I'm not the only person with irrational fears, of course. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that around 8.7 percent of the population has some kind of specific phobia, the most common including snakes, spiders, flying and small spaces.But what about statues? I decided to ask several mental health professionals about my own fear. It turns out the phobia is rare, but nobody seemed surprised by it."It's very common to have fears that aren't common," Martin Antony, director of the Anxiety Research and Treatment Lab at Ryerson University in Toronto, told me.Phobias often start in childhood, where traumatic events are capable of leaving a mental residue that can last a lifetime. My conversations led back to one such pivotal moment. It involved a horror movie, my confused parents and, ultimately, a urine-soaked My Buddy doll.*"I wouldn't say this is one of the most common phobias," Ali Mattu, a clinical psychologist at the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders, told me over the phone. Two other psychologists told me the same thing. All of them had treated people with clown phobias, but never statues."It's very common to have fears that aren't common"
I like DC. I wana come back and visit the memorials even though I'm scared of statues
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) November 28, 2012
Gigantic men barreling toward him? No problem. Statues of historical import? Keep them the hell away! (Lillard's management team did not respond to an interview request.)So, my fear isn't totally crazy. Mattu has treated quite a few different phobias, including his own, which involve bees and sharks. He once had a patient who was afraid of pasta. People can develop fears of pretty much anything, he said. Most of the time, however, they center around something that is inherently dangerous to human beings or at least was dangerous back in the caveman days.Take snakes. There is evidence that our fear of them is innate, something passed down from a more primal era. A 2008 study from the University of Virginia found that three-year-olds were able to identify snakes hidden in pictures faster than other animals, like frogs and caterpillars. Another study done by researchers at Northwestern University and Stockholm's Karolinska Institute found that monkeys reacted with fear when they saw footage of another monkey freaking out over a snake, but not when they saw footage of another monkey seemingly terrified of a flower.People I'm only scared of historic statues. Abraham Lincoln , MLK, etc . Had a bad experience at the wax museum lmao
— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) November 28, 2012
"I don't want to be your therapist," Mattu said to me, "but I'm curious if you have any memories in your past related to statues or wax figures that stick out?""Not really…" I trailed off.Then I remembered. I was six. The cloying commercials for My Buddy, the toy doll released by Hasbro back in 1985, had entranced me. I begged my parents for one and eventually they relented.It was a birthday gift and I was overjoyed, until I saw a commercial for Child's Play. I became obsessed with the idea that My Buddy would come alive and murder me and everyone that I loved. Distressed, I considered the idea of simply throwing the doll away. But my parents had just spent good money on it and the idea of explaining my terror to them didn't seem like an option.I took My Buddy into the bathroom with me, unzipped my fly, and with hot tears streaming down my face, unleashed a stream of pee onto the object of my fear.
Things #DoctorWho has made me afraid of:
Statues
Shadows
Silence
Hands coming out of the ground
Snake people
Cracks
— ✴April✴ (@aprilp2a) September 20, 2015
The plot involved angel statues that came alive with demonic faces the instant their victims stopped looking at them. Can I say for certain it gave some kid automatonophobia? No, but I'm glad I didn't see it when I was six.Now I'm effing afraid of statues!!!! #Don'tBlink #DoctorWho
— ChokoPocky (@Imi_ElA) September 30, 2015