Is it normal to be scared of frogs

A mental health professional , such as a psychologist or psychiatrist, can evaluate your history and symptoms to recommend an appropriate treatment plan. The treatment of ranidaphobia can involve therapy, medications, or a combination of the two. You may also see this called desensitization therapy. A therapist will start with an exposure that causes the least amount of anxiety. CBT is often combined with exposure therapy to treat a specific phobia.

The goal is to help you reshape the negative thoughts or emotions that play a role in your fear. In the case of ranidaphobia, this would mean reinforcing the idea that frogs and toads are generally safe to be around. But in some cases, it may be prescribed on a short-term basis to help you cope with feelings of anxiety.

Some medications that may be used include beta-blockers and benzodiazepines. However, more providers are not prescribing benzodiazepines. Someone with ranidaphobia experiences intense feelings of fear or anxiety in response to frogs. They may also have physical symptoms like:. It likely happens due to a combination of factors such as:. If you feel like your fear of frogs is interfering with your daily life, you may want to consider making an appointment with a mental health professional to discuss your concerns.

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One published case documented a woman who developed ranidaphobia, as it is known, after running over a knot of frogs with a lawn-mower. Paralysed by fear and tormented by amphibian dreams, she was persecuted every evening by an accusing chorus of survivors on a nearby riverbank. In another case , a Ghanaian schoolboy developed his phobia when he stepped on a frog while touching itchy leaves. After his brother told him that frog urine could cause itching and a painful death, the boy became paralysed with the fear that frogs were hiding in his bed.

This fear was put to productive use elsewhere in west Africa, with one anthropologist reporting that bed-wetting children were frightened into bladder control by having a live frog attached to their waists. What gives these puny creatures — with big eyes and scrawny, hairless bodies — their power to inspire fear and trembling?

They pose no realistic threat to life: phobic individuals understand that in an encounter with a frog they are unlikely to be the one to croak. The fear of frogs is viscerally unreasonable. Luckily for phobia sufferers, treatment is generally quick and effective.

Cognitive-behaviour therapists have an assortment of techniques for confronting fears and challenging the avoidance and thinking biases that sustain them. A course of therapy was commenced in which she repeatedly viewed a videotape of the operation and practised relaxation techniques. Once when I was 16, a friend offered me a piece of chocolate.

A Cadbury Freddo. I was never a fan of frogs but when I found myself struggling to bring the croaker-shaped candy to my lips, eardrums vibrating with a heavy thump thump thump , I realised that my distaste for the slimy amphibian was more like a full-blown phobia. Over the years, I slowly came to terms with how intense my ranidaphobia really is.

And it's pretty bad. I remember walking home one evening and spotting a frog ahead, right in the middle of the pavement. Squatting still on its grotesque, muscular hind legs with a rhythmic throbbing from that repulsive sac of a chin, it was going to pounce on me. I just knew it. That day, a dozen vehicles were forced to swerve around me after I decided to walk on the car lane, all because my ranidaphobic ass couldn't bring itself to walk past a frog.

Perhaps it started during a family vacation to Bali , where I saw more frogs than I had ever seen and shrieked bloody murder when I came across one flattened by a motorcycle, its intestines all splayed out. Frogs with their bellies sliced open, lower ends all diced up, laid out on plates for consumption. Their eyes blinked helplessly as their insides spilled out of their torsos. Not to mention that one time my father tricked me into eating a frog leg by telling me it was chicken.