Tony DeyalFRANKLYN DELANO Roosevelt is famous for saying, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That is not true. There are more than 500 listed fears that afflict humanity ranging from the tongue-in-cheek arachibutyrophobia or the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth, to zemmiphobia or the fear of the great mole rat. These fears are called phobias.
For a long time my greatest fear was succumbing to a phobia. There is even a name for that. It is called phobophobia. And if you're afraid of being afraid that you're going to fall prey to some mind-numbing fear it would probably be called phobophobophobia.
A phobia is an excessive or unreasonable fear of an object, place or situation. There are simple ones like being afraid of animals (like rats) or reptiles, specifically snakes, or of flying. Agoraphobia is a fear of being in places where one feels "trapped" or unable to get help, such as in crowds, on a bus, or standing in a queue. This can also be called claustrophobia, a term which has nothing to do with Christmas, Santa or being wedged in a chimney hoping that Rudolph and the other reindeer wouldn't fly off and leave you.
A lot of people suffer from polyphobia. This is not a fear of being bitten by a parrot but means to have more than one fear. While unusual, there are people who suffer what are called "antinomial" or opposites phobia. For instance, some people live with vestiophobia or the fear of clothes and also have gymnophobia or the fear of nakedness or being nude. There are cases of people with achluophobia (fear of darkness) and photophobia (fear of light).
Those people who don't know whether they're coming or going are in the same category. Maybe they're suffering from decidophobia and fear making decisions. Clearly some fears, like the fear of rectums, can determine your profession. In this case, you would not be a proctologist if you have proctophobia. The most recent of all fears is cyberphobia or the fear of computers and the most ancient is zeusophobia or the fear of God or gods.
Analysing phobias can be time consuming. For instance, take a phobia propounded by one of our Caribbean heroes, the Mighty Sparrow. According to Sparrow, "Ah fraid, ah fraid, ah fraid pussy bite me."
For some of us that is an unreasonable and somewhat trivial fear. However, if it is that he is afraid of cats, it is called "allurophobia". There is no word for the fear of being bitten. However, if he is afraid of being scratched by the animal he has amychophobia. If he is afraid that the scratch or bite will bleed, the fear of blood is hemophobia. If it is a wildcat that occasions the fear, the condition is called agrizoophobia. If he is afraid by being touched by the fur or skin of the animal, his condition is known as doraphobia.
If, however, like all good consultants we believe there is an underlying problem and that his verbal expression has sexual roots and connotations, the situation is utterly different. The fear of female genitalia is known as "eurtophobia". It has nothing to do with the continent or even the incontinent. Since some nudity might be involved that fear, as we know, is gymnophobia, which has nothing to do with sexual performance. That is another fear called atychiphobia.
You might suffer from dishabilliophboia and be afraid to undress in front of anyone. What if you have chiratophobia and are afraid of being touched by
anyone? Fear of being ridiculed is catagelphobia. Perhaps you or the object of your affection might be suffering from ithyphallophobia. This is the fear of an erection. In this case, it is neither a tall building nor a child's plaything. Worse, you can have malaxophobia and be afraid of foreplay up to and including Trinidadian male foreplay which is, "Honey, I'm home." There are people who suffer from bromidrosiphobia or fear of bodily odours. If taken to the logical conclusion, there is the fear of kissing or philemaphobia, falling in love (philophobia), and dryness or xerophobia.
You might be afraid to start a relationship because of caligynephobia or fear of beautiful women. Childbirth might be an issue here and if you are afraid of it you are tocophobic which, for Trinidadians, means not going anywhere near the North-East peninsula to a place called Toco where you run the risk of meeting Ian Bishop or Merv Dillon. There is no word for fear of fast bowlers except perhaps "weshallophobia". The worst thing for persons afraid to be bitten by a pussy is to have chaetophobia or the fair of hair. When a drugstore was robbed recently, and the only items that remained on the shelves were hair tonic and condoms, police started looking for a chaetophobic, erotophobic (fear of making love), heterophobic (fear of opposite sex) catholic who is probably not papaphobic. The word "papaphobic" is fear of the Pope and not fear of becoming a father or, for Spanish-speaking persons, fear of a potato.
There is no word among the five hundred for a fear that has taken hold of most of the population of Trinidad and Tobago, and now, increasingly, Jamaicans.
It is the fear of being kidnapped. This is a complex fear. It is more than harpaxophobia or the fear of being robbed, or even of merintophobia or being tied up. It is more pain than contained in odynophobia, and more fear of bad men than the word scalerophobia can ever hope to represent.
The fear of dying or thanatophobia is omnipresent. I call it "claytonophobia" and base it on the name of the big-shot, highly-touted international kidnapping expert now in Trinidad to advise the Government on how to deal with kidnappers. He is already being paid a king's ransom. However, since he came to the country there have been even more kidnappings, three in four days of last week. Mr. Clayton himself is reputed to travel with bodyguards because he, too, is suffering from claytonophobia.
Tony Deyal was last seen looking for a word to describe his greatest fear, which is the fear of politicians continuing to destroy his country. He tried "pandayophobia" and "manningophobia" but the closest he came was "coulrophobia" or the fear of clowns.
