Vermiphobia

It's 3am last night, and I'm awake. Am supposed to post this at that moment, but the computer isn't in my room and there's this rule in my house that we're not allowed to use the computer pass midnight unless under certain exceptions. Sneaking out to the living room to use the computer is way too risky and it's not worth risking that just for a blog post, so I could just wait till the morning when I'm free to use the computer.

So, back to the reason why I am awake at a time like that? I was awaken by a nightmare of me seeing a worm. Yes, just as simple as that. Awaken, crying hard. This may sound funny, but I'm actually a sufferer of Vermiphobia - phobia of worms, classified as Specific Phobia of the animal type. I just can't stand staring at a worm for more than a few seconds without crying. There's no exact factor to how an individual can suffer from phobia, but I guess there are 2 possibilities to how I suffer from this phobia.

#1: Genetic link.
Unreasonable? Well, Wiki says it's possible. Read this:

"It appears that family members of a person diagnosed with Specific Phobia have an increased risk of developing the disorder. Particularly, first-degree biological relatives of person with Specific Phobias, Animal type, are more likely than the general population to have animal phobias."

And since my older brother is also suffering from Specific Phobia (phobia of butterflies), and remembering my dad also used to suffer from such phobia (phobia of lizards), it kinda make sense this way. On a side note, dad is no longer phobia of lizards. There's a saying that phobia can go away on their own upon maturity, or maybe, dad just happened to overcome it?

#2: Trauma.
I had this bad experience of being frightened (nearly to death) by a little earthworm when I was about 5 or 6 years old. It was my first time trying to bath alone with the lights off. Then halfway I felt something moving under my feet, so I looked down and... there's this liiiiittle earthworm under my feet wiggling. I screamed and petrified. Grandma came to the rescue, but I was already petrified, not moving even an inch. So mum kinda believed that incident caused my phobia, but it could also be the other way round - the phobia caused that incident. Which?

So exactly how I get this phobia? An unanswered question. But one thing for sure, I'm currently a sufferer of Vermiphobia.