View Full Version : My One & Only Weird Phobia Actually Has A Name!
I am going to come clean, so to speak. I now know there is a name for this weird phobia I've had for 37 years - autoplenophobia. Yes, I've had a fear of driving through a car wash for 37 years. I have not driven through one since 1984, electing to always go to the do-it-yourself pressure hose places. When K asked me to take the new car through the car wash when I was in Albuquerque this morning, I instantly got nervous but I also wanted to get the car clean. I decided beforehand that I would ask the car wash people if they could take the car through for me, but felt kind of weird and embarrassed about it.
So I nervously drove up to the Mister Car Wash and explained my situation and found out that car wash phobia is actually a THING! I had NO IDEA! And they gladly drove the car through for me. I even got to watch through the little portholes as it got washed and realized that even just watching makes my heart rate go way up. I have NO OTHER phobias, can get MRI's with no problem, can ride through the car wash when someone else is driving but for some reason trying to do it myself is really overwhelming. Is it the idea of being pulled along a track? Or having giant jets of soap and water hurled at me??????
Oh yes. I have a friend who has it. She also has severe claustrophobia which is hard on a RN who must wear a mask.
Teacher Terry
3-8-21, 9:46pm
I have never heard of that.
GeorgeParker
3-9-21, 12:30am
I can understand how being inside a car while it's going through a car wash would subconsciously make people feel like they're being attacked. Especially if they have even a tiny bit of claustrophobia. It does sort of resonate with branches tapping against your windows during a storm and numerous horror movie scenes.
My two fears are fear of hospitals and fear of sharp objects. Both are bad enough to be bothersome, but neither is a full-blown phobia.
Fascinating. I don’t have this, nor would it have occurred to me that others do. Phobias, though, are weird things. When I was younger I didn’t have many/any but now I have several. Probably the biggest one for me is acrophobia. As a younger person I absolutely did not have this. I can remember being a teen and asking my uncle if he could take us to the top of the grain elevator where he worked. Once up there I just walked right to the edge. Meanwhile my mom was plastered against the wall of the elevator machinery, as far from the edge as possible. Today I would be her if I went up there.
Mine is catfish I encounter while diving. I’ve gone to descend and along comes a 5’-6’, 80 to 100lb catfish. Stuff of nightmares to me. I can’t even watch videos of them. Shudder.
I’ll cave dive, yet I’m scared to death of catfish. LOL.
Tornadoes scare to bejesus out of me.
I suppose it would be like the feeling of being in a car that drives into a body of water. Trapped and drowning.
I can understand how being inside a car while it's going through a car wash would subconsciously make people feel like they're being attacked.
I can, too, though I feared going through car washes with my present car for a different reason: the first production run used plastic parts in the power window regulators and they sometimes would fail, typically as the window was going down, leaving you unable to move the window back up to closed. You never knew when the window would go down but not up again, and sometimes it happened because something hit the window or door with a little force and finally broke the brittle plastic. The replacement part is metal, but most people don't get there until the window disappears inside the door. I finally had it happen to me on the driver's door just after I got out of a car wash. I can only imagine it failing during the wash. Not pretty and I had a little apprehension that another window would fail every time I went through. Something about that wall of water...
iris lilies
3-9-21, 11:14am
Car wash phobia is an interesting one I never would’ve thought of it.
I think I’ve been in one once because I have some vague memory of driving through one with DH at the wheel.
Well that would be once in 30+ years of marriage. Generally we do not use car wash stations because that COSTS. Our cars are usually dirty. Except for our play cars and those are washed once a year from a hose at our house.
Honestly, it has NEVER occurred to me to use a drive-thru car wash, but such is married life. I always had old cars that I didn't really care about the appearance all that much; if I did wash them, I'd do it at home with a bucket or sponge, or go to the D0-It-Yourself pressure hose place. K. got a new car a few weeks ago, so I am now driving a brand new car for the first time in my life. He's the one the decided to get a monthly pass for the car wash (that is literally not something I would ever think of buying, ever). But I do understand making an effort to keep the new 2020 model Suburu Impreza nice as long as possible. For K's birthday I bought the rubber foot mat set, definitely a need out here in the country when we are constantly dragging desert dirt and mud around on our shoes.
Anyway, I posted this same thread on my Facebook and it turns out several of my friends have confessed to the same sort of phobia! Who knew??? A drive-thru car wash will be a need for me in the future anyway, as I cannot squeeze the pressure hose triggers with the way my wrists are now.
PS: my bosses gave me their old 2008 Suburu Forester a few months ago when they got a new car, so I still have an old knock-around vehicle to drive.
Oh IrisLilies, You made me laugh. We too have dirty cars. If it's going to rain, I take the car out onto the driveway so it can get clean.
iris lilies
3-9-21, 3:03pm
I suppose it would be like the feeling of being in a car that drives into a body of water. Trapped and drowning.
Yes that’s what I imagine this phobia to be. Huge jets of water coming at you.
Car wash phobia is an interesting one I never would’ve thought of it.
I think I’ve been in one once because I have some vague memory of driving through one with DH at the wheel.
Well that would be once in 30+ years of marriage. Generally we do not use car wash stations because that COSTS. Our cars are usually dirty. Except for our play cars and those are washed once a year from a hose at our house.
Once a year sounds about right to me. My cucaracha spends 99.9% of its life in the garage. I dust it off every once in awhile. I have no fear of drive-through car washes, but the closest one it too far away. I used to have a phobia about stopping my VW on a hill, which morphed into driving uphill, which morphed into finding it a new home.
When we were young we used to like to get stoned and go through the carwash. Now I'm in IL's camp.
Oh IrisLilies, You made me laugh. We too have dirty cars. If it's going to rain, I take the car out onto the driveway so it can get clean.
I've done that too on occasion... hehe.
This thread, and rosa’s hilarious response, remind me of a time when I was in high school. We were in a friend’s car but I was driving when we came up to a huge puddle. I thought it would be fun to drive through it. This ended up covering the car in thick goopy mud. That was bad enough but the sunroof was open so my friend who owned the car and was sitting in the back seat also got splattered with mud... feeling bad about this the other friend with us and I went to her house early the next morning and washed her car. Her sister saw us and shouted ‘C some people are washing your car!’ I’m not sure why she called us ‘some people’ and not JP and Other friend but what can I say? Her sister was a bit of an odd duck.
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