#ambulothanatophobia
A friend1 remarked:
does anyone else find it strange (or even cares for that matter) that there is no bonafide phobia name for an irrational fear of zombies. there is one for vampires, werewolves, and i think even mummies. but no zombies?! i demand action!
So I proposed: ambulothanatophobia
The irrational fear of the walking dead.
A “zombie phobia” word at long last? I guess the only issue that I take with this is that the “ambulo” part is Latin while “thanato” and “phobia” are both Greek parts. Of course, the litany of phobias is mostly a patois anyway. So ambulothanatophobia could work just fine.
So, gentle readers: what say you?
- No link for him, I’m afraid.[↩]
once again, i vote BRRAAAAIIIIIIINNNNNSSSSS…
June 7th, 2006 at 8:01 ami’m all for it!
run, don’t walk!
June 7th, 2006 at 3:50 pm> once again, i vote BRRAAAAIIIIIIINNNNNSSSSS…
That would be a sub-category of ambulothanatophobia named rotld-ambulothanatophobia
-m
June 8th, 2006 at 12:04 pmambulothanatophobia: Irrational fear of zombies
rotld-ambulothanatophobia: Irrational fear of comical brain-eating zombies
notld-ambulothanatophobia: Irrational fear of slow-moving flesh-eating zombies
ambulothanatophobia-28: Irrational fear of pseudo-zombies which are actually human rage-driven killing machines
Rama-Rama-ambulothanatophobia: Irrational fear of Hare Krishna zombies
fugu-ambulothanatophobia: Irrational fear of being transformed into a zombie via puffer fish poison
-m
June 8th, 2006 at 12:12 pm[...] The Indexed Phobia List confirms that “ambulo” and “thanato” are good roots to use in my zombie-phobia neologism. (And Dictionary.com confirms that “ambulo” is the preferred prefix in the phobia realm for “walking”.) [...]
June 8th, 2006 at 7:43 pmnecrothanatophobia maybe?
July 14th, 2006 at 9:58 amI think that either ambulothanatophobia or necrothanatophobia would be great. Cuz the latter would be about the same… irrational fear of walking corpses… you should try to get one of them officially accepted. There needs to be one for the fear of zombies, because whatever the name is, I have it. I even have a detailed plan as to how to survive should zombies ever walk the earth. Zombies scare the crap outta me… I know I have the phobia of it, cuz I worry about them all the time. Before I open the front door of my house, I check for zombies.
October 28th, 2006 at 1:51 am[...] We become separated somehow, me from the family. I can hear them just up ahead but as we cross a bridge from the stadium proper into the complex of parking garages that encases it, I get stuck behind tangles of slower and slower moving families. I begin to panic slightly but realize that’s just my ambulothanatophobia taking over. A few deep breaths later and get out of the stairwell. I can’t even remember what level we’re parked on so I figure the safest thing to do is to just get out of the stairs and the throngs of slow-moving families. This strategy seems to work OK: at least this way if I wind slowly up the parking tower I’ll see the car. (Mini-van?) The garage structure is just as filled with zombie-like families as the stairs though. And only slightly less crowded. (Why are there so many yellow cars?) After a couple of floors, I spot my dad who is winding down, looking for me. “Mom sent me to come find you,” he explains. We’re a few more floors up but he does confirm my suspicions that there is something not quite right about these other families. [...]
October 28th, 2006 at 8:04 am[...] ambulothanatophobia [...]
November 20th, 2006 at 10:14 pmWOW! I thought I was the only one or something. No really there should be a name for it. I’m doing a paper for my pysch class on phobias and what better to talk about something I know?
November 27th, 2006 at 10:00 pmwow, I can’t believe there are more people like me!! i don’t care what we call it, but i need help! it takes over my life 100% of my day is all about zombie fear and strategy… god it’s hilarious isn’t it! plus my electricity bill..just think if i wasn’t scared i could turn some lights off!
December 5th, 2006 at 8:24 amso anyone know how to build a web site? we should dedicate one to the phobia.. of decided name!
HOLY. GOD. I cannot believe that there are actualyl people who are just as freaked out by zombies as me. It keeps me from seeing b-horror flicks. I can’t even watch the thriller video by michael jackson (I think that started it, I blame my dad, the MJ fan pre-crazy phase). It keeps me up at night! Thats a perfect name, we need to be recognized!
February 12th, 2007 at 6:29 pmI too have a detailed Zombie plan… but i digress i’m writeing a play, for a class about zombies, act II starts out with the joke
Ben- NecroPhillia?
Emanuel- No necrophillia is how Heden almost got his ear bitten off…
Ben- so whats the fear of Zombies?
And i did have a word for it.. so i hope you don’t mind… i’d like to use yours or else i was gonna have to look up greek and latin words and come up with my own…(probally would have come up with the same stuff- doubt i could do better)
March 4th, 2007 at 10:25 pmFear of zombies/ambulothanatophobia is a symptom of our Neo-Capitalist age which can be seen in all sorts of other supply-side mental phenomena not the least of which is the current epidemic of clinical depression as described by Nesse and Williams in their book Evolution And Healing; the New Science Of Darwinian Medicine. Ten years ago hearing voices was an indicator for schizofrenia whereas now there are actually support-groups that adress the problem which is now considered to be… stress-related. So what this is all about is another consenus-reality forming right before our very eyes, one that will make it socially acceptable to discuss one’s fear of the walking undead.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:28 pmRead “The Zombie Survival Guide” by Max Books c.2003
March 30th, 2007 at 5:10 pm[...] led people to this site in April alone. And another 19 searches for (of all things) ambulothanatophobia. What gives? All of the sudden I feel like an authority on the subject; only Max Brooks2 carries [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 5:36 am[...] Man I really hate the whole idea of zombies. The living dead feasting on the flesh of the living and adding to the sci-fi spin of a T-virus turning a whole town into zombies, scares and intrigues me to no end. I love the story to the Resident Evil series, but they freak me out so I guess I have “ambulothanatophobia.” [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:05 pmCount me in on the “fear-of-the-undead” club.
I’m terrified to go out for a cigarette by myself at night, and if anyone says “the zede word” (either the actual word, or just the phrase “the zede word”) when I’m outside, I get really paranoid and freaked out.
I know my fear has something to do with fear of forced conformity and a deadening of my soul, but still…it’s intense. I actually found this page because I had a dream last night where I had to chop off my arm due to my hand having been bitten by a zombie. :(:(
I love the word, ambulothanatophobia.I think we can even call it ATP for short. We need to get this word recognised.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:15 pm[...] getting comments on my ambulothanatophobia post from last year. Several have mentioned that we need to get the [...]
July 19th, 2007 at 6:26 pmOmg. I’m not alone.
September 9th, 2007 at 2:20 pmI’ve had a phobia of zombies for two years now and it’ still taking over my life. I’m a 16 year old girl who loves anything horror-y and when i watched the RESIDENT EVIL movie the first few times I was fine. Then, a year after the last time I saw it, I watched an uncut version of it. And I’ve had this irrational phobia thats taken over my life since. And i can’t understand why or how I got this phobia. And i don’t know how I can get rid of this. Help! P.s. If anyone wants to talk about this phobia it would be helpful =]
x
I too am glad to not be alone in my phobia. I actually live in an old farmhouse alot like the one in Romero’s NoTLD…and at night it gets foggy and I start to freak out. We should get organized! Form a support group.
September 29th, 2007 at 3:14 pmever since i saw resident evil i’ve been think about zombies i thought i was the only one.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:46 pmI can’t study for my midterms because of what I refer to as my “paranoia” and it’s killing my grades. I’m a fricken High School Senior and I neeeeed this grade. My mom thinks I’m crazy, but she keeps trying to help by giving me suggestions. Amusingly, I tried one and almost had a panic attack.
ATP Anonymous sound good to anybody else?
Sucky-est part? I LOVE RESIDENT EVIL!
*sobs*
January 15th, 2008 at 7:37 pmHoly Snap!
I’ve been like this ever since i read World War Z…
Everywhere i go i think of SOME scenario involving damn zombies and how i’ll get out with my family intact.
I’ve already put the word ambulothanatophobia to use :3
August 20th, 2008 at 11:17 am[...] name. The mummy-fearers have a name. Even the people who are Afraid to Look Up have a name. Someone online suggested “ambulothanatophobia,” meaning “fear of the walking dead”. [...]
August 26th, 2008 at 1:34 am