Latest news with #phobia
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Bec Judd reveals the crippling phobia that has led to her smashing her phone THREE TIMES: 'Should be a warning'
Bec Judd has revealed that her irrational fear of spiders has led her to smashing her phone three times. The 42-year-old appeared in a video posted to Instagram Stories on Thursday in which she admitted she had just broken her phone yet again. The device was smashed when Bec scrolled past an image of a spider posted to Instagram. An exasperated Bec asked why people would 'do that' and post images of arachnids without a 'warning' for those who have fears like her. Bec has a long standing fear of spiders and has previously admitted that the phobia is taking a toll on her home life. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Bec Judd (pictured) has revealed that her irrational fear of spiders has led her to smashing her phone three times. The 42-year-old appeared in a video posted to Instagram Stories on Thursday in which she admitted she had just broken her phone yet again The device was smashed when Bec scrolled past an image of a spider posted to Instagram. An exasperated Bec asked why people would 'do that' and post images of arachnids without a 'warning' for those who have fears like her The designer she can't even be in the same room as the eight-legged creatures and revealed she'd leave her Brighton home if one were ever to crawl in and make itself comfortable. Re-sharing a video of TikTok star Millie Ford reacting hysterically to a massive spider in her room, Bec explained the excessive measures she takes to avoid seeing the arachnids. '(Millie) is literally me except I pack up my bags and go and stay in a hotel or with family and I don't come home until pest control have come,' she said alongside the clip. In Millie's video, the star excused her reaction due to 'bad trauma' from her childhood. During her appearance on The Amazing Race Australia, Bec had a public meltdown over a fried tarantula in Cambodia. 'Nup, this is like my worst nightmare,' Rebecca said, letting out a scream as she put both hands on her head. 'I think we take a time penalty. I can't do it. I can't even be in the vicinity [of the spiders].' Bec is so deathly afraid of spiders that she's seeking professional help. The mother-of-four posted a plea for advice to her Instagram Stories asking her fans if they could recommend a treatment for her fear. Pictured: A redback spider The mother-of-four posted a plea for advice to her Instagram Stories asking her fans if they could recommend a treatment for her fear. 'Random from me. Have you used a hypnotist for a phobia and did it work?' Bec asked. She previously explained she is so terrified of spiders that she can't even look at pictures of the critters and had destroyed her phones in terror in the past. 'Keep 'em coming. Think I might need to book in,' she wrote. 'I've smashed two iPhones from throwing them across the room when someone's spider videos randomly upload on Instagram when I'm scrolling' Bec went on. 'That content needs a trigger warning. It's like I'm holding a huntsman spider in my hand. Kill me.' 'So I think it's time for some proper help' she concluded. Arachnophobia is the acute fear of spiders and is quite common as it affects around six per cent of the population. Fried tarantula is a delicacy in Cambodia, but Bec was having none of it. The former model was insistent the team take a time penalty over doing the challenge In extreme cases arachnophobia suffers may experience panic attacks as a result of their fear. It is one of the most common phobias in the world. Adults with a lifelong debilitating spider phobia can find relief through cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). They can also try exposure therapy, which is used to treat phobias by slowly increasing the level of exposure to the feared object.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Man Says Girlfriend Called Him a 'Horrible Dad' for Not Telling Her About His 16-Year-Old Daughter's Phobia of Water
A man said his relationship with his girlfriend is strained because he didn't tell her about his 16-year-old daughter's phobia of water before a pool party He detailed the ordeal in a post on Reddit's "Am I the A------" forum Many commentators said the dad was in the wrong because his girlfriend should've been told about his daughter's fearA man said his relationship with his girlfriend of over a year is strained because he didn't tell her about his daughter's phobia of water before a pool party. In a post on Reddit's "Am I the A------" forum, the father wrote that his 16-year-old daughter developed a phobia of water after almost drowning when she was a child. The traumatic experience, he added, left the teen 'to the point she won't even take baths, only showers.' The dad explained that he told his daughter that she did not have to attend a pool party for his girlfriend's nephew, who is friends with his 13-year-old son, but she insisted that she wanted to go. At the party, the man's daughter got on her brother's case while he was in the pool. "To anybody who didn't know, she would have seemed like a moody teenager bossing her brother around," he explained. Still, the man's girlfriend got on his daughter for her behavior, which caused the teen to get irritated and loudly yell, 'I don't want my brother to drown." The man added that his daughter "ran out crying" from the pool party. The girlfriend was then confused by the interaction, which prompted the man to tell her about his daughter's near-drowning experience. After he explained the situation, the man said his girlfriend "got really mad at me for not telling her," but he defended himself, stating, "I explained that it is not something my daughter is proud of that she can't swim and has a fear of water, and that I'm not going to be telling everyone because it's not my place. My daughter is old enough to explain that to people if she wants to." Still, the man's girlfriend, he wrote, "Ended up calling me a horrible dad and [an a------] for not explaining that and letting people think my daughter is just a moody teen." "I ended up just leaving and taking my kids home," he continued, adding of himself and his girlfriend: "We haven't talked [since]." Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. In the comments section, many Reddit users expressed that the dad was in the wrong because his girlfriend wasn't just anyone, and she should've been told about his daughter's water phobia. 'You set your [girlfriend] up to fail, and worse, you set your daughter up to fail,' one user wrote. Others, meanwhile, criticized the father for not getting his daughter the proper counseling needed after the incident from her past. 'You have failed your daughter in not getting her help," one commenter wrote. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
L.A. Affairs: Recovery taught me to embrace scary things. Could I tackle intimacy and L.A. freeways?
The first time I ever drove on the freeway was to tell my girlfriend that I loved her. At this point, I had lived in L.A. for four years. 'You can't not drive in L.A.,' everyone said when I moved here. But I worked from home and lived relatively close to most of my friends. I had Lyft and Uber, a TAP card and a borderline unhinged love of walking. My excuse was that I didn't have a car and couldn't afford to buy one, which wasn't a lie. But the real reason was I was scared of driving and I had decided to succumb to that fear. I wasn't always an anxious driver. Growing up in Massachusetts, I got my license at 16 and cruised around in my grandma's 1979 Peugeot that had one working door and wouldn't have passed a safety inspection. But I felt invincible. Then I grew into a neurotic adult with an ever-growing list of rational and irrational fears — from weird headaches and mold to running into casual acquaintances at the grocery store. In my early 30s, I developed a terrible phobia of flying. 'It's so much safer than driving in a car!' people said to comfort me. So I did some research. This did not assuage my fear of flying, but it did succeed in making me also afraid of driving. I lived in New York City at the time, where being a nondriver was easy. In L.A., it was less easy, but I made it work. Read more: L.A. Affairs: I was over dating in L.A. Then a charming co-worker came along When I was single, I appreciated that dating apps let me sort potential matches by location. I set my limit to 'within five miles' from my apartment in West Hollywood and tried to manifest an ideal partner who would live within this perfectly reasonable radius. This proved somewhat complicated. My first boyfriend in L.A. moved from Los Feliz to Eagle Rock six months into our relationship, and we broke up. There were other issues, but the distance was the final straw. I did eventually get a car but was restricted by my intense fear of the massive, sprawling conduits of chaos known as the L.A. freeways. Lanes come and go. Exits appear out of nowhere. And everyone drives like they're auditioning for "The Fast and the Furious." So I took surface streets everywhere, even when it doubled my driving time. I became pretty comfortable behind the wheel as long as I remained in my little bubble of safety. Then I fell in love. Spencer and I met 14 years ago through a close mutual friend when we both lived in Brooklyn. Our friend had talked her up so much that I was nervous to meet her as if she were a celebrity, but she immediately made me feel at ease. She's confident and comfortable in her skin but also exudes a warmth that makes people feel secure. At the time, I was newly sober, and feeling comfortable — especially around someone I'd just met — was rare. Not long after we met she moved to Philly, and our lives went in different directions. She was starting med school. I was writing for an addiction website and doing stand-up comedy. She was living with her long-term girlfriend. I was trying to date the most emotionally unavailable people I could find, which my therapist (and every self-help book in Barnes & Noble) attributed to a fear of intimacy. Read more: L.A. Affairs: I didn't know how to love. Then I came eye to eye with a majestic gray whale A decade later, we both ended up in Los Angeles. She had broken up with her girlfriend and was a resident at UCLA. I was taking screenwriting classes and walking everywhere. We texted a few times to hang out, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, keeping her busy in the hospital and me busy at home spraying my groceries with Clorox. Multiple vaccines later, we finally met up at the AMC theater at the Century City mall. Just as I remembered, she felt like home. Over the next few months, we went to about nine movies together, our hands occasionally touching in a shared bucket of popcorn, before I finally got the courage to tell her I had developed feelings for her. We'd become close friends at this point, and the stakes felt alarmingly high. Also, she was emotionally available. Uncharted territory for me. 'I like like you,' I said one night while we were on my couch watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm." My voice was shaking and also muffled, because I was hiding under a blanket. This confession was one of the scariest things I've ever done, and I've done a lot of scary things — gotten sober, did stand-up in front of my entire family (don't recommend this), come out as queer to a bunch of conservative Midwesterners on a study-abroad trip (one girl took a selfie with me and sent it to her mom with the note, 'I met a bisexual and she's really nice!'). But I learned in recovery that sometimes when something is scary, we are meant to run toward it rather than away from it. That night, Spencer pulled the blanket off my head and told me she felt the same. This beautiful, confident "Curb"-loving doctor did have one red flag. She lived in Santa Monica, at the end of a six-mile stretch on the 10 Freeway. On side streets, getting from my apartment to hers could take up to an hour or longer in traffic. After a few months, we were seeing each other so often that the commute had become unmanageable. Read more: L.A. Affairs: I was a suburban lacrosse mom. I was ready to detonate my life and have a Hollywood affair Also unmanageable were my feelings. One night, about four months into our relationship, I told two close friends that I loved Spencer but was scared to tell her. The absence of these words had become a weight between us, triggering insecurities and petty fights. My friends urged me to tell her and thought I should do it that night (we'd been watching "Yellowjackets" and were feeling a little dramatic). I felt emboldened. But it was 10 p.m. on a work night and it would take 45 minutes to get to her house by my usual route. I called her. 'I'm coming over!' I said. Twenty minutes later, I was merging onto the 10. I drove too slowly, got off at the wrong exit and gripped the steering wheel so hard my fingers went numb. But when I got to Spencer's apartment, I was bolstered by adrenaline and the rush of having conquered my fear. I had driven on the 10 — at night. I could survive anything. I told her I loved her. She said it back. I didn't even hide under a blanket. This was two years ago. Since then, I've driven on the 10 hundreds of times between Spencer's apartment and mine. Now we live together, which significantly cuts down on the commute. I still prefer a side street, but I'll take the freeway if I have to. Since mastering the 10, I've also braved the 5 Freeway, the 101 Freeway and even the 405 Freeway. Spencer always tells me I'm 'brave.' I'm starting to believe her. The author is an L.A.-based writer, editor and comedian and co-host of the podcast "All My Only Children." She's on Instagram and Threads: @maywilkerson L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@ You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here. Sign up for The Wild newsletter to get weekly insider tips on the best of our beaches, trails, parks, deserts, forests and mountains. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
