Number 8 Ramazan Kavakalan In January of 2016, a Turkish
trucker gunned down his friend following a prank that involved a lemon, of which the former
reportedly had a phobia. The incident happened at a timber yard in Izmir, on the Aegean coast,
and the shooter was only identified by his initials as MO. 42-year-old Ramazan Kavakalan
knew of MO’s fear but decided to prank him with the citrus fruit. Sufferers of lemoniphobia,
a branch of the general fear of food anxiety disorder called cibophobia, are typically advised
to avoid contact with the fruit itself as, like other phobias, it can cause panic attacks and
related symptoms. Believing it would be perceived as a harmless joke, Kavakalan showed the lemon to
MO, who worked as a trucker at the same timber yard, as he was collecting wood products from
transport. After the initial reaction of shock the man became enraged by the prank and went to
retrieve a rifle, which he kept for protection, from the cabin of his truck. MO then walked back
into the office where Kavakalan was sitting at his desk and shot him with a single bullet. The victim
was rushed to the emergency room at Torbali State Hospital, where doctors battled for several hours
to save his life. Unfortunately, he ultimately succumbed to the gunshot wound. After initially
fleeing from the scene of the crime, MO handed himself in to the Turkish gendarmerie
in Manisa Province and was charged with murder. He told the authorities that he’d only meant to
scare Kavakalan in retaliation to the joke. MO was quoted as saying “I am so sorry that I have killed
my friend. It is the lemon you see. I cannot stand the sight of them. They make me crazy.”
Number 7 Ireland Baldwin In early 2022, fashion model Ireland Baldwin,
daughter of three-time Golden Globe winner Alec Baldwin and Academy Award winner Kim Basinger,
openly talked on social media about her phobia of suffering a heart attack.
Baldwin revealed to her Instagram followers that she constantly used a blood pressure monitor
as a way of dealing with her cardiophobia, an anxiety disorder characterized by complaints
of chest pain and heart palpitations that are accompanied by fears of dying from a heart
attack. The 26-year-old model detailed that while experiencing the symptoms commonly associated
with anxiety attacks she’d become convinced that she was on the verge of succumbing to an
underlying heart condition. She noted that her fear was entirely rooted in anxiety as she didn’t
have an illness and didn’t take any medication, while also commenting on the “utmost comfort” that
the monitor brought her. In the past, Baldwin’s attacks had reportedly been so severe that she
called ambulances to take her to the hospital for doctors to reassure her that her heart was not in
imminent danger. The model, who in 2015 spent time in rehab to overcome emotional trauma, reported
that her cardiophobia-related attacks could be triggered by a variety of items and circumstances,
including certain foods, crowds or airplanes. Number 6 Samantha Hancox
In May of 2010, an elderly couple from Tipton, West Midlands, England,
were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter following the death of their 40-year-old daughter.
Samantha Hancox was found dead in an armchair at the home she shared with her parents, Ken
and Marion Hancox, both in their late 70s. Hancox had barely left the residence in 18 years for fear
of coming into contact with germs. The former law student, who also suffered from acute obsessive
compulsive disorder, had self-cleansing rituals that reportedly took her up to 20 hours every day.
She wore socks on her hands that she scrubbed constantly and would shower for hours on end.
As reported by her parents, everything had to be wrapped up in the house and they’d
have to change their clothes if they went out, with Hancox sometimes insisting they burn them.
She’d first started worrying about germs when she was ten years old, after her grandmother
had died in a hospital. By her late teens, the phobia had essentially taken over Hancox’s life,
leading to her dropping out of college and becoming unable to hold a job. Her condition
worsened in April of 2010, after her father went to the hospital for a prostate operation.
Hancox was so terrified that he’d bring back germs that she stopped eating or drinking and,
as described by Marion, she became just “skin and bone”. An autopsy ruled that her
cause of death had been dehydration and a skin infection. Ken and Marion were interviewed for 7
hours in the aftermath of their daughter’s passing but subsequent reports indicated that the charges
against them were eventually dropped. They later criticized what they felt had been a lack of help
from the country’s mental health and social services, noting that psychiatrists would come to
the house to assess their daughter and that she’d been occasionally hospitalized but adding that
“nothing was ever done to really help her”. Number 5 Katie Simms
32-year-old Katie Simms was found dead in the living room of her home in Kettering,
Northamptonshire, England, on September the 28th of 2020. The harrowing discovery was made by the
woman’s young son, Archie, but her death wasn’t treated as suspicious. Simms had been battling
agoraphobia, which is described as a fear of going outside the home, and her condition had reportedly
worsened under the circumstances of the pandemic lockdown. According to the Simms’s brother, David,
she was once an outgoing person who loved to socialize but she’d been severely affected by
the passing of their older brother, 40-year-old Barry Gunn, in 2015. He’d been suffering from PTSD
after serving in the army with The Royal Anglian Regiment, in Sierra Leone. He took his own life
and, in the aftermath, Simms developed a fear of leaving her home. David believed that the lockdown
“broke her” as the woman was no longer able to be visited by her parents. Simms’s mother suffered
from breathing difficulties and they didn’t want to risk her catching the virus while her father
was unable to travel after being diagnosed with bowel cancer and developing a tumor. Commenting
on the severe depression that ultimately became the catalyst of his sister’s self-inflicted death,
David told a media outlet “We couldn't help her as best we could…it feels like we've failed”.
Number 4 Stewart Gilray A father-of-two from Aberdeen,
Scotland, passed away in early January of 2022, due to complications related to COVID-19.
Stewart Gilray was the founder and CEO of video game developing company Just Add Water Limited,
best known for their work on the Oddworld series. 51-year-old Gilray was hospitalized on December
the 20th of 2021 after experiencing breathing difficulties and other debilitating symptoms
associated with the virus. He was placed on oxygen support and later uploaded a photo on social media
with a cannula in his hand, reemphasizing his fear and hatred of needles. Gilray’s condition
deteriorated drastically and he was eventually put into a medically induced coma from which he never
recovered. His friends, many of whom were part of the game developing industry, took to social
media to express their condolences. In the wake of Gilray’s passing, his grieving widow spoke to
a media outlet and urged members of the public to overcome their fears and get vaccinated. She
revealed that, due to a severe phobia of needles, a condition known as typanophobia, her late
husband had only had one blood test in 25 years. It was due to that same fear that he’d reportedly
avoided getting a COVID-19 vaccine, which could have improved his chances of surviving the virus.
Number 3 Jade Youngman
25-year-old Jade Youngman, from Norwich, England, revealed in 2019 that she feared
losing her vision due to a food phobia that had severely deprived her body of essential nutrients.
Since the age of three, Youngman had been living on a diet of pizza, plain pasta,
chicken nuggets and fries. She was diagnosed with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, or
ARFID, that caused her to suffer a viscerally negative reaction and consequent phobia
of most foods. The impact that the disorder had had on her mental health also included a constant
fear and worry if the food she was able to stomach would be available come meal time. Because of
her condition Youngman hadn’t had any fruits or vegetables in over two decades and compared having
to ingest them to someone placing a plate of dog excrement in front her and saying “Eat that”.
Youngman revealed that she’d tried to push through her repulsion but was unsuccessful as she’d begin
to wretch and gag. The woman’s concerns regarding her future health stemmed from two cases of
teenagers who’d gone blind because of ARFID after developing a condition called nutritional
optic neuropathy. It’s a slow and painless process of vision decay, after fibers in the optic nerve
become damaged due to a lack of vitamins, such as those in the B category, which are typically found
in wholefoods and leafy greens. A 19-year-old from Bristol, who’d lived on French fries his
whole life, was forced to drop out of college after losing his vision because of the condition.
18-year-old Harvey Dyer, from Gloucester, suddenly went blind in his left eye, in October of 2018,
and the optic neuropathy had been connected to his restrictive diet of chocolate, chips and fries.
Today's topic was requested by Instagram follower Kai Oliver and Kizz. If you have any other topics
you'd like to learn about, subscribe & let us know in the comments section below or follow us
on Instagram and reach out to us there. Number 2 Xiao Qian
In early 2018, a news report out of China detailed how a woman, only identified through
her nickname as Xiao Qian, struggled to live a normal life due to a crippling fear of balloons.
Because of the condition, called globophobia, Qian spent all of her spare time at home so that she’d
avoid seeing a balloon in the street. The woman, who worked at an education center in Shenzhen,
Guangdong Province, had first experienced symptoms in 2015. A colleague had reportedly popped a
balloon behind her which caused her body to twitch uncontrollably. She was rushed to the hospital but
doctors couldn’t identify the disease she had. As reported by the Shenzen Television Broadcast,
it was only after five similar reactions under circumstances in which balloons had been involved
that globophobia was revealed to have been the triggering factor. Qian’s psychiatrist, Dr. Wang
Liufeng, determined that the phobia was causing neurosis, a disturbance in the woman’s nerves.
The recommended course of action was medication accompanied by psychological treatment, which
her employer reportedly agreed to cover. Dr. Wang was keen on helping Qian recover arguing that “her
fear of seeing balloons has already exceeded the danger that any balloons could do harm to her”.
Number 1 Jaye Milner 24-year-old Jaye Milner,
from Barnsley, England, accidentally took a lethal dose of Fentanyl, in June of 2018, while trying
to stave off the pain of a tooth abscess from which he’d been suffering for several years.
Milner, a promising soccer player, reportedly suffered from a severe fear of dentists, also
known as odontophobia or dentophobia. According to his father, he’d go on antibiotics to temporarily
deal with the abscess but categorically refused to see a specialist. It was only after Milner’s
death that his father learned he’d been self-medicating with chewable Fentanyl patches
to deal with the worsening pain. Fentanyl is an extremely powerful opioid that can be up to 100
times more potent than morphine and consequently much more dangerous. Double take Analogues,
such a carfentanyl, can be up to 10,000 times stronger than morphine and are typically used
in tranquilizer darts against bears, elephants and other large animals. Developed in the 1950s,
fentanyl was initially used to manage pain in cancer patients before gaining popularity among
recreational drug users because of its potency. In Milner’s case, given his phobia, doctors
recorded a verdict of accidental death. More than 1,000 were reported to have attended the popular
sportsman’s funeral, which was dubbed “Jaye Fest”. Thanks for watching! Starting tomorrow,
would you rather be completely fearless but also incapable of recognizing dangerous situations
OR have five random phobias? Let us know in the comments section below!