Challenge no. 12 - Fear Factor

Face a Phobia

Set by Jessica Bunn

Me and Jess used to work at Freeport (a shopping centre) together. Weirdly she is best friends with James Easter's girlfriend, Bernie (see working 9 till 5), I only found this out about 2 years after knowing her. Small world. When I first met Jess I thought she didn't like me, I'm convinced of it now.

Lots of people have phobias. I have quite a few. I don't want to tell you as I have an irritational fear that someone will gather all the things I am scared off and throw them at me.

I am not afraid of heights, jumping from heights (I have a skydive planned), water, excessive speed or anything else that could actually harm me. I am however terrifed of baked beans.

Show me a baked bean and I will freak out. This phobia is specific to baked beans, I am fine with any other type of bean and I like spaghetti hoops. I don't know why I have this phobia, there is no traumatic event from childhood involving baked beans.

I hate the look of them squirming in their gross orange juice, I hate the smell of them, it makes me gag. I am able to glance at a closed tin of baked beans but not look directly at the tin or them. I am able to sit in a room with someone eating them, so long as I trust the baked bean consumer. I still cannot sit at a table with someone eating them. Most people probably have not noticed, when I have lunch at college, if a person at my table is eating beans, I will go outside to smoke loads and try not to look at them. I haven't told many people about this phobia as people think it's stupid and flick beans at me. I understand if you are laughing at this point, I am aware how irrational this is, but it is very real to me.

I searched the internet to find a proper name for this phobia but I was unsuccessful however I did find loads of other people who share this phobia with me. Maybe we should set up a support network?

I have been terrified of completing this challenge and desperately trying to put it off. Everytime I have contemplated it, I have started gagging and been close to tears. I finally decided it's now or never, seize the day and so on.

Seeing as I do not have a hypnotherapist or other medical advisor on hand I researched how to cure phobias on the internet. I found loads of ways, I could slowly introduce myself to the baked beans, but I did not have the time for that. I could go in the opposite direction and 'flash flood' myself with them, for example sit in a bath of them, but costs, lack of a bathtub and my outright fear prevented this.

I decided on NLP - Neuro Linguistic Programming. I think it's the kind of thing Paul McKenna and Derren Brown do. It's all about re-programming the brain. I am a big fan of this kind of thing, sadly not an expert. I found this article and tried to re-plicate what the man did. http://www.deep-trance.com/techniques/fast-phobia-cure.html

When Danny went to Tescos to get the dreaded baked beans, I tried to relax, I told myself 'it is a tiny little bean, it cannot hurt you'. This sort of worked. I felt very calm, I still didn't want to do it, but I knew the bean wouldn't hurt me.

Here is a video of me facing my baked bean phobia

So I managed to touch a baked bean, but I really could not bring myself to do anything more. It felt gross, there was no way I could have eaten one, that would have pushed me over the edge. I did keep trying to relax and reason with myself, but it only got me a tiny way to curing my phobia. I believe that I should be able to at least hold a tin of baked beans now as that bit was fine, I didn't like it but I now know that nothing bad will come from holding the tin. I'm pretty impressed with myself.

Difficulty rating: Really effing hard

Fun Factor: Zero for me, Puffin found it funny!

Do this if.....you want to face a phobia!

Challenge 12: Completed!

Holly

x