Amphibiphobia

So, what is there not to like about amphibians? Well, I must say from the outset that my problem is more with frogs and toads, than newts. Newts are just about ok. I can remember holding a newt once and thinking it was quite sweet. But frogs and toads I do not find sweet. Ever since I was young, and there had been a number of times that they had jumped out at me (no doubt plotting against me), I just could not cope with them. Some of the times that they had leapt out at me included: as a child, colouring whilst in the garden and lying on my front and a giant toad leaping onto my colouring book right by my face; searching for a tennis ball in the garden and putting my hand on a frog instead of the ball; and poking around in a pond (admittedly, I may have been asking for it with this one) and a frog leaping onto my foot.

The ranidaphobia (fear of frogs) and bufonophobia (fear of toads) had got to epic proportions by the time I reached my late teens. If I saw one, I would start hyperventilating and then I would burst into tears. I don’t know what it is, but I just have issues with them. And it’s fine to mock – I do see that it is totally ridiculous, although someone I know has a proper phobia of balloons and surely that is more stupid? In fact, a very popular phobia is bananaphobia and yes, that is a phobia of bananas.

One summer, I was performing in the ensemble of an outdoor production of Madama Butterfly. At the beginning of Act Three comes The Humming Chorus – a very beautiful and famous piece of music. In this particular production, the director had the idea that as we were singing this, we would crawl up from the ground level and some of us up onto the stage, as if we were wolves. And yes, I did feel a little silly doing this. We practised this, and come the performances, off we went, crawling around the place – some of us, including me, in full Geisha costumes (white kimonos, massive wigs – perfect outfits for crawling. I don’t know why the army doesn’t start using them). I had been stationed by the ramp which led up to the stage, but I was at ground level, and it was during a performance as I hummed away, as lupine-like as I could, that I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye. Whilst trying to still see the conductor, and hum a rather high note, I turned my head to see if I could see what is was. It was, in fact, a giant Natterjack toad, which was walking – not hopping – frogs hop, toads walk – towards me and my face was level to the ground. It was horrifying. I was about to have a panic attack. Pure fear was gripping me over a creature that was probably far more frightened of me than I was of him. But you cannot rationalise a phobia. The song seemed to go on and on and on. My professional instincts told me I would have to stay put, but my body was telling me to move as soon as possible. The moment came where we all swept away from the stage. I legged it like an Olympic athlete, and promptly burst into tears in the dressing room. The girls all came around to comfort me – it was a very emotional moment of the show, and it was no wonder that I had let my feelings about Butterfly’s plight overcome me. When I explained that it was in fact due to the fact that there was a bloody great amphibian edging itself towards me, their sympathy waned somewhat. I think one of them might have even been heard to laugh - unsympathetic cows.

I did speak to the Company Manager and requested that maybe somebody could look under the stage and remove the resident toad. But I was informed that this would not be possible, as the park in which we were performing was involved in a breeding programme of this endangered species, and in fact, there were probably hundreds of them dotted about the place. Not quite what I would call a winning result for an amphibiphobe.