Face Your Fears!

With the general public on ‘red-alert’ due to the media-hype around False Widow spiders (yuck!), and Halloween rapidly approaching, the Face Your Fears campaign couldn’t have come at a better time. UK Charity, Changing Faces, are running some fearsome feat events in order to create awareness of the fantastic work they do.

The phrase “The only thing to fear is fear itself” immediately springs to mind, and the ChangingFaces team have inspired us to have a look into some food phobias, here are our top 5:

• Mycophobia – Fear of mushrooms. Everyone knows that mushrooms grow in dirt, but after they’ve had the mud washed off, most of us see them as a delicious ingredient for dinner. Unfortunately for Mycophobes, the sheer thought of fungi can cause feelings of panic and even shortness of breath.
• Lachanophobia – Fear of Vegetables. Try to imagine living a life with a lack of vital vitamins and minerals. It can be more specific to a certain type of vegetables, causing a race out of the room at the sight of a runner bean.
• Alliumphobia – Fear of Garlic. It’s not just mythological vampires, that shudder and steer clear of the little white and purple cloves, the sight, scent and even imminent presence of garlic can be enough to have alliumphobes looking for the nearest way out.
• Arachibutyrophobia – A fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. Possibly one of the most specific food phobias we have come across, causing sufferers a sick feeling, inability to speak or think, and/or a fear of dying.
• Geumophobia – A fear of taste. Our worst nightmare! We wonder what poor geumophobes eat?

What are you afraid of? Spiders? Heights? Public Speaking? People who look different?

Whatever your fear is, now's your chance to face it. For this week, ChangingFaces is asking everybody in the UK to face their fears and raise money at the same time.

What has this got to do with Changing Faces' work?

People with an unusual appearance may fear social situations and find it hard to deal with the seemingly constant staring, comments and questions from other people.

On the flip side, people who look normal may have their own niggling fears about people with an unusual appearance. Why do they look like that? If they look different, do they think and feel different, too? Can I talk to them like I would talk to anybody else?

Changing Faces hopes to raise awareness of the issues and raise money with this exciting and fun campaign.

Some of the fear facing activities include: abseiling, skydiving and cycling in the dark! 

Comedian, Jan Ravens faced her fear of spiders... what will you do?

Changing Faces is a national charity that supports and represents people living with conditions, scars or marks that affect their appearance. To find out more visit www.changingfaces.org.uk; follow them on Facebook - /ChangingFacesUK or Twitter @FaceEquality