10 unusual phobias

Posted by Enola Gay

18 April 2022 19:46

Tags: psychiatry fears phobias

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A phobia is a symptom, the essence of which is irrational fear and excessive anxiety in anticipation of a certain event. A phobia is an obsessive fear that irreversibly worsens in certain situations and cannot be explained logically.

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Anatidaephobia is the fear of being watched by a duck.

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A person suffering from this phobia constantly feels that somewhere in the world there is a duck (or goose) that is watching him/her (not attacking, not touching, but simply watching the person). The word Anatidaephobia comes from the Greek word 'Anatidae', which means ducks, geese and other waterfowl, and 'phobos', which means threat/fear in Greek.

Diagnosis and treatment of Anatidaephobia

In most cases, people suffering from Anatidaephobia are aware of their fear of ducks, and even understand very well that this fear is unnatural and frivolous.
However, they are unable to control this fear. Many people refuse to see a doctor, and as a result, their phobia can persist for many years. It is important to consult your doctor/family doctor, especially if the above-mentioned phobia symptoms interfere with your daily life. Your doctor may recommend a professional therapist for follow-up, or one of the following treatments, which are known to be very effective in overcoming and eliminating your fear of ducks (geese) for good:

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
This therapy is based on the principle that most phobias are “learned or programmed behaviors” of the brain. NLP seeks to reprogram the mind to completely eliminate fear once and for all.
Hypnotherapy
This is another proven and safe therapy that goes deep into the mind of an anatidaephobe to reveal the root cause of their phobia.
Other self-therapy techniques
Therapists also recommend that people with phobias practice techniques to calm the mind and body such as meditation, deep breathing, writing down their positive thoughts/ideas to rationalize the negative ones associated with the fear of ducks.

Eisoptrophobia (spectrophobia) – fear of seeing one’s own reflection

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The most pronounced symptoms of spectrophobia: Fear of seeing one’s image in a mirror, or, in more severe stages, in any reflective surface. Fear of being photographed and looking at your own photographs. Tension and depression in a situation when a reflective surface appears before the eyes, be it a cutlery or a glass reflection in a vehicle.

Origin of the phobia

The reason for the fear of geese and ducks may be an unsuccessful contact with a bird, which ultimately caused a negative reaction and emotions in a person. For example, a bird bit a person or screamed loudly, which led to fright. A person who has such fear begins to withdraw into himself. He is afraid to relax on a pond where there may be birds, because a repeated meeting could aggravate the person’s serious condition.

Fear controls the lives of closed-in people. Many people know that there is a problem and realize that such fear is not serious, but they cannot get rid of it.

Such panic will not go away on its own; feelings of persecution will be constantly present.

Pediophobia - fear of dolls

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Pediophobia refers to a completely incomprehensible fear of a wide variety of dolls. It is noteworthy that in this case, a person suffering from this phobia fears not only contacts, but even the appearance of a doll of a certain type or size - this panic fear applies to all dolls, be it the luxuriously beautiful Barbie or a tiny rubber doll.

Symptoms

At the thought that somewhere nearby there was a goose hiding watching him, and even worse if he met it on his way. For example, if you come to a rural area, this is simply inevitable. Then the phobe begins to have a panic attack.

He is suffocating, it seems to him that there is not enough air, and he is simply going to die from asphyxia. The fact is that when excited, a person’s breathing becomes shallow and frequent, and this leads to hyperventilation of the lungs.

The amount of oxygen in the blood goes off scale, which causes a completely opposite effect - suffocation.

In this case, you need to breathe into your palms, a paper bag, if you have it with you. Carbon dioxide will help normalize the condition. Thanks to this, dizziness and nausea will also go away.

Also, often when panicking, there is pain in the chest and stomach. The person sweats profusely, his arms and legs are shaking, and even his chin and voice are shaking. The gait is uncertain, shaky.

Diarrhea, vomiting and loss of consciousness are sometimes observed. A person is unable not only to control his feelings, but also his thoughts and behavior.

Therefore, most often he tries to find a safe haven where he can relax and calm down.

In the meantime, he searches, desperately calls for help, cries and doesn’t really understand how to really take care of his own health and safety.

For example, in a panic, he cannot distinguish the road and risks getting hit by a car, rolling down the stairs, or even worse - jumping out of the window.

But where does this fear of depth come from?

This particular type of phobia, bathophobia, can be both destructive and objective. The destructive form involves inexplicable fears that there are monsters or any life-threatening things under water. There have been cases where people hear the voices of sirens or other marine life. For example, Cthulhu. There are people who believe that the ocean is a huge thinking creature that is extremely hostile to humans.

Objective fear can be explained, and therefore is not so dangerous. This is a fear of depth that occurs due to inability to swim or fear of drowning. The occurrence of this phobia is associated with experienced traumas, as a result of which a person is simply afraid of becoming drowned.

What is bathophobia?

A phobic disorder called bathophobia is simply called “fear of depth.” This disorder may appear as a result of experienced trauma associated with water or being at depth, as a result of which a person is haunted by an obsessive and sticky fear, and attacks by strong feelings about this.

However, this phobia does not always appear against the background of a traumatic situation. Bathophobia can exist from birth, even in people who have never been to the depths. There are also several reasons: a dysfunctional family, distrust of the environment and others.

Bathophobia causes the so-called feeling of the abyss, from which the following symptoms arise:

Panic attacks.
Strong emotional arousal.
Fear of even the mere mention of depth.
Fear of falling into underwater vegetation (algae) and becoming entangled in it.

Following from the above, it is worth understanding that the initial stage of bathophobia can manifest itself in any person. There have been situations when bathophobia made itself felt even while viewing photographs of deep-sea reservoirs.

Often fear overtook people in a boat that had sailed far from the shore.

Fighting methods

There are many ways to combat obsessive thoughts about ducks.

Medicinal method. Seek help from your doctor. Prescribed medications and psychotherapy sessions will help you calm down and return to a normal lifestyle.
Drink soothing tea with a decoction of chamomile, lemon balm, and mint.
Take a course of therapeutic baths and massages. Relaxing the muscles through massage is a great way to relieve stress. A bath with herbal infusion and sea salt will relax you and help get rid of insomnia.
Play sports. It not only strengthens muscles, but also improves the general condition of the body, stimulating the brain to work.

Try to get rid of the phobia by getting closer to the problem. The essence of the method is to show yourself that these animals are not scary. Try looking at the little, newly hatched ducklings - they are so cute.

It is not necessary to immediately encounter this in person, just watch videos or pictures about them, then you can try to pet a live duckling. Small birds are completely harmless. Some people even tame ducks, teach them funny dances, and make separate houses for them.

Treatment of phobia

It is quite difficult to get rid of anatidaephobia, especially if such a problem began a long time ago and developed into a serious pathology.

You must first contact a psychotherapist. The doctor will develop a special individual treatment plan depending on the severity of the problem and outline the necessary therapy, including medications. Special methods become important elements of treatment.

Hypnotherapy. The specialist, under the influence of hypnosis, suggests that in reality the problem does not exist.
Treatment with neurolinguistic programming. Using hypnosis, the doctor observes the patient’s reaction, instilling positive emotions and positive attitudes.
Treatment with drugs. After taking sedatives, the feeling of persecution mania disappears. The duration of treatment may take up to 3 months.

If you do not pay attention in time, the problem can develop into a severe mental disorder.

Sea monsters

Any phobia presupposes the presence of a serious subconscious fear. This fear is expressed in rapid breathing and rapid heartbeat. The standard fight-or-flight defense mechanism is activated. It’s great, of course, if the object of fear, a dog, for example, is standing before your eyes - here you can escape or do something else. But when such fear arises in the depths, it is many times worse and more terrible.

It's quite normal to be afraid of being eaten alive by a shark. But if a diver simply has an unreasonable fear of coral reefs or something similar, this is already a phobia. For some divers, their fear of sea creatures with fangs, such as sharks, is so intense that even swimming in a regular pool becomes an unbearable ordeal.

Causes

As already mentioned, there are only a few people in the world with such a phobia, so it is not possible to study the issue globally. The only reasonable cause of mental disorder today, according to experts, may lie in negative experiences with ducks in childhood and adolescence. Most often, the prerequisites for a phobia develop between the ages of 3 and 7–8 years. For an adult, the size of a duck is insignificant. But if a bird rushes at a child, it will seem big and scary to him.

A child could be frightened by a sharply fluttering duck flying past his face, as well as by an annoying bird that did not want to leave behind. Try going to the zoo and feeding the ducks. One of them (or maybe more than one) will definitely follow you, begging for food. She will follow you along the entire fence as long as she can while you are nearby.

Theoretically, an observant child with a rich imagination and excessive impressionability can pay attention to this feature of waterfowl. If the fright factor is combined with such a conclusion, then there is a possibility that the human psyche will fix the relationship - duck-danger-surveillance-pursuit.

Then it all depends on the type of disorder. If the matter is limited to only a phobia, then the fear that a duck is watching will arise when meeting such a creature, when seeing a duck on TV or in pictures. If a manic delusional state is added, in which a person is constantly convinced that a duck is watching him, then this is a more severe mental disorder. Sometimes fear develops against the background of information about fear.

Once upon a time there lived a child who did not know that it was possible to be afraid of a tracking duck. Then he learns about a strange phobia, tries on the sensations of the patient (we all do this subconsciously at any age), and fantasy does its job - a feeling of fear arises. First, a little anxiety, and then a full-fledged phobic disorder, if you couldn’t cope with the low anxiety.

Important! The exact mechanisms of the formation of this phobia, unfortunately, are unknown, so scientists and doctors can only put forward hypotheses.

The child is afraid of water

Often, a child cannot realize the true nature and cause of his fear - he is simply scared. However, of course, there are reasons for everything. Often this is:

Fear of a new and unknown sensation. Finding yourself in an environment that is unusual for the child.
Inability to swim and stay on the water.
Disturbing associations with some film or cartoon.
Bad mood during the first swim.
The water temperature is too cold and the child is uncomfortable in it.
Not a particularly pleasant feeling of pebbles, stones, sand, etc. under your feet. In such situations, adults resort to “emergency measures” to introduce their baby to water. Quite often this ends badly, because the child must first of all feel safety and comfort; in the absence of this, the child is subjected to severe stress and anxiety, as a result of which the child only becomes more afraid of water. His thoughts state that swimming is scary because he was forced to do it.

Because of this approach, the child may well be overcome by panic or even horror when he is at depth. This sometimes leads to very sad consequences.{banner_m-001}

How to deal with fear?

The origin of all these phobias has deep psychological reasons and even identifying them can sometimes be extremely difficult. However, there are several recommendations, following which you will definitely feel relief.

Understand what the aquatic environment is like. Before you begin the long process of liberation from fears and phobias, try to understand what you are really afraid of. As they say, you need to know the enemy by sight. All sorts of films, TV shows, books and scientific articles will help you figure this out. Perhaps it will turn out that this is not an enemy at all.

Find the positives.

To get rid of fear, you need to clearly know the positive aspects of water and being in it. Turn only to trusted sources of information and discard “exposing articles” about sea monsters. If a positive image of water is formed in your mind, it will help you cope with your fears.

Who might have this “funny” phobia?

Most often, this phobia “fear of ducks” can occur in children of preschool, early or middle school age, up to the age of 14, as a result of the fear experienced after meeting a waterfowl in nature.

It should be noted that girls are more susceptible to this syndrome. Statistics say that they account for 70 percent of all known cases of anatidaephobia.

There are frequent manifestations of anatidaephobia in people of adult, working age, as a result of a reaction from direct contact with waterfowl or as a relapse of an already existing mental/psychological disorder of any type.