h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Since I was a young child, I have had an irrational and unexplainable fear of handwriting. This includes any form of writing (and sometimes even drawing), but is worse with ink than with pencil and worse with cursive than printing. The ultimate horror for me is to get ink (or pencil) on my hands and fingers from handling something that has handwriting on it. If something has handwriting on it, I will do everything I can to avoid touching the handwriting, including folding, covering the object with something else or just finding a non-written-on area (if all else fails).

Oddly, this phobia does not include things that were printed, including books and newspapers, things printed on a computer or things printed by a photocopier or fax machine (despite the fact that the ink in these forms of printing can still rub off on my hands).

I do not like to write things myself, and will type as often as possible. I prefer a pencil when forced to write.

Has anyone else encountered this phobia? Does anyone know any way of dealing with it? In the past, my mom tried to make me face the fear by leaving handwritten notes everywhere, but it nearly made me sick, and only encouraged me to stay in my room when she was around.

I suggest you read my article about fear of blood tests which is in this section.

It's called graphophobia.

Thanks for the tips, but this sort of phobia isn't something that builds from a threat of something. It occurs when I look at something with handwriting, and doesn't have a physical reaction for me (feeling faint, etc). It's hard to fight something that seems to be so much just a very strong preference not to do something.