I am ichthyophobic

I am absolutely terrified of fish. I had a really traumatizing experience in 5th grade involving trout. My 5th grade teacher, Mr. Bolling, was an avid fly fisher, so we raised trouts from eggs and released them in the wild (but not super wild, as I grew up in Orange County and it doesn't get really wild in the context of freshwater habitats). They were ugly, but whatever, I named one Bob and all's fine. A few weeks after they were released, Mr. Bolling brought in a bunch of dead trout for us to dissect. Were they the very same that we had raised from little eggs? Potentially. But I think what really got me was how disgusting it was. The smell of dead fish lingered in the classroom for weeks; I had to excuse myself multiple times during the dissection. And of course, it being 5th grade, all the very mature little boys were popping out the eyes and running around, pretending to lick them and shoving them in all the girls' faces saying "Mmm, tastes like chicken." Awesome. I was never a fan of fish, but thus was born my ichthyophobia.

In the following years, it has seriously been a source of much embarressment. I don't like eating fish, and I don't like touching fish. Therefore, although I love the ocean and grew up close to the California coast, it would take literally minutes of me mentally coaxing myself to go in the water. I had to tell myself that fish don't swim that shallow. One time I was on Catalina Island and there was a platform out about a hundred feet from the shore with ropes connecting it to land. I convinced myself that the flourishing fish population couldn't swim past the rope so I wouldn't be afraid to swim out and jump off the platform. Even in high school, at the first sight of life in the ocean, whether it be a jellyfish, sandshark, or a just plain ugly regular fish, I would hightail it out of there. Some years are worse than others. When there is a particularly warm current (i.e. El Nino), it attracts TONS of jellyfish. The biggest I've seen them is about a foot in diameter. They're clear white with purple trim (not that they're a window curtain, but kind of). And they scare the crap out of me. Every few years we get something called the "red tide," where there's an abundance of plankton or something and it makes the water look red, but at night when it's dark and the waves crash, they glow fluorescent blue. I think the glowing part is actually their eggs or something. Regardless, it looks super cool, but it's disgusting to swim in.

Last term, I lived in Hawaii. As a severe ichthyophobe, was this a very stupid thing? Yes, definitely. Fortunately, I didn't find out what Hukilau, the local Laie beach, means in Hawaiian til the very end of the term (it's something like, the locals catch loads of fishes here because the water is packed with them). And there were lots of turtles. I love turtles, so that was cool. Once, I went snorkeling at this place called Shark's Cove. It was a harrowing experience. When I get scared, I hyperventilate and flex my calves really hard. I don't know why, it's a fight or flight thing I guess. Anyway, someone should try that sometime, snorkeling while hyperventilating and using more energy to flex calves than swim. I was fine for awhile in the shallow side because it just looked like the old submarine ride at Disneyland (that has apparently been replaced by a new Finding Nemo feature) through my goggles so I convinced myself it was fake. But then my friend wanted us to go over to the deeper side. I almost died. We had to swim THROUGH a school of fish about the size of my hand and larger. The swells were up that day, so between it all, I had to avoid being smashed against the beautifully craggy basalt (although, if I had to go, being with basalt in my last moment would probably be the best way, especially if the other alternative is "swimming with the fishes," figuratively and literally). And my friend kept trying to point out the giant fishes (over a foot long). She even saw a squid, which I think was probably an octopus but I wouldn't know because I told her "No thanks" and when she saw it again I told her I would rather die than see a squid and acknowledge I was swimming with one. Once at Hukilau, we saw some local kids who had captured 2 or 3 octopii (? that would be the spelling in Latin, but I've heard arguments that it's octopuses. What do I know? After 4 years of high school Latin and English, I still couldn't tell you which is right) from the ocean we swim in. Disgusting.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, I have ichthyophobia. That is a fear of fish. And it is not only just fish with fins and tails and bulging eyes, although that is the main type, but also anything disgusting. Like octopuses/ii, and squids (which we had to dissect in the 7th grade; they told us to hold it like an ice cream cone, so I scooted my chair back and watched with one eye closed), jellyfish, and crustaceans in general. Shrimps are so creepy.

I am not, however, afraid of sharks, dolphins, whales, sea lions, otters, sting rays, turtles, etc.
Except for the sting ray that killed Steve Irwin, may he rest in peace.