The anatomy of phobias.

The learning theory states that phobias become ingrained due to conditioning experiences, you know, like Pavlov’s dog. A bell was rung and the dog was given food. The dog associated the bell with food. This was continually reinforced, till the dog began to anticipate the food. Each time the bell rang, the dog began to salivate. It learnt the association. This is one of the myriad of theories that tries to explain how we develop phobias. A case in point...I am scared of spiders. When I was about 19, a spider put its little spidery leg in my mouth as I slept. It took a few seconds for me to wake up, but I never forgot the absolute horror I felt at almost swallowing a stupid spider. Oh, it wasn’t a daddy-long legs, it was one those more robust beasts, slightly hairy too. An association started to form, and what followed was a state of research...I googled all circumstances in which spiders had killed people. I re-watched arachnophobia, and then I became hyper-vigilant. I would spot spiders that were running away from me, trying to hide. I would chase them down into dark tunnels and deserted rooms, just so I could point out the spider. And then I would be scared. I would return to hiding, shaking in a corner, because I had spotted a spider. I graduated from this ‘vigilante’ state to an avoidance state. So if I had spotted a spider somewhere innocuous at any point in the past, it would be an excuse not to go to that place. I would avoid rooms in the house, certain shoes that looked like they could hide spiders (don’t ask me what that looks like; you’ll know it when you see it) and generally putting my feet on the floor. My simple fear was starting to resemble a phobia. It’s better now, though I still occasionally conjure up spidery images...and scare myself silly though there’s nothing there.

The whole point of this pre-amble is that I started to think that perhaps there are some phobias that we need to learn, for example, the phobia of the arsehole. That guy or girl that uses you for even less than your worth, and then tosses you away like a bit of 1 ply toilet paper, not even recyclable. You need to make a point to remember these people, to research their characters and whatever the hell it is that attracts you to that damage and then become hyper-vigilant, looking for said associations (character and behaviour). Then you need to develop the old avoidance techniques. Run like the plague is chasing you after lopping off Bolt’s pins and attaching them to its own body. Run very very very fast in the opposite compass direction. Keep running till the person is now a dot behind you, and then run some more.

If it works, you’ll become phobic of rubbish, and might spare yourself quite a lot of nonsense. I’ll let you know how it works for me. At first glance though, I feel its failsafe. In fact, I feel I might be able to extrapolate this to my fear of Facebook, limited intelligence, rubbish jobs etc. I am getting really excited about the prospects now...

In other news, I’ll be home in like 5 days. There is a God after all.