Are you a writer looking for some interesting
personality traits and quirks to create characters? Or maybe you’re a
logophile, someone who loves words, and wants to collect more of them. Either
way, you’ve come to the right place. Reminder: gender neutral pronouns used.
Bacilophobia is a fear of microbes. It is also known as mysophobia, verminophobia,
germaphobia, and bacteriophobia.
Monk, the TV detective.
Howard Hughes. Sherlock Holmes (maybe). Donald Trump (purportedly). The person who avoids
shaking hands. One who carries disinfectant wipes to decontaminate surfaces. A
person who avoids crowded settings.
Etymologically, any word
with phobia in it is derived from the
Greek φόβος
(phobos), "fear". Bacilo
is from the Latin baculus meaning “stick.” Bacili are disease-causing bacteria.
In a mild form, we see
someone who is always cleaning up after shimself and others. In a more
pathological sense, a bacilophobe
would find the condition interfering with having a normal life.
Your bacilophobic character:
You can play this character
for laughs (like Monk) by showing how the obsession with germs looks to the
people heesh encounters. Your character wipes doorknobs before entering, uses a
wipe on shis hands after shaking hands, and other behaviors that are done
matter-of-factly, seemingly unaware that non-bacilophobic people don’t do them.
Perhaps your MC has a
parent in a care facility who won’t eat in the communal dining hall because of
extreme bacilophobia. The parent
might not allow anyone into shis room to clean it or to check on welfare.
Isolation is the preference, with the only food allowed being brought by the MC
from certain cafeteria-style restaurants (where all the food is on display).
Because the parent won’t allow anyone to check, the parent lies dead on the
floor for several days before being found by the MC upon returning from a trip.
Guilt ensues.
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