Bugs. I'm terrified of all bugs. It started as only spiders. There was a Highlights for Children magazine that I read as a young child (the issue was Feb. 1983. It had a blue cover.) The article inside was about the black widow spider. There was a closeup of the spider that absolutely terrified me. This, combined with my mother being also phobic and anxious about [everything in general] insects, made me paralize with fear when I saw one.
Then, I started to expand to ants, which are really spiders with 6 legs, right? And we had a scare in one of my apartments that there was a cockroach, so I looked them up on the internet, and BAM, now I'm phobic of them too.
As a young teenager, we went camping and everybody went butterfly-catching in the meadow. It sounded like fun - there were lots of butterflies there. I caught one and looked at it closely. It was just an insect with big wings. It reminded me of a pretty blanket with a bug crawling on it. I started to hyperventelate.
I'm attempted to get help at therapy for this. The therapist claimed that phobias are really easy to treat. She asked me what the worst thing could happen if a bug touched me. I responded, that is the worst thing that could happen! We were kind of stuck at that moment. She did ask me what was so horrible about bugs. I said that I believe they are "little bits of hell that crawled through the gates and are roaming around earth." She looked concerned and said "Are you being serious?" I think she was ready to commit me right then and there. She asked me to draw a picture of a spider. I did, but the second I started to draw legs, I wigged out. She told me to work on it that week. I never went back.
Now, I feel like my phobia is under control, although if a bug touches me, I sometimes have to run into a shower to make sure it and all of the other possible unknown bugs are off of me. Its a big ocd/paranoid, but it makes me feel better. The only bad thing is my phobia is extending to the kids. Sometimes a bug comes in close contact with James, and I start freaking out. I have to be conscious that I don't let myself get out of control and accidentally hurt my son (and now also my daughter) in the meantime. Its hard. I wish all of the bugs would die.