My Stupid Phobia

[Hurricane Puffrose]

My name is Puff, and I have a phobia.

It is so bad that I hang out in the kitchen at parties, and I avoid kids parties like the plague!

It is also so pathetically stupid and irrational that I tend to avoid telling people about it.

I cannot remember a time when I haven't been wary of them, but it all came to a head one drunken Christmas when my ex's dad decided to cure me, and ever since then I have been absolutely terrified of them!

I am speaking about balloons. Yes, those inflated latex spheres full of air that bob about at parties, the woman who once looked a 6'4 Welsh rugby player in the face and screamed "YOU DROP THAT HAND OR I WILL REMOVE YOUR TESTICLES WITH MY KNEE!" is scared of a balloon..

Well.. I'm scared they are going to all burst! I hate them! I avoid the balloon sellers at fairs, and if the kids get balloons, Hubby drives home incase one goes bang, as I am so scared of the bang I fear I might drive in to the Armco!

It really does ruin my life!

Yesterday I was put in to the worst situation in my life, a birthday party at work, and I was surrounded by.. you guessed it, balloons! Now I specifically said I don't mind the banners and the silly hats.. hell I'll even bake the cake, but PLEASE no balloons, I am a PETRIFIED of balloons! I think my cat would have taken more notice than these women!

I couldnt ruin the party for the birthday girl, so I stuck it out, and praise be the computers wouldnt work, so we moved rooms.. NO MORE BALLOONS right?

WRONG!

I dashed out the room, fighting the rising panic all the way and calmed myself down, to hear "Grab a balloon everyone, lets go!!"

2nd room they had a balloon fight and I kept whispering to my friend, "they are all going to go BANG I just know it!"

We stayed till 8 when the question was asked, "Whats going to happen to the balloons?"
I said, loudly "I dont care just let me out before you do it" when someone produced a car key and started bursting them, well I screamed, and someone burst another as the door opened.

Have you ever seen a nearly 6 foot woman scoot under a shorter man's arm to get out of a room? Aparently I was screaming at this time and saying nooo no no no no no!

Friends I am ashamed to say I RAN out of the building in tears, I was in the car park before anyone caught me, and I had a full scale, to the point I couldn't dial the number on my phone, panic attack in the car park to the extent a Good Samaritan called Hubby for me and asked him to come in to the car park and collect me!

All this because of a poxy balloon

I am now dreading Monday when I have to face everyone, and see them wonder how someone who can deal with spiders and has a bit of a screw you attitude can be so pathetic about an inflated disc of latex!

[Ruby]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

Puff its not such a rare phobia! I know at least one other person with the same phobia as you. The thing about phobias is that there is no explanation/logic to them. I believe most people have some kind of phobia, the most common being spiders, rats/mice.........

Mine is feathers!

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

I am seriously considering phoning in and asking for an internal transfer!

I can't handle balloons at all, I have serious problems with them! I feel so bloody stupid, I am taller than some of the men in the room and I run from a balloon?? but what upset me the most was the attitude of Oh she's asked for no balloons.. sod it lets do it anyway!!!

[FlamingParrot]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

I just want to say I know how you feel, :_tighthug__by_darkm I'm OK with balloons but I have a few phobias of my own: arachnophobia - somehow DEAD spiders have a much worse effect than live ones, :scared: but even cobwebs give me the creeps; claustrophobia - lifts are generally out of bounds unless they have a lot of glass and I can see outside and always struggled with the London Underground. When I was working in town, I was often late for work because I had to get off the tube and walk or take a bus. I'm going back a long time here but I've always had the phobia.

I once passed out on the Jungfraujoch mountain railway in Switzerland, I'd assumed it would be open but at some point it goes inside the mountain, in a narrow tunnel similar to the London Tube only without stations in between. It moves very slowly and I just got very hot (despite the temperature being well below freezing), turned red and passed out!

The Eurostar used to run almost through my backyard until 2004 or thereabouts, and I still live within spitting distance of one of the terminals, yet I've never been on it, on one occasion I took the BART in San Francisco and also panicked when I realised we were under the San Francisco Bay which is nowhere nearly as wide as the English Channel so now way I'd ever get on it, last time I went to visit relatives in France I went all the way to Heathrow to board a half hour flight to Paris :flypig: to avoid the infamous tunnel.

Despite the above, I managed to work in the City for years and I do get around (as you have seen above, no problem with planes although always try to get a window seat). Having a phobia is nothing to be ashamed of, a lot of us have them! I've been told the 'Linden Method' works, haven't tried it myself but there's someone on here who has.

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

I've never heard of the linden method..

My brother is playing me old Irish music to make me laugh and cheer me up, but if this ever happens again, I am just going to flat refuse to go anywhere near a bloody balloon.. infact i f i never see another one I will be quite happy!

I know its not the birthday girls fault, 1 she had no idea the party was going to happen and 2 she had no idea I am scared of them, but I was party to the organisation and I said PLEASE no balloons, and it was totally ignored!

The guy who found me in the car park thought I was going to have a heart attack at one point, he wanted to call 999 but I insisted he called Hubby instead. Hubby is furious and wants heads to roll, he said in 14 years he has never seen me so scared!

[PlanB]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

I am seriously considering phoning in and asking for an internal transfer!

I can't handle balloons at all, I have serious problems with them! I feel so bloody stupid, I am taller than some of the men in the room and I run from a balloon??!

Invent a really dramatic childhood story as to why you're scared of balloons so your workmates will be full of sympathy and you won't look silly at all. Chances are they were all too drunk to remember what happened at the party anyway

The Red Balloon was a 'strange' movie which won an Oscar in the '50s and I didn't sleep for weeks after seeing it. Blame it on that film :fear:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Balloon

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

Basically, I have never liked big bangs (fireworks and stuff) and one year the Ex had balloons all over his living room and I wouldnt go in there unless I was promised they were all fastened to the ceiling and couldnt move. After Christmas I helped put the decs away, but refused to go anywhere near the balloons.

Ex dad in law stood in the doorway with a big bunch of balloons and burst each one with his cigar, refusing to allow me out. I had a full blooded panic attack and ended up in hospital on a ECG machine as the paramedic thought I was having either a serious asthma attack or a heart attack... needless to say the relationship didnt last!!

[IanM]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

Have you tried blowing up a balloon yourself and popping it? or gone out and lit a firework yourself?

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

no.. can't!

I freak at the idea of it, I have blown up a balloon, handed it to my sister and pegged it incase it went BANG!

My other fear is birds, which I have tried overcoming as I held a falcon and an owl.. then blubbed like a baby over my sister's brand new leather jacket as I was so scared I thought my heart was going to explode!

I hide on bonfire night, with the music up.
We have a party so I can have loud music on, and with the dogs fireworks are a no no!

[IanM]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

Sounds like you have control issues, you cannot control your adrenaline, you hear a bang and your body produces too much adrenaline at once and causes your heart rate to rise too fast in anticipation of what may come after the bang, temperature rises and panic sets in. You should consider doing breathing exercises to learn how to control the rush of adrenaline, when it happens, concentrate only on your breathing, regulate it until you feel the difference. Start off with small incidents to learn how to control it.

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

i try the whole imagine you are on a beach and use it to calm you stuff.. but it dont help a lot.

The doc gave me excersizes like breath in and count to 3 and release, then 4, then 5 etc which i did to begin with when I saw the balloons yesterday.. it helped until they started bursting them and then did I panic!!

All I can think is, I said NO BALLOONS and they ignored it, ok its a stupid thing to be scared of, but I deliberatly wear closed toe shoes as the girl who organised this is scared of feet!!

[CleverClogs]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

Enjoy!

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

NOOOO
seriously I cannot even click play! if its on the radio, its fine, but i cant watch the video.

they really freak me out, i wish you could see how white i am atm and see how hard my hands are shaking.

[IanM]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

The doctor was half right, counting the breaths like he said may work to a certain extent but you're better off changing the breathing pattern randomly, start with short sharp breaths, then a couple of longer breaths, as you finish breathing out force as last push of air to empty your lungs, then rapid again, then longer and longer, until you can fill your lungs and breath out slowly and regularly. Eventually you will recognise a breathing pattern that helps you control the panic.

[Hurricane Puffrose]

Re: My Stupid Phobia

i tried watching it and ended up turning it off, really freaked me out,

I am a member of the Phobics Society, but this weekend its the last thing I needed

The easy answer is, if someone states they are afraid of something, DONT DO IT!!