Genghis Khan, Charles Darwin and Alfred Hitchcock sharing the same problem: the most unusual phobias

phobias and fears they are very common and throughout history they have varied in their complexity and diagnosis and very important characters for knowledge, politics and art have suffered from them even if their cases have not been well known.

The phobia often consists of an intense fear that causes the person to avoid first the phobic object and then everything related to that object of fear.. And most phobics, unless their case is severe, just don’t go to a psychotherapist. They also took it on as part of their life.

From the fierce Mongolian warrior, Genghis Khanpassing through George Washington right up to Charles Darwin, director Alfred Hitchcock, and the eccentric Howard Hughes, phobias have played an important role in many lives.

Genghis Khan: dog phobia

Genghis Khan may have been the most fearsome warlord of all time, but he too was terrified of dogs. Born in 1162, the Mongol warlord ascended to become the leader of his clan and then worked to unite his rivals, crushing those who would not join him.

Under his leadership, the Mongol Empire extended from Eastern Europe to the Sea of ​​Japan; in fact, after the death of Genghis Khan, it grew to become the largest contiguous empire in history. But as powerful as he was, Khan had a notable weakness: he was reportedly terrified of dogs.

Genghis Khan’s methods of conquest were as brutal as they were effective. By taking an enemy village, he would kill everyone he met. He also ordered his men to kill the cats and, above all, the dogs they found in the village..

Like this, the leader managed to sow fear throughout his empire, as well as in the lands he had not yet conqueredand he also managed to kill the animals he hated most in the world.

Maybe Genghis Khan’s dog phobia wasn’t so irrational. After all, dogs in Mongolia were huge and powerful beasts, usually bred for hunting or to protect livestock from wolves.. They were so ferocious that even the most powerful man of the time would have mistrusted them.

Howard Hughes: Phobia of Germs

Hughes was a billionaire playboy and aviator in his youth, but his life was dominated by his obsessive phobia and his fear of germs.

On the other hand, he was a key figure in the birth of the aviation industry, being himself a great pilot. In addition, he was a successful film producer and billionaire businessman.

However, despite all his achievements, Hughes is probably best remembered for his eccentricities and, above all, for his phobias. The last years of his life were consumed by his phobia of germs, a fear that led him to become one an almost total recluse for 20 years.

After his death in 1976, doctors performed an examination of Hughes’s brain, trying to find out what was wrong with him.

They also examined his life and concluded that the eccentric behavior that dominated his later years had its roots in childhood. His mother, who feared he might contract poliokept him isolated from other children and was obsessed with germs and hygiene, r

As an adult, Hughes became increasingly paranoid about germs.. In today’s terms, he suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The situation became so bad that he was left alone and isolated for weeks, even months, hanging around with boxes of Kleenex on his feet instead of shoes.

He died of kidney failure at the age of 70 and his phobias and obsessions led to a dangerous addiction to codeine which most likely contributed to his demise.

George Washington: Phobia of being buried alive

The president of the United States, like many of his contemporaries, he suffered from tapophobia, the fear of being buried alive.. In fact, the founding father of the United States – and the nation’s first president – possessed one of the brightest minds of his time.

However, he had his own fears and phobias. In particular, Washington feared being buried alive. And maybe rightly so. In the 18th century, there were no medical machines that could read the pulse, and sometimes people looked dead but they weren’t.

Washington wasn’t alone in suffering tapophobiaeven though, as president, he was in a unique position to give orders to make sure the worst case scenario never happened.

By all accounts, Washington has never shown fear of being buried alive until it has reached old age. At that moment, it seems that the phobia was consuming him more and more.

According to some accounts, as he lay on his deathbed, the president ordered his body to remain alone and intact for two days. In this way, his doctors, as well as his servants – and, perhaps more importantly, the gravediggers – could be sure that he was dead.

During the 19th century, urban legends about people buried alive, sometimes saved but sometimes not, spread to the Americas and Europe. Some scholars claim that up to 2% of all people buried at that time could have been in a coma. or in a stupor.

Charles Darwin: Phobia of Crowds

Darwin was a prolific diarist. This habit not only gives us an idea of ​​his scientific mind, but also shows the concerns he had.. From the age of 30 she began to worry about leaving the house alone. He was becoming more and more terrified of crowds and needed the support of his friends, or especially his wife, to get out of the house.

Traveling to central London to present his work was a particular concern for him. But even so, although he might show the classic symptoms of agoraphobia, Darwin surpassed them.

Besides the fear of crowds and open spaces, Darwin also suffered from extreme anxiety. He constantly worried that his work wasn’t good enough. also with The origin of the speciesDarwin feared being found out as a cheater.

At the age of 50 he wrote to his colleague Robert Hooker: “You ask me about my book and all I can say is that I am ready to kill myself. I thought it was written decently, but I find there is so much to rewrite “.

In the end, The origin of the species It is a classic with an extraordinary contribution to science.

Alfred Hitchcock: Chicken Egg Phobia

The director had several peculiar habits and mental quirks, none more than his own hate and deep fear of chicken eggs Hitchcock had a complex relationship with food. He gorged himself on steak and ice cream, but then wallowed in intense bouts of guilt and self-loathing.

However, nothing was quite as strange as her relationship with eggs. In short words, Hitchcock suffered from ophobia. He was afraid of eggs and, in particular, chicken eggs terrified him.

“Eggs scare me,” he once told an interviewer. “That round white thing with no holes … have you ever seen anything more disgusting than an egg yolk breathe and pour its yellow liquid?“.

The cause of this strange phobia remains a mystery. Certainly Hitchcock himself has never admitted any past trauma related to eggs. He also hasn’t had a bad experience eating eggs; she in fact she hated them even though she had never tried to eat one.

The British were famous for being afraid of many different things. Indeed, he wallowed in his fears and phobias, using them as a creative force. For example, he was afraid of sex, terrified of heights and even had a lifelong fear of being arrested by mistake and locked up forever.