I never realized how many phobias there are. It's unbelievable. I personally experience coulrophobia, a fear of clowns. I'm not irrational about it for the most part. I tend to only freak out if I'm left alone in a room with a clown. I can't stand the way they look, the way they talk or anything else about them. They're just plain creepy. I'm not sure where my fear stems from. It's possibly a combination of movies and nightmares when I was a child.

I also experience arsonphobia, which is a fear of fire. Unlike my fear of clowns, I am positive of where this one stems from and my fear of fire is much worse than that of the clowns. When I was in my early teens I woke up to my neighbor banging on the door and screaming. My family and I ran to the door and the neighbor was screaming that my grandpa's house was on fire. Our neighbor lived inbetween us and my grandpa. I looked out the window and saw the flames coming from his house. I remember running to his house and almost being afraid to get there, because I was scared of what I would find. It turned out that it was his shed that was burning and although it almost caught his house and the neighbors on fire as well, it didn't. My grandpa was shaken by all that was happening, but he was fine. I still can smell the odor of the burnt wood at times and I will never be able to get the vision of the fire out of my head. Soon after this happened, the airconditioner in my room started throwing out sparks and almost caught the house on fire. Last year I had a gas leak and my heater caught on fire and burned a portion of one my walls. That one freaked me out really bad. With this phobia I would say that I am a bit irrational. I have been known to sleep with a fire extinguisher next to me.

There are many other phobias such as ablutophobia which is the fear of washing or bathing, amathopphobia which is the fear of dust, dementophobia which is the fear of insanity. The list goes on and on.

Phobias can take over a persons life and change everything. To some phobias are funny and they think that the people who suffer from them are crazy and irrational. To those who suffer from phobias, it's anything but funny.