Megalophobia (noun): the morbid and irrational fear of large objects.
Automatonophobia (noun): the fear of anything that falsely represents a sentient being.
Nyctophobia (noun) : extreme or irrational fear of the night or of darkness.
The earliest memory I can recall that combines megalophobia and automatonophobia takes place in an aquarium; a dark and cold aquarium in Boston. The big and glowing (big for a young teen) jellyfish statue caused panic, and subsequent tears. I have no idea why I was so freaked out by this jellyfish, and I refused to see the rest of the fish in the massive and dark tank. About an hour or two later, I needed to go to the bathroom. As I opened the door, there was a cardboard cutout of a big turtle tucked away in a very dark corner right beside the doorway; again, I was scared (on the inside of course).
Years later, after an encounter with a fake orangutan in the Museum of Natural History, I decided to find out what was causing so much fear. My first line of defense? Google. I kid you not I googled "fear of big things" hoping that the fear had a name and was addressed somewhere. This is when I found out what megalophobia is.
Being a city slicker, I am not afraid of the skyscrapers that seem to be a popular big thing to be scared of. Animals are included in the definition, but I have seen giraffes and rhinos up close last winter, and I wasn't scared. So what was it with big inanimate things that made me so anxious?
While "researching" for this article, I came across automatonophobia. As soon as I read the definition, everything started to fit. I would diagnose myself of having a hybrid of megalophobia, automatonophobia, with a dash of nyctophobia. A commonality you might have noticed is that these inanimate objects were placed in the dark. While the fear is intensified in dark settings, I found myself getting a lot of anxiety when I was approaching a massive statue of a bronze rhino, in broad daylight, at the Bronx Zoo. I know, weird.
Another commonality is that these occurrences all involved animals. I would not say that I have zoophobia, which is the fear of animals, but I would say that I have a fear of only certain types of inanimate representations of live beings; this is where the automatonophobia kicks in.
I honestly still have no idea why I have this hybrid of phobias, but I will say that I kicked their asses when I went back to the Museum of Natural History and not only confronted that fake orangutan, but I confronted its cousins (other apes) and the giant squid in the Hall of Ocean Life (it was in pitch darkness). I forced myself to stay standing in front of the squid, and after a while I didn't feel anxious anymore. There is hope for me yet.
