Arachibutyrophobia-Not just hard to spell. Hard to live with.

I think I have developed a phobia. It used to be something I just didn’t like very much…but now it’s just spiraled out of control. The doctor called it ‘arachibutyrophobia’ or something like that…It’s a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.

I mean I love peanut butter…But whenever it touches the roof of my mouth I think I’m going to die. I can’t breathe…I feel like a gooey peanut-butter-like-substance is enveloping me…and squashing me. Squeezing all the air from my lungs. Now it’s gotten so out of hand that I have to avoid the peanut butter aisle all together in the supermarket, otherwise I start hyperventilating, and if someone in the lunch room at work is eating it I have to get up and leave, before I get engulfed. The peanut butter with the crunchy bits in is the worst-It makes me break out into a cold sweat just reading the label on the jar.

But I’m glad that that is the only phobia that I have. While I was at the doctors I saw a little frightened Chinese girl sitting in the waiting room looking very unhappy. And thin. She was oh so thin. She has consecotaleophobia, which is unfortunate for her…and even her family really, as it’s the fear of chopsticks.

Actually I guess I have one other phobia, which may be a really common one actually. Maybe you suffer from it too? Fear of dentists? Dentophobia?

In fact, the more I think of it, I actually know a lot of people with phobias of some kind or another. Like my brother, he is an chirophobic. The poor guy has a fear of hands and always has to wear mittens. First, we tried gloves, but you could still see the shape of his fingers that way-which would really freak him out, so now we use mittens. But it really affects him in a lot of ways. But he has learnt to cope quite well with everyday life now. He’s even managed to hold down a job, and he recently got married to a girl called Sarah. She’s a lovely girl. She was in a boating accident when she was nine, and both her hands were amputated, but they couldn’t be a happier couple.

Happy couples…that reminds me of my friend who has turned into a total weirdo if you ask me…I mean know she’s got an illness, but still. She keeps getting married and then divorced, and then married again….Over and over. The doctors say she has amptaphobia, which is supposedly a fear of being single…But she’s been married and divorced 12 times now. And she’s only 29. It’s quite ridiculous. She’s had therapy for it and everything. I think she might be faking it or something. Or that she likes the attention. After all Guiness World Records have contacted her twice already. The poor guy that she’s with now is worried that she’ll end up divorcing him for someone else. Who can blame him though-She used to be married to his brother. And his neighbour.

But coming back to phobias…I’m just so glad that I dont have something like genophobia-the fear of sex, or nomatophobia-the fear of names, because can you imagine how difficult life would be? Especially with nomatophobia, I mean how would you ever refer to anyone if you couldn’t muster the strength to say their name? You wouldn’t be able to phone people. Or have a job like being a teacher as you couldn’t do roll call, or take the register. It would really interfere. Or imagine being a teacher and having ephebiphobia-a fear of teenagers. That would suck. Or even if you werent a teacher. I mean what would you do to your own kids when they entered their teens? Disown them? Send them off to live with an aunt?

Life with phobias is very complicated. You really have to sympathise with phobics. I knew this girl once she died of a phobia. Poor thing. It really was bad. Just dropped dead one day. Beautiful funeral though-really very moving. She had panophobia. In case you didnt know, that’s a fear of everything.

-Probaphobic Sushi