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Fears & Phobias
By peace | November 25, 2005
The sight of blood, needles, flying, heights, going to the dentist and being in open spaces are some of the most common phobias. To other people who don’t have the phobia, they may seem odd, irrational and difficult to understand, but it’s reckoned that 10% of the population have intense anxiety, a phobia or both; they’re really common, so if you have a phobia, you’re not alone.
Everyone has an in-built defence system to counter fear. It’s an essential part of the way the body and mind protects itself. We all encounter it at some time or another, and we all know the symptoms. If you feel frightened or in danger, your heart beats quickly, your mouth goes dry and you do your best to get out of the situation as quickly as possible. This feeling of anxiety is normal and known as the fight or flight syndrome. Without it, we’d have no way of knowing whether we were in danger or not.
There are hundreds of officially recognised phobias, from arachnophobia (the fear of spiders) to zoophobia (the fear of animals generally). Some are quite unusual. Did you know that if you are lachanophobic you have a fear of vegetables? Or that, if you are alektorophobic, you have a fear of chickens? Amazingly, the fear of long words is hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, which can’t be easy for those who have it. It’s possible to develop a fear of almost anything!
Whatever the phobia, the sufferer will experience stress and anxiety when they’re faced with it and will try to avoid the things or situations which trigger the anxiety. But avoiding it can make the phobia worse in the long run. It also means that their lives are more and more dominated by the things they have to do to avoid coming into contact with cause of the anxiety.
People with phobias usually know that there’s no real and specific danger to them, they may even feel embarrassed or silly for having their fear - but they can’t do anything about it. And this brings even more anxiety. It’s easy to see how it can become one big vicious circle.
Phobias are sometimes caused by a specific, unpleasant event and escalate from there. But there’s also evidence to suggest that having a phobia may be genetic and that some people are more likely to develop phobias than others.
Topics: Diseases |
