Living in fear

If you've ever run away screaming from a "spider" that turned out to be a piece of lint, then you probably know what it's like to have a phobia.

"Phobias are an irrational overreaction to things that might not actually be threatening in the moment," said Chris Correia, professor of psychology who has a doctorate in clinical psychology. "It often leads to avoidance, and because of that, it can lead to impairment."

People are afraid of all kinds of things, and fear can be healthy, Correia said.

"You can think of fear as our own natural and usually adaptive response to the environment," Correia said.

Fear causes us to react appropriately when we encounter a danger. People who have phobias, however, experience the same reactions when no danger is present.

Phobias are one thing Jenna Silverman, counselor at the AU Medical Clinic who has a doctorate in clinical psychology, tries to help people to overcome.

"Oftentimes, people that are suffering from phobias often recognize that it's very irrational, but still feel helpless over the anxiety," Silverman said.

Silverman said the most common phobias that students come in for help with are public speaking and flying.

But some Auburn students have more uncommon fears.

"I am afraid of relish," said Steven Ritz, junior in aerospace engineering. "Probably the best word to describe how I view relish is 'sinister.'"

Ritz's fear of relish originates with an experience he had in middle school.

As large tubs of condiments were being organized for the school's upcoming fall carnival, a tub of relish got out of control.

"The lid spins off, and the relish flies all over me," Ritz said. "It just got everywhere, and it seemed to stay everywhere." This experience sparked the beginning of Ritz's phobia.

Having a traumatic experience is a common cause of phobias, as well as avoidance of certain situations.

"Avoidance in the short term will reduce the fear, but avoidance also reinforces, in a sense, the idea that you should continue to avoid whatever it is that you fear," Correia said. "That's what kind of helps maintain the phobia."

Avoidance is what Courtney Smith practices when faced with more than two flights of stairs.

Courtney, senior in journalism, has had two bad experiences falling down stairs, spraining her ankle both times.

"If I have to walk down like three flights of stairs, I'll more than likely try to take the elevator," Courtney said.

However, she tries not to let the phobia be a hindrance, at least when it's only a couple flights of stairs.

"I can't just take the elevator downstairs all the time," Courtney said. "I go down really slowly with my hand grasped on the rail, so people who walk behind me end up having to pass me because I go really, really, really slow."

Chapter 8, "Psychopathology in Adulthood," by Douglas S. Mennin, Richard G. Heimberg and Craig S. Holt, in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders," 4th ed. (DSM-IV) might classify Smith's phobia as a situational type.

The DSM-IV recognizes four other categories of "specific" phobias, which are animal type, natural environment type, blood-injection-injury type and other type.

"The more specific phobias tend to be if there is a certain situation--for example, claustrophobia, or if you have hydrophobia, fear of water," Silverman said.

Additional phobias include social phobia, comprising things like public speaking and group interactions, and agoraphobia, a fear of being alone in public places that is often tied to panic disorder.

Ashley Mundy, junior in English, said she has had a fear of snakes all her life, which was intensified during the years her family spent in Japan.

"My mother decided that she wanted to do whatever the Japanese were doing because they were all standing in a line," Mundy said. "We got to the front of the line, and there was an albino python that people were wrapping themselves up with to take pictures."

Mundy said her fear originated when her family lived in California.

Wrapping up with the giant python only confirmed her fears.

"It just re-emphasized everything that I had ever thought about snakes," Mundy said. "And then they tried to take it off, and it didn't want to let go of me, so it started squeezing, and I just wasn't OK with that. So now, it doesn't matter how big they are or how small they are, the only good snake that I have ever seen in my entire life is a dead one."

The process of developing a phobic reaction depends the severity of the event, the way the event is handled and even the biology of the person involved.

"It may be that some people are genetically predisposed to be more sensitive to difficult or fearful or traumatic life events," Correia said. "It may be that the parts of the brain that are responsible for responding to fearful events, the parts of the brain that remember those fearful events, might be over or under active."

Those parts of the brain are the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory, and the amygdala, which is responsible for the hormones that trigger "fight-or-flight" response, Correia said.

Ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes, may seem rational, even to people who don't have the phobia.

Other fears, however, may seem illogical to those who don't understand.

"They think it's absurd," said Baylee Smith, junior in nursing. Baylee developed a fear of the color yellow when she was younger.

"I still get a little anxious about it, but I don't usually have as much reaction," Baylee said. "It just--it freaks me out."

Because fear is such a complicated emotion, people may not understand why their friends are fearful of certain things.

"You've gotta realize that some people are afraid of really weird things," Ritz said. "People do need to be respectful of other people's fears. There are reasons that people have them, and you might not understand why, but that doesn't mean they don't exist."