Experiencing a genuine phobia is cripplingly intense. Sweaty palms, flushes of heat across your body, weakness in every muscle you hope to use, a feeling of anxiety sweeping through every membrane, a sensation of impending doom. Many of us are familiar with these feelings, as we may have phobias ourselves or know people who do. Arachnophobics? Stand up! Acrophobes? Give us a wave! A phobia is a strong and persistent fear of certain situations, objects or people. The main symptom is an unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. Phobias are the most common form of anxiety disorders, and people suffer from them throughout the world. A fear of spiders or of heights is well known, almost commonplace in society today, but there are many more obscure fears that you might not even have known could be phobias before reading them. But once you do, youll see that even if they dont make logical sense, you can begin to understand how they originated for some people, and why they might be so hard to overcome. So hold onto your chairs, and dont talk yourself in to becoming afraid of these phobias, you might find out that this could be the worst phobia of them all.