There are a lot of crazy phobias out there in the world so I'm not even going to pretend that you guys know what the hay pteronarcophobia is. I'm going to be polite and just tell you actually.
Pteronarcophobia is the fear of flies. Butterflies and moths aren't included just because they fly. That's actually called lepidopterophobia. Pteronarcophobia deals with soley flies and maybe even gnats and fruitflies.
Honestly, I don't even know how long I've been scared of them, really I don't. I just know that they've always made me antsy but my fear grew tenfold after watching a documentary where these flies laid eggs under someone's skin and larvae and shiz errupted from the persons arm a few days later. That set me all the way off.
It's so bad too. I can't even be in the same room as one fly without crapping bricks and causing everyone else to freak out. Literally I am freaking so bad that you'd think it was a huge roach I saw. In middle school a fly was in the classroom and my teacher excused me because I was jumping out of my seat and skampering from one end of the room to the next. I was disrupting class and had to go somewhere else.
Just the thought of flies has me on the level of apocolyptic disaster. A lot of my friends just don't even get it. They think I'm showing out (for those of you who don't know what it means to show out, because there are actually a lot of people I've recently found out. Curse my dialect. "Showing out" is the act of misbehaving or causing a scene for attention). I'm totally not showing out. I am seriously terrified. My heart starts beating so fast and suddenly I'm seriously thinking that the fly's main goal is to kill me. I really do think that. If there is a fly nearby suddenly all I care about is where it's at and what it's doing at that particular moment.
It's never happened to me because thank god for doors and people understanding enough to let me leave, but I think if I ever were in a situation where I couldn't leave if there was even one fly in a room I would literally cry myself away. I would drive myself into despair.
The same can be said about fruitflies. Ironically I don't think much of gnats but fruitflies freak me the eff out. I move around them like as if they were cobras.
Anyway, the reason this is a Hair is because clearly it's causing me problems with my school life. I'm immediately distracted if I notice there's a fly in the room. I'm in college now (basically) and I'm mature enough to understand that I can't get up and run around like I did in middle school. But I sure as heck am not paying attention to anything else in the room. I get fidgety. My legs start bouncing up and down faster (I say faster because my legs are always bouncing regardless of if there's a fly. I have this thing where I can't stay still. Even if I'm standing I have to start swaying or bouncing on my heels, twiddling my fingers. I can't be still long to save my life.), and I get overall paranoid. If there's a fly this is my process of thinking:
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Oh shoot, is that a fy? I look around the area for a flying dot. Oh okay maybe not. Then I see it spin in a circle before landing. Oh my God there is a fly in here. What am I supposed to do? My legs start bouncing faster. Okay, I glance at both doors and all my school supplies, calculating how long it will take me to pack up and leave as soon as the teacher dissmisses us. Too long. I better back up now! Ack! I duck as it flies over my head to the back window. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. It almost touched my freaking head. I grab up my books and shove them into my totebag. This is not good. Glancing over my shoulder, I decide to see if I can figure out where the fly went. Is something on me? I slap my neck and then start slapping everwhere on me, twitching my head. My body feels so itchy and I swear up and down that there are things on me.
"Are you okay?" My friend Bree asks me cautiously. "DJ you're freaking me out." She says looking over her shoulder.
My knees bounce up and down as I try to slow my heart. "I'm fine." I give her a sheepish grin. "Just a fly." I say casually. I wish people know how I felt- WHOA! The fly zooms back to the front of my class, its rapid beating wings sounding in my ear. "Oh my GOD!" I yelp really freaking out now. I bring my dreadlocks over my shoulder as my heart speeds up even more. My eyes start to water from my terror. What if I can't leave the classroom for some reason? What if there's a fire and we all get stuck in here because the hallway is on fire and now we're going to roast to death with a fly?
"I can't be in here." I mumble to myself, covering my face with my hands. Hearing the fly has made it at least thirty times worse because now I know how big it is. You can only hear a bugs wings if they're really big. Oh no. What if it's a horse fly? Is it going to bite me?! I put my head down on the desk.
"DJ... It'll be okay. We only have what? Twenty minutes left of class." Bree says as reassuringly as she can.
What am I doing? I realize. If I put my head down then I can't know where it is. What if it's already on me?! I yelp again and jump up, swatting at my back. My eyes are hot with tears that I'm too embarrassed to shed. I can't just start crying in class. But I can't just sit here with it either. I scratch my face with paranoia and hope to God that my teacher hurries up his lecture.
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You might think I'm exaggerating but the truth is I'm not. People with phobias think exactly like this if not on a higher level. My phobia only gets worse because I'm pessimistic and plagued with paranoia as it is. I'm always scared a kid will walk into school with a machine gun clasped in his hands and a machete on his hip. I think of at least five courses of action to take for every worse case scenario and keep myself up until 4am doing so. If there's a fly, my fears are only worsened and I can't stand my mental state but that's who I am.
That example I gave you was a memoir. It happed to me last semester and I remembered it simply because I thought of a fire killing us all and being trapped in a fire in a room with a fly. It was the most horrible way to die for me, simply because I'd die with a fly there somewhere.
So you see: pteronarcophobia.
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Don't Gotta Be Drunk to Say It
Non-FictionFrom school to writing, friends to relationships, heck even TV shows to plays, you'll be tuned into anything that pisses me off and perhaps we'll have some common ticks! This is opinion-based book and therefore might be offensive. Read with caution!
