Peter on Phobias and Frogs

This is my response to the discussion questions on page 176 of Quest (Hartmann, 2007). Initially, I was just going to write about frogs, but then I decided I wanted to respond to two of the questions. I think that frogs make a good example of a phobia, so I added the word phobias to my title and started writing.
My own phobia, and the only one I can think of, is of frogs. I've had this phobia for as long as I can remember, and I have no idea how or why it might have started. These days, it isn't a problem because I don't encounter many frogs living in the centre of a large city, and over time it has become weaker. When I was young, in school, it was very strong. I was terrified of frogs. When confronted with a frog, my heart would beat faster, my skin would sweat, and I felt real fear. At the same time, I knew that frogs were perfectly harmless. I knew that they could not hurt me at all, but that didn't stop me being scared of them. It was a real problem because there were a lot of frogs around the country area where I grew up, and I was very embarrassed about what seemed to me a very irrational fear. It really was irrational, and I couldn't do anything about it.
I think that is what makes the difference between a normal fear and a phobia. Normal fears are of something that is dangerous, like speeding cars, poisonous snakes, and mad bulls. Those things can hurt us, and it makes sense to fear them because the fear makes us careful and perhaps avoid the danger. But frogs? Frogs do not hurt people, except for a few poisonous types; we don't have poisonous frogs in Australia, and I feared tehm all. In fact, I feared the harmless frogs more than the speeding cars, the poisonous snakes and the mad bulls. There were also poisonous snakes around our home, and although I was very careful around them, I didn't have the same fear reaction that frogs produced. And if I knew the snake was a non-poisonous one, I could happily pick it up and play with it, which meant I occasionally got bitten, but that didn't worry me a lot, although it did seem to upset my mother a bit.
Since the age of about 30, my frog phobia has subsided, and now I can push them out of the way when I meet them, but I still prefer not to, and I still have a fear reaction that is completely irrational.

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References

Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing, (2nd. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.