Or Hippophobia. Whichever you prefer. Bottom line, it equals a fear of horses.
I just found out one of my coworkers is afraid of horses. Has been her whole life. And as far as she knows or remembers, she never even had significant contact with horses. There was no dramatic accident, fall, bite, or kick from her childhood. No weird situation where she walked into her parents' bedroom to see daddy dressed up like a horse or anything freaky like that. She's just terrified of horses.
I invited her to come to the stable to meet Marve (or, okay, one of the smaller, fuzzier, friendlier horses) and she almost jumped out of her skin. No way. This woman does not want to be around horses. They scare her, they freak her out, and she "hates all of them." For no real reason.
I am intrigued now, and am busy thinking how so many of us have irrational fears, or fears not based in anything concrete, while more real threats -- car crashes and so on -- don't concern us at all.
I am thinking about how there are people in the world like my coworker, who never even had a negative experience around a horse and yet is terrified of them.
There are people like her, and there are people like me:
People who get up on a 17-hand TB with the full knowledge that he has the potential to spook and freak out enough to cause significant injury. In fact, he has run off with me more times than I can count and scared me to no end...yet I continue to ride him.
I have come to one solid conclusion today. Out of any and all mental/personality quirks, disorders, or deficiencies I might have, equinophobia is most decidedly not counted among them.
Good work for a sleepy Thursday afternoon, I think.
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4 comments:
interesting - to be that terrified of something without a reason - even a lame reason is better than nothing. Phobias and fears are strange things - like you said, some people are all mixed up!
I for one am terrified of spiders - I can handle little ones, but bigger ones freak me out. I am allergic to spider bites, so I think that is a decent reason...
My boss has feline-phobia! She is absolutely terrified of cats! No bad experiences with her - she says that they "freak her out". Too funny.
I can sort of, kinda see being nervous around horses because they are big, etc. but cats??
Ah, good fun on a Thursday aft. is right!
My only irrational fear is of Big Bird. Seriously. If I meet that dude in the street I will scream like a little girl and run.
Otherwise I'm not scared of anything...snakes, spiders, heights. I have a healthy respect, but no fear.
Lots of people are very afraid of horses and have never had any contact with them. I think that's totally weird, but they think I'm totally weird for interacting with them daily. It's all perspective.
Big Bird!! LOL!
Snake/spider fears seem very normal, or at least rooted in instinct, but I guess when you think about it, it's almost as weird to feel wigged out by another animal, like a horse.
I don't have any phobias that I know of, but I do hate centipedes. Though who doesn't?? And spiders are bugs can invade your living space and sneakily crawl into bed while you sleep...it's not like my coworker needs to worry about waking up to find an Arabian hanging out threateningly in the corner of her bedroom. Or at least I hope not. :)
I almost snorted my drink onto my laptop when I read the bit about daddy dressed up as a horse. You're a menace!
I actually go into hysterics about cockroaches. It's perfectly sensible - they have an exoskeleton and they skutter around cheap apartments and they eat human souls in the middle of the night. Horses only eat hay and horse treats! What could be scary about that?!
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