All these years later I really do still have anxiety 
    when the phone rings, though. I have an irrational 
    fear of picking up even when it's, like, my dad, 

I feel you. Near the end of my mom's life there were a few years where I was on basically 24/7 phone alert in case she was rushed to the hospital again, etc. I was never really able to use vibrating alerts again after that. I just associate them with that stressful time.

For different but similar reasons I get anxiety spikes from Slack notification noises. Can't handle 'em.