Fear
of Death (Death Anxiety)
Death
is the last big mystery, the great unknown we’ll all have to face one day. It’s
a scary thought, but for some people the fear goes deeper than that. The
thought of death leaves them paralysed in terror.
Technically
known as thanatophobia, death anxiety is capable of utterly destroying people’s
lives. Triggered by the overwhelming feelings you get trying to imagine
something impossible (your own extinction), it often centres on the fear that
nothing lies beyond. There is no afterlife and when you die, you just die.
Interestingly, sufferers rarely worry about the method of their death. While
many of us fear the pain and unexpectedness of dying, it’s what happens next
(or rather, doesn’t) that gets thanatophobics.
Outside
of modern Western culture, thanatophobia is highly unusual. In some Buddhist
and Hindu teachings, obliteration is even to be desired. For a lucky few, it’s
the end of life reward for all their pain and suffering.
Fear
of Being Buried Alive (Taphophobia)
You
wake up in the pitch dark. You try to stretch out, but something stops you
moving. You try to scream for help, but your words are muffled by the walls
around you. As you struggle, it slowly dawns on you that your worst fear has
come true: you’ve been buried alive.
The
above scenario is one that frightens many people, especially those suffering
from claustrophobia. However, in this day and age it’s one that’s extremely unlikely
to ever play out. Go back just 150 years, though, and taphophobia was far from
irrational.
Thanks
to their primitive medical knowledge, our forebears had a disconcerting habit
of prematurely declaring each other dead. In the 17th century William Tebb
reviewed the literature, and discovered at least 160 recorded cases of people
being buried or dissected alive. Two hundred years after that, T.M.
Montgomery excavated the Fort Randall Cemetery. He reported some two percent of
the coffins had scratch marks on the inside of their lids, or other signs of
their occupants trying to escape. It’s since been conjectured that the likely
total – including those who left behind no traces of their escape attempt – was
even higher.
Fear
of the Dark
Most
of us vaguely remember that time in our childhoods; the time when we couldn’t
sleep unless our parents left a light on. Although the majority of us shed this
fear as we get older, not everyone does. For some, the dark will always retain
its savage mystery.
In
most cases, the horror manifests itself as a fear of the unknown. In a darkened
room, anything or anyone might be lurking just out of sight. For others, it’s
about being cut off from the rational, adult world. As anyone who has spent
time in a bad neighbourhood after sunset knows, the dark can bring out all
sorts of strange and unusual behaviours.
Oddly,
this widely-prevalent phobia doesn’t have a single name. Some call it
nyctophobia, but achluophobia, scotophobia and lygophobia are all
commonly used. From an evolutionary perspective, it might even be wrong to call
it a phobia. A healthy fear of the dark would have kept our ancestors alert to
the wolves and lions prowling around the edges of their camp.
Fear
of Ghosts (Phasmophobia)
Many
cultures across the world believe the dead watch over us, protecting or
guiding or simply keeping an eye out from the great beyond. Just as many
believe the dead are less friendly and more sinister, wishing us harm or even
hurting us. From this belief has grown the fear of ghosts
It’s a
fear that’s almost universal. For all we might think we’re rational,
intelligent and scientific, very few of us would be able to pass a night in an
abandoned morgue without feeling some frisson of fear and foreboding. The
difference is most of us would need to be in a scary setting to experience mild
phasmophobia. Sufferers struggle just being at home.
For
people with phasmophobia, simply going to bed can be a nightmare. The feeling
that there’s something haunting the darkness around your bed is similar to what
those afraid of the dark feel, but with something more concrete to project that
feeling onto.
Fear
of Demons (Daemonophobia)
The
idea that malevolent supernatural beings stalk the Earth, causing us
harm, is as old as humankind itself. An astonishing number of ancient
cultures believed demons were as real as
Today,
daemonophobia is most-likely to be associated with one of two things: extreme
religious beliefs, or an addiction to gruesome pop-culture movies. The
mega-success of the Exorcist in the 1970s, followed by a string of sequels and
similar films triggered a minor panic about demonic forces in the USA. While
not everyone who suffers daemonophobia is an avid moviegoer, it’s a likely bet
that William Friedkin is responsible for at least a handful of cases.
Daemonophobia
has been known to take a turn for the tragic. Faced with an overwhelming
fear that demons have possessed someone they love, sufferers have occasionally
resorted to violence. In places like Ghana this has even become institutionalized,
with ‘possessed’ children being ritually burnt and harmed to rid them of their
demons.
Fear
of Witches (Wiccaphobia)
Fear
of witches led to one of the saddest episodes in European history, when
thousands of innocent women (and some men) were executed en-mass as emissaries
of the Devil.
Today,
finding someone in the western world who both genuinely believes in and fears
witches as wicked beings is something of a rarity. But that’s not to say
wiccaphobia doesn’t exist in the rest of the world.
In
many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, fear of witches is terrifyingly real and
potentially dangerous. Stories of young women, usually still teenagers, being
driven out of their homes and isolated from their families following an
accusation are sadly far from uncommon. It’s even given a level of acceptance
by local churches that would be unthinkable elsewhere in the world. As its
history shows, wiccaphobia can lead us to some very dark places indeed.
Fear
of Snakes (Ophidiophobia)
Maybe
it’s the way they move. Maybe it’s their disconcertingly blank eyes, or their
fabled killing abilities. Maybe it’s related to the story of Genesis and the
Fall of man. Whatever the reason, a large minority of us have a deadly fear of
snakes. Interestingly, this may be a deeply rational response.
Although
far from conclusive, there have been a couple of scientific studies that have
linked fear of snakes (and spiders) with our ancestors’ evolution. Since we
humans initially came out of Africa, the ability to react quickly to the
region’s deadly snakes and spiders could make the difference between life and
death. The adrenaline that kicks in whenever an ophidiophobic sees a legless
reptile could be the same response that saved one of their extremely-distant
ancestors from a particularly nasty death.
Fear
of Fear (Phobophobia)
In his
inaugural address to the American people, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. But in the world of
anxiety disorders, phobophobia is a very real phenomenon. Although far from
many, it’s sufferers have a deep, abiding fear. They’re terrified of fear
itself.
Such a
unusual phobia usually comes as part and parcel of an anxiety disorder.
After a number of panic attacks, people can stop fearing the trigger for their
attacks and start fearing the symptoms themselves. Unsurprisingly, this creates
a sort of negative feedback loop. John is terrified his anxiety will kick in
and everyone will see his hands shaking, so naturally begins to feel anxious,
causing his hands to shake. It’s an unpleasant condition, and one that sadly
preys most on the depressed and vulnerable in our entire society.
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