For as long as I can remember, I’ve been petrified by any kind of bug. Anything – ants, roaches, centipedes, mosquitoes, flies, hornets, bees – EVERYTHING. Any time I think I feel a bug on me, I spaz out. Any time I see any kind of flying bug, I run and scream like a little girl (I’m a 20 y/o male).
For the past few months, there have been many nights where I’ve lost sleep due to seeing a bug before I go to bed. It drives me insane and there is absolutely no way I can stay in bed. I usually end up in my living room with all of the lights on, searching the internet about entomophobia for hours.
People always laugh or think I’m joking when I react the way that i do, but I can’t help it. I’ve spoken to a lot of people about this problem, but the only place I can find anyone who feels the same way as me is on the internet.
I’ve tried to trace my fear back to specific events in my past and I have 3 main events that i think have caused this phobia. When I was 7 or 8, I stepped in an ant hill with bare feet and got stung all the way up my leg and when I was 10, a wasp stung me on the earlobe. These events are things I think about on a weekly basis, any time a bug comes close to me.
The third event is quite interesting. When I was 14, I visited Kenya and we visited a small village where there were bugs EVERYWHERE. I wasn’t as scared of bugs back then as I am today, but one disgusting image sticks with me to this day.
There was a man, around the age of 60-80, who had flies crawling ALL OVER HIM. There were at LEAST 20 on his face alone, crawling on his eyes, in his nose and ears and he just sat there and let it happen. It was one of the most terrifying things I think I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen some stuff). I KNOW I’m blowing this way out of proportion but I have no idea what to do. I’m so scared of bugs and I feel like they’re out to get me. It’s the dumbest thing, but I had to share this somewhere. Cheers.
I feel you. Every time I think about a bug or see a bug, or even if anybody mentions the word spider, I freak out. I can’t go outside without racing away like a crazed person automatically screaming. Everybody thinks I’m crazy, I just hate bugs, but nobody gets it.
Honestly, I know how that feels, and I just learned about phobias, discovering I had one.
I thought I was alone. It seems like the older I’m getting, the worse it gets. Guys, I feel like I’m going insane. Currently, there’s a slight locust infestation in and around my area. I don’t leave my house, and I lost so many days at work. Any creature, crawling or flying, literally scares me so bad I burst out in tears, crying like a mad person. My friends don’t understand. They brush it off and call me silly, so now I avoid them. I was thinking of going to see someone who can help me with this. It’s becoming out of control.