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Zoophobia is a fear of animals. People are scared not just of tigers and wolves, but even of dogs and cats. In fact, cynophobia is a specific phobia that arises out of fear of dogs and ailurophobia is a phobia that is caused by fear of cats. If we thought there was no phobia of rats, we are mistaken - it is called musophobia or murophobia.
While we understand that some people might have ophidiophobia or an abnormal fear of snakes or herpetophobia, more specifically, fear of reptiles, it is strange some people have ornithophobia—fear of birds.
All these phobias make us realize that F E A R is actually False Expectations that Appear Real. That is why different people have different phobias and there is no logic to the phobia. Why does somebody have cibophobia is a matter beyond understanding. Cibophobia is the fear of food. The sight of food itself terrorizes them.
We can write an entire book only on phobias and how these irrational fears affect our day to day life. In the modern world, people have developed cyberphobia—an irrational fear of computers or even technology. There is acrophobia— or the fear of heights, Spectrophobia or a fear of mirrors or even examinophobia, a common fear of examinations. Such a fear often causes people to develop high fever and even diarrhoea just before the examinations.
TAKEAWAYS FEAR AND PHOBIA
Fear became a phobia centuries ago. In the ancient days, the Greeks talk of philophobia, or the fear of love. The fear extended into fear of emotional attachment, falling in love, being in love or even falling out of love. Fear has continued to create havoc in the world with some people becoming nervous of Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia—a fear of long words. These are not imaginary. They are real fears!
Today, we are in the grip of fear again. The whole world seems to be affected by ‘Coronaphobia’, the latest phobia born in 2020. The phobia has become so rampant and threatening that it has locked down most of the world. It is a virus that is not just causing cough and fever but is also killing people. However, death is not something that we can escape from. We have to learn to accept it. The fear of death looms large and envelops the entire globe. People are living locked in their homes, lest they get the COVID-19 disease and die. Coronaphobia is probably the greatest phobia the world has seen in the last hundred years. It has bypassed thanatophobia, the fear of death by miles and bounds. While Coronavirus is not anywhere close to being the major cause of death in the world today as compared to the people dying all over the world due to various other reasons, the phobia created by Coronavirus has convinced humanity to feel that the virus is going to destroy the world. This phobia, like any other phobia, is just an irrational fear.