Not exactly a full-fledged phobia, but I am not fond of driving. Especially not long drives, driving on highways, or to new places. In fact, I have driven only once this past two years, though mostly because I'm legally not supposed to in the new country I'm in. I'm supposed to go to auto school, despite having learned to drive over 30 years ago and with a US driver's license. However, many European driving rules and signs are a bit different than US ones.

I did drive locally when I lived in the US, but never to far places. I would drive a little bit on the local highways, but hated it. Often I took back ways that avoided highways or at least required only short-distance highway driving. I am unsure exactly what brought this about. I didn't like driving even from the beginning, but then I got into a severe accident (not even my fault) and a near horrible one (which would have been my fault). It really affected me. Frankly, driving is a very risky activity. People do it all of the time, despite. There is good public transportation where I live now, but it's not as good (or available at all) in many places in the US.

I did have a temporary more legit phobia in the past. For about a year I would not go into my basement. I was afraid that the devil was there. I am not even religious, but it was sparked by a horrible hallucination I had during a psychotic bipolar mania. I would try to go down to fight the phobia through "exposure", but a couple times I heard what I thought was the devil again. Once it was the sound of chicks (of chickens) chirping, of all crazy things. I thought that was really the devil and ran back upstairs at the speed of lightening, slamming the door in terror. I was OK in the house as long as the basement door was closed.