Thursday, March 25, 2010

Help Name My Phobia

I have a new obsession/phobia...eyelashes. I've always been aware of my eyelashes, trying to feel them sprouting out of my eyelids or recognizing when they slide up against the lenses of my glasses, lightly pressing, tugging and even curling them up with my index finger. I've paid close attention to my lashes over the years for a complete unknown reason. And now this eyelash fascination as turned on me. You see this is a picky phobia. I'm only sceeved out by closed eyes, therefore I'm not afraid of my own eyelashes.

I should state that I've never been afraid of eyelashes in anyway before a few weeks ago.

This all started when I was holding a sleeping toddler and my eyes fixed on her eyelashes. I could feel my eyes widen as my heart began to pump harder and harder. Sweat started slowly seeping out of my body in a thin, cool layer. Her long lashes look entangled and visions started flashing in my head. Started as spider legs and then forming into stitches.

Now I'm noticing closed eyes all the time and no matter how hard I try not to look, I find myself fixated on the tiny hairs, sprouting out of the eyelid, coming together and interlocking. Longer eyelashes heighten the fear and the longer the eyes are closed and the closer I am to the face, the longer I stare and create horrific feelings. I did a quick online search and found no name for an eyelash phobia so I thought that maybe I should create a name. The rule behind naming a phobia, as I understand, is that the name must be Greek because the word "phobia" is a Greek word.

So I present to you...(drumroll)...candidates for my closed eyelash phobia:

eyelidfringephobia,
blepharisphobia (greek word for eyelash)
belpharphobia
closedbelpharphobia
clistbelpharpobia (greek word for shut)
cleistobelpharpobia

By the way, this blog took me all night, I struggled at the thought of eyelashes the entire time. Then I wanted to find a picture that shows what fuels the fear. The search for the perfectly scary eyelashes (not too short, not too long) gave me anxiety. And along the way I came across ridiculously scary eyelashes that curled up to the forehead and rested upon the cheeks (eek!). Here's a picture of what is almost exactly what I was describing earlier:

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