It makes me sick that people undermine fears and demean the human race?

I stupidly stumbled upon Quora, regarding having my fear of dogs mocked by my dad, by finding a guy who has a fear of bugs, and some of the replies were sickening:

”Phobias are not nice and yes, people do tend to think they are funny and they aren’t.

However, you don’t accept phobias into your life and make the mistake of owning them. You do something about them. You learn all you can about bugs and what ones are okay and what ones might hurt you.”

Or, you can just learn what it’s like to be in a arachnophobic’s shoes instead of just forcing them to think like you.

“For instance yesterday my cat brought a rat into the house. I am disabled so the best I could do was open all the outside doors and with a long broom handle try to get it outside again, but it was upset and frightened and kept running from one corner to the other.

Thankfully my house keeper turned up. She is not keen on rats (unlike me, I like them) but at least she could get down on the floor and find it.

The idea of having to pick it up and take it outside was rather confronting to her but because I couldn’t, she accepted it was her that would have to do it.

I found a towel and she threw it over the rat then tried to pick it up, but it kept wriggling out of the towel and running away.

Finally after much screaming from her she caught it and took it out into the garden.

I thought she was so brave because she was facing a fear she had and she overcame it.”

Your housekeeper did NOT overcome her fear. She is NOT brave at all. She is scared out of her fucking wits. There is nothing to be proud of over someone who is forced to do something they are afraid of! You should not be proud of her for having to walk on eggshells around you, you should be concerned with her.

“You have to do the same. You have to apply logic. For instance I take it spiders are a definite NO/NO for you. So get a book on spiders and read up which as safe and which are poisonous. (we are all respectful of the poisonous ones, but we don’t have to fear them, we simply keep away from them)

Think about spiders. Just how big are they really? Let’s face it most of them would be far less than a quarter the size of the palm of your hand and yet you fear them? That’s not logical.”

No, no, no, NO! That is not how phobias work! You try to make people who have experiences with these phobias their own fault without even considering THEIR side of the story! What you’re also explaining is victim blaming: “if you simply had stayed away from that poisonous spider, it wouldn’t have bitten you, would it?”. Do you not see how annoying and traumatizing it is to have your fears undermined?

Do you still think it’s not “logical” to be afraid of a poisonous spider that’s likely going to kill you regardless of how fucking tiny they are, especially if you live in Australia?! Germs are much tinier and yet they’re still responsible for many deadly diseases in the world, especially if you live in third world countries! Is THAT not logical at all?!

“All bugs are the same, they are all smaller than we are and they don’t deliberately attack you, what they do is defend themselves from you, so if you don’t disturb them they are not going to go out of their way to attack you.

Do try and treat your irrational fears with logic. Give thought to what actually frightens you and read up about each bug. The more you know the less you will have to fear. Can you do that? I do hope so :)”

My gal, all bugs are NOT the same! You have contradicted yourself right there, saying which spiders can kill you and which ones can’t. Again with the fucking victim blaming! Bugs will attack you no matter what, it doesn’t fucking matter if you do anything to it or not, they will attack you anyway! Tell that to all the people in Australia!

Logic is not necessary for every fucking thing that happens in life. What the fuck is so good about logic anyway, always putting it on a fucking pedestal? All you’re doing is justifying the mockery of people’s phobias. Logic does not fix everything. It simply doesn’t. Are having emotions all that fucking bad?

Learning about something is not going to make people fear something less, it’ll just make them fear it more. Take rape and sexual assault for example. Would you be afraid of it less if you learn more about it? HELL NO! That’s just going to make you be more fearful about it!

”"If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.” -Jonas Salk. Insects are more important than humans, why would you care what humas do or think. Mother nature needs bugs to create life, humans don't contribute to life. Humans only take from mother nature while bugs give to Mother Nature”

Gee, thanks for the fucking tip that humans do not deserve to live! Let’s just all go kill ourselves right now since we’re all such terrible people and bugs are all beautiful saints! Let’s all get a fucking cyanide to drink so we can all die together! Jesus Christ, Mother Nature is such a fucking narcissist, and all the bugs are like her golden children! We’re just a bunch of fucking scapegoats, aren’t we?

”Because it is absurdly pathetic how terrified you’ve let yourself become of them.

Not even trying to be mean here, that is the most honest answer I can give you.

Part of being human is mustering the courage to not let fear control our actions.”

Um, yes, you ARE being mean, and it is absolutely ignorant of you to undermine the fear of others, if you’re calling one’s fear pathetic, you’re part of the problem!

In short, people who mock phobias need to take a look in the mirror. Can they simply just choose not to be a fucking asshole?