Anatidaephobia
What Is Anatidaephobia?
Anatidaephobia is defined as a pervasive, irrational fear that one is being watched by a duck. The anatidaephobic individual fears that no matter where they are or what they are doing, a duck watches.
Anatidaephobia is derived from the Greek word “anatidae”, meaning ducks, geese or swans and “phobos” meaning fear.
What Causes Anatidaephobia?
As with all phobias, the person coping with Anatidaephobia has experienced a real-life trauma. For the anatidaephobic individual, this trauma most likely occurred during childhood.
Perhaps the individual was intensely frightened by some species of water fowl. Geese and swans are relatively well known for their aggressive tendencies and perhaps the anatidaephobic person was actually bitten or flapped at. Of course, the Far Side comics did little to minimize the fear of being watched by a duck.
While we may be tempted to smile at the memory of those comics or at the mental image of being watched by a duck, for the anatidaephobic person, that fear is uncontrollable. Whatever the cause, the anatidaephobic person can experience emotional turmoil and anxiety that is completely disruptive to daily functioning.
What Are the Symptoms of Anatidaephobia? Read more
Childhood Schizophrenia a Bold Catastrophic Disease
Childhood schizophrenia is on the forefront of people’s minds, as 7 year old Jani Schofield has taken the hearts of Oprah viewers.
For one week, an Oprah associate producer stayed with the Schofield family to observe how a family coped with their daughter’s childhood schizophrenia.
Jani’s childhood schizophrenia requires her parents to make a lot of sacrifices. Since they fear that she may hurt her little brother Bodhi in a schizophrenic rage, the family sleeps in two separate apartments. Jani stays in an apartment set up like a psychiatric ward.
The good news is childhood schizophrenia is extremely rare. According to Dr. Judith Rapoport, the rate of childhood schizophrenia is 1/300th of 1 percent the rate of adults.
Kids with childhood schizophrenia hear voices and see things that other people can’t. Dr. Rapoport states that children with imaginary friends are not likely to have childhood schizophrenia. Kids with childhood schizophrenia are dark and paranoid.
Childhood schizophrenia robs children of their youth. Many of them can not attend school and quite a few of them know enough about their illness to know what it robs them of. Read more
Albinism, What Is It?
The word “albinism” refers to a group of inherited conditions. People with albinism have little or no pigment in their eyes, skin, or hair. They have inherited altered genes that do not make the usual amounts of a pigment called melanin. One person in 17,000 in the U.S.A. has some type of albinism. Albinism affects people from all races. Most children with albinism are born to parents who have normal hair and eye color for their ethnic backgrounds. Sometimes people do not recognize that they have albinism. A common myth is that people with albinism have red eyes. In fact there are different types of albinism and the amount of pigment in the eyes varies. Although some individuals with albinism have reddish or violet eyes, most have blue eyes. Some have hazel or brown eyes. However, all forms of albinism are associated with vision problems. Read more
