National Panic Day: Be Prepared - JC Wade, Humor Times

Get prepared now for June 18th, National Panic Day! But don’t panic!!

June 18th is National Panic Day. I’m not actually sure how we are supposed to observe this holiday. Should we panic or should we try to destress so that we won’t panic in the future? Well either way, I thought this should be a good time to examine some of the things that can cause us to panic.

The English philosopher, Sir Frances Bacon once wrote, “nothing is terrible except fear itself.” But is fear really so terrible? It seems that some fear is good.

For instance, we are taught at an early age to fear God which is a good thing. Fear is also what makes a soldier keep his head down and it is the reason that we don’t golf during a thunderstorm.

Our fears protect us. The horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft once wrote that “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.” I would have guessed it was lust, but he might be right.

However, fear can be deliberating when it turns into a phobia. The dictionary defines a phobia as, “A persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.” When a person is confronted with a phobia, he/she will often exhibit physical symptoms such as: sweating, nervousness, rapid heartbeat and difficulty breathing. Panic may ensue.

Some phobias are fairly common such as:

Acrophobia – the fear of heights
Claustrophobia – the fear of tight spaces
Glossophobia – the fear of public speaking, and
Aviophobia – the fear of flying

I suffer from a fear of flying as do about one in five people. But this phobia is really a combination of other anxieties such as acrophobia (you are 5 miles in the air), claustrophobia (you are stuck in a crowded tube) automysophobia which is the fear of people with body odors (I always get stuck sitting next to the guy who hasn’t showered in a week) and of course, thanatophobia which is the fear of dying. Those that suffer from aviophobia can go to cognitive behavior therapy to alleviate their anxiety or they can just stop at the terminal bar for a few cold ones before boarding. That works for me.

I have on occasion tried to tell my spouse that I have other phobias as well. Recently I tried to tell her that I couldn’t shovel the driveway because I had come down with a bad case of chionophobia (fear of snow) coupled with a bit of ergophobia (the fear of work). She completely understood and mentioned that she had developed a case of mageirocophobia (the fear of cooking) along with genophobia, the fear of sex. Needless to say, I overcame my angst, and the driveway got shoveled.

I can certainly understand these common phobias. There are others that I can relate to as well such as:

Ephebiphobia – the fear of teenagers. Most parents have suffered from this. It usually lasts seven years.
Phalacrophobia – the worry of becoming bald. Not to be confused with peladophobia, the fear of bald people.
Pentheraphobia – the fear of one’s mother-in-law. The married men that don’t suffer from this are few and far between.
Menophobia – the fear of menstruation which affects married men on a monthly basis. It probably affects women sometimes too, and finally
Atychiphobia – which is the persistent fear of failure. Fortunately, this has largely been eradicated with the advent of Viagra.

But there are some phobias that I can’t understand such as the fear of zombies (kinemortophobia). This anxiety is surprisingly common. Come on people, they walk so slowly, and they seem really easy to kill. Oh, and zombies probably aren’t even real. I also can’t comprehend the fear of the dawn (eosophobia), the fear of garlic (scorodophobia) or the fear of crosses (staurophobia). If you suffer from these, you might be a vampire, and you should look in a mirror to see if you have a reflection. However, you won’t want to do this if you suffer from catoptronphobia, the fear of mirrors.

Other phobias that baffle me include lachanophobia, the fear of vegetables and verbophobia the fear of words. By the way, there are some people that are only afraid of long words. The name of this phobia is unfortunately sesquipedalophobia which ironically is one of the longest phobia names. The name seems a bit cruel to those that suffer from this affliction.

Currently there are over 500 documented phobias recognized by the medical community and unfortunately the list is growing. Some new phobias that I have stumbled across recently include:

Bracketphobia – this is the worry that your NCAA basketball bracket will be busted in the first round. This anxiety usually peaks in March.
Chick-a-flick-a-phobia – The fear that your wife will insist that you take her to another chick flick. This can be terrifying to a man especially during football season.
Severance-a-phobia – the fear that you will watch the entire first season of Severance without having any idea what is happening.
More-trump-a-phobia – the fear that Trump will run again in 2028. The Constitution be damned.
Musk -a-phobia – the fear that Elon Musk will single handedly destroy our government. All Democrats have this worry and lastly
Tinklephobia – the fear that you will have to pee while the airplane’s seat belt sign is illuminated. Too many beers before boarding can cause this.

If you did not enjoy me poking fun at these disorders, please don’t judge me as I suffer from sociophobia. Needless to say, this is the fear of being judged.

Actually, these phobias (with the exception of the six at the end that I just made up) are all very real anxiety disorders that can negatively affect people’s lives. They all need to be taken seriously. Well, maybe not lachanophobia. I can’t take a fear of vegetables seriously.

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JC Wade

J. Wade is a retired Chief Financial Officer from Missouri. He has had humor articles published in the Humor Times, USA Today, The Journal of Irreproducible Results and Unhinged Magazine, which is now defunct (not his fault).