A phobia is not the same as being anxious. There is a particular thing, and you know exactly what it is. That specificity is good news: it gives the work somewhere precise to go. Most people are not really afraid of the object itself but of being trapped with it, or of losing control in front of others.
Flying
The trip you keep not booking, or the one you get through with a drink and white knuckles. Usually it is less about the aircraft than about eight hours of not being the one in control.
Driving
Freeways, bridges, tunnels, roundabouts — or driving at all since the accident. It narrows a life quietly: the longer route home, the job not applied for, the lifts asked of other people.
The dentist and needles
Fear of needles is one of the most searched fears in the country, and dental fear sits right beside it. The real cost is rarely the appointment — it is the years of not going, and what that does to your health.
Enclosed spaces
Lifts, MRI scanners, aeroplane seats, a crowded train. Claustrophobia rarely announces itself; it just steadily shrinks the list of places you are willing to be.
Spiders, insects and snakes
Common enough in Australia to be a national joke, which is exactly why people do not ask for help. It stops being funny when you cannot go into the shed, or sleep in a room where you have seen one.
Being sick, or seeing someone else be sick
It sounds unusual and it is not — it ranks in the top ten fears Australians look up. It quietly shapes eating, travelling, and being around children.