Peter on Frogs and Fears

Since primary school, I have been terrified of frogs. I can't remember when or why this batrachophobia started. Maybe there was some event that started it, but I don't remember anything. I don't think this is a healthy fear. It was really embarrassing for me because I knew that frogs were small, harmless animals. They could not hurt me, but I was really scared of them. It also caused some problems for me. My family lived on a farm in the country, in a warm, sub-tropical area, and there were a lot of frogs around. I used to walk around to avoid them. If there was a frog on the path, I wouldn't be able to walk that way, and that really did interfere with my life. It was particularly scary at night when the frogs came out to feed on insects.

After about the age of 18, it improved a bit, but only because I made an effort to overcome this irrational fear of small animals that could not hurt me. I did something like slowly force myself to get closer to frogs whilst trying to relax. This worked a bit, but even today, my instinctive reaction to a frog, even on the screen, is to shiver and get goose bumps.

Thankfully, there are not many frogs on Silom Road, and none in my condo.

I'm also afraid of heights, but that's not a problem, and I think it's not an unhealthy fear. If I'm inside or behind a wall, I'm not afraid; it's only when I'm near a high edge that I feel fear, and I think that's natural for most people. I do sometimes get goose bumps when I see construction workers on high buildings. I don't think I could ever do that. I wonder how they feel when they first start working on high construction sites.

But spiders and snakes don't worry me very much. If I know they are not poisonous, I can pick up snakes and play with them, even very large ones. There were also snakes on my parents' farm. I used to kill the poisonous ones and play with the safe ones. They only scared me if they were eating frogs!