Phobias

As a child before I really became interesting in psychology and how that mind works I always thought that phobias where just something that people made up because they were scared of a particular thing. When different talk shows came on TV like Maury, they would always have a segment on about people who had these crazy phobias. I thought that it was so funny because I would tell myself that there is no way that someone could be scared of something like cotton or foil paper. After going through the lecture slides I started to realize that nothing about having a phobia is funny. Although it might seem ridiculous to someone on the outside looking in, but the person with the actual condition is far from laughing. It seems to me like a phobia is sort of like an extreme over extension of fear and without fear could we really call ourselves human. Everyone is not scared of the same things but without fear we would never know when to fight or flight or anything else. People with phobias should seek help and speak out more because from a person from the outside looking in a phobia just looks like a big show.