and Agoraphobia.  The type of phobia depends on the individual.  Some phobias are also significantly more severe in certain individuals than others, as some people will experience mild anxiety and other will suffer panic attacks.

Treatment for phobias usually come in the form of therapy.  Cognitive behavioral therapy, systematic desensitization, hypnotherapy, and medications have all been documented to be effective treatments for phobias.

As there are thousands of different types of phobias, it is inevitable that there are some that will seem absolutely silly to the common eye.  These phobias may be a legitimate anxiety disorder to the individual, but may seem like a joke to anybody else.  The rest of this article lists and describes 5 interesting phobias:

1.  Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia

Strangely enough, as I typed hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, I got red squiggly lines that informed me that I had misspelled it.  It is indeed a real word, however, describing the phobia, ironically, of long words.  There should be a phobia listed for the anxiety associated with typing these phobias, where is the form?

2.  Domatophobia

Domatophobia is the fear of houses.  A pretty unfortunate fear to have unless you have an affinity for tents or igloos, don’t you think?

3.  Ambulophobia

Ambulophobia is the fear of walking.  People suffering from ambulophobia are also known as the only other demographic in the world that buys seaways other than mall police.

4.  Chromophobia

Chromophobia is the fear of colors.  This makes for a very interesting group of people to study, that is, color-blind people somehow suffering from chromophobia.  That psyche must be ground-breaking in some way!

5.  Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia is the fear of the number 666.  Whoever makes these phobia names surely have it out for hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobics, huh?