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Environmental Phobias

Electrophobia – Fear of Electricity

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Electrophobia: The Facts Are Shocking

Do you feel anxious or unexplainably nervous around electricity or electrically powered appliances? Does even the thought of electricity or electrical objects make your heart race? And do you find yourself obsessing over and sometimes even exaggerating the likelihood of you getting electrocuted or caught in a fire outbreak caused by electricity?

All of these are symptoms of a serious phobic condition known as electrophobia or the fear of electricity. Like many phobias, electrophobia often develops after a traumatic experience involving electricity.

Considering that the world is getting more and more technology-dependent and many of these technologies are powered by electricity, living with a fear of electricity can render you handicapped and unable to function. Luckily, it does not have to be this way and the first step towards confronting your electrophobia is by understanding where it comes from and why you are struggling with it.

What Is Electrophobia?

Electrophobia is the morbid fear of anything powered by electricity. This fear is not so unfounded considering a person can be killed by an electrical accident. However, electrophobia is a high level of apprehension even in the presence of harmless levels of electricity.

What Is the Meaning of Electrophobia?

Your mind is constantly in fear and in an exaggerated degree of worry towards anything electrical. The fear is so intense that you are a victim of constant anxiety symptoms or feelings of panic.

The difference between having a phobia and simply being cautious around electricity is in the irrational reactions and intense anxiety you have when you encounter electricity in any form. An electricity phobia leaves you feeling completely powerless and out of control while caution around electricity teaches you to control or regulate the electricity supply around you to prevent accidents.

It is a mental disorder that is triggered due to a painful experience with electricity. For example, getting shocked as a child, or losing someone you love to an electrical accident are all traumatic scenarios that can lead to a disproportionate and intense fear of electrical devices.

You now react to this trigger by avoiding anything electrically powered, including remote controls, microwaves, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and even cell phones in some extreme cases, which leads to a reduced quality of life.

Electrophobia Symptoms

Your fear of electricity is made apparent in certain patterns of behavior or reactions. A typical electrophobic person has a flight or fight response towards electricity. This can manifest both psychologically and physically.

Physical Symptoms

  • Dizziness
  • Hot flashes
  • Cold flashes
  • Crying
  • Fidgeting
  • Nausea
  • Tachycardia (heart rate over 100 beats per minute)

Psychological Symptoms

  • Panic attacks
  • Morbid anxiety even at the thought of being exposed to electricity
  • Hyperventilation
  • Expressing shock
  • Inability to function normally
  • Palpitations
  • OCD

How to Treat the Fear of Electricity Phobia

You Can Help Yourself

While you cannot completely rid yourself of your phobia, there are certain things or habits you can do to reduce the intensity of your reactions towards the trigger. Bear in mind, being able to help yourself should not be a substitute for professional assistance, especially in extreme cases. And just like most mental disorders, phobias demand a great deal of self-will and mindful practice to overcome them.

The following are ways you can help yourself get through a bad phobic episode and take back your power and control.

Exercise

Getting involved in physical activities has always had positive effects on mental health. For sufferers of anxiety disorders, exercise has been shown to greatly reduce your stress level by releasing endorphins or ‘feel-good chemicals’ into the brain. Cardiovascular and aerobic exercises come highly recommended for this purpose.

Meditation

Consistent meditation brings you to a state of mindfulness and mental alertness. This helps you address your irrational fears and view them with a new perspective. It can also help by redirecting the mind from the presence of a trigger to a thought or object that makes you feel safer and less threatened drastically reducing the chances of a possible panic attack.

Breathing Exercises

Concentrating on your breathing and being mindful of slowing down and engaging the diaphragm helps take attention away from the stress and calms you. Breathing exercises are a popular coping tool for those with anxiety and have been known to be effective in relaxing the mind.

Yoga

Experts believe that practicing certain yoga positions can help relieve you of the stress that anticipatory anxiety brings. It’s also another gateway to meditation and mindful redirection.

Desensitization or Exposure Therapy

This involves confronting your fears by deliberately and gradually increasing your exposure to the thing you are afraid of. There is no rush here. Challenge yourself and gradually learn to deal with electricity as a necessary part of daily life.

Professional Help for Electrophobia

In addition to the self-help techniques covered above, professional help is recommended. Professional therapy and self-help techniques work well in tandem to help you overcome your phobia. You should seek professional assistance from a therapist, counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist or any other expert in that field who can help you dig deeper into your case and implement the proper treatment therapy.

Each victim has their own unique set of symptoms and intensity. An expert can offer a solution after carrying out the proper tests and examination. Psychotherapists usually employ the use of certain treatment methods depending on the patient. Examples of these methods are:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is a treatment often used on sufferers of anxiety disorder and OCD. Since these are symptoms of electrophobia, they have proven to be helpful in dealing with electrophobia. The process helps you understand your fear at its roots. What could have triggered it, how it has manifested itself in your day-to-day life, and how best to confront it. It equips victims with appropriate tools and knowledge of their disorder to help manage it.

Medication

There are a number of potentially prescribed medications to help people deal with the symptoms of their phobia. Medications like beta-blockers, benzodiazepines, and antidepressants can be used for this purpose. Medication is only utilized in extreme cases to manage symptoms of the phobia, but does not treat the phobia itself.

 

Tips for Dealing with Electrophobia

Remove Caffeine from Your Diet

Caffeine is a well-known stress-inducing substance and it’s good practice to avoid it if you are suffering from a phobia. Caffeinated beverages, tea, chocolates, and even some foods should be reduced or eliminated from your diet to avoid any possible spike in your already tensed body physiology.

Be Patient

Be patient and kind to yourself in your journey towards healing. There could be episodes of relapse where you feel like you are not making any meaningful progress. You must remember to give yourself time. You are dealing with what is largely a mental disorder. It takes a lot of strength and determination.

Get Good Sleep

Don’t underestimate the direct impact that your quality of sleep has on your overall health and stress levels. Get that much-needed rest and your body and mind will thank you for it.

Listen to the Experts

Listen to and follow your professional advisor’s instructions. Be completely open with them about your symptoms, progress, or even relapse.

Your morbid fear of electricity may be your mind’s way of protecting you from a re-occurrence. Albeit exaggerated, your fear of electrical devices is not completely irrational because they do cause harm when not handled properly.

Your healing process would entail teaching your body that you are out of danger, and you no longer have to live in fear of something that could be beneficial to your quality of life.

Decide to take the right steps in freeing yourself from the grip of this fear today, because it is possible.

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Your Fear Goes Up and Down

Are you someone who would rather climb the stairs than take the elevator? You call it squeezing in a workout after being sedentary the whole morning. Or perhaps you claim it's a faster route. These are both typical, normal, and acceptable reasons. But what if you need to be in the conference room on the eleventh floor in five minutes, and you're wearing your business suit and wingtips? Would you still prefer to take the stairs? If your answer is yes, then maybe it's time to take a closer look at your reasons for avoiding elevators. Elevators stir all sorts of emotions in passengers. From the discomfort of closeness to strangers to the sensations in our gut, elevators can be a source of the heebie-jeebies for many, but for some, they can also be a source of terror. Let's dig a little deeper into the latter, and see what this terror is all about and what can be done to manage it. To begin with, does being inside an elevator give you chills or the sweats? Or does it trigger an unpleasant memory? Perhaps you remember movies you've watched where something terrible happens inside an elevator. From Silence of the Lambs, The Shining, Final Destination 2, or the king of all elevator horror films, 2010’s Devil, the elevator becomes witness to something sinister and horrible. And you want nothing to do with any of it. You know that you're not claustrophobic. You can deal with heights just fine, too. And you know that you're not going to be trapped inside. All of these contribute to a fear of elevators—but they don't apply to you. Yet being inside one does something to you. It's hard to explain.

What is the Fear of Elevators Called?

What you have is a fear of elevators, which is called elevatophobia. It is most commonly triggered by an experience of getting stuck inside either due to a power outage or technical maintenance. Hearing about other people's experiences or watching a movie about similar circumstances can prompt a fear of elevators getting stuck with you inside. Usually, claustrophobics and agoraphobics may also develop elevatophobia because the triggers and objects of these fears are related. Claustrophobia is the fear of closed and cramped spaces, while agoraphobia is the fear of being trapped without any means of escape. Put the two together, and the elevator becomes the perfect combination of both phobias. The space is limited and closed, with only one means of entry and exit. You can add another point of access if you consider climbing the cables like they do in the movies, but that certainly isn't ideal.

Symptoms of Elevatophobia

If for some reason an elevator stops due to an outage or some technical difficulty, passengers with elevatophobia may go into full panic mode. Even if the maintenance team advises that it will just be a matter of minutes, by then, the person's mind has become irrational with the fear of the elevator falling, being stuck for hours, or other unpleasant thoughts. You would expect a person to exhibit the following physical symptoms: Additionally, you would be filled with that overwhelming anxiety where you feel that you have zero control over the situation. You start fearing the unknown and are filled with negative thoughts about death and imminent doom. You become irrational and unresponsive.

Possible Complications of Elevatophobia

When the panic sets in, the possibility of emergencies related to pre-existing conditions may make themselves known. This might include serious health crises like heart attacks or asthma attacks. When this happens, fear becomes a medical emergency. Elevator rides do not last long; it's just a matter of minutes or even less. But the fact that a person can escalate from panic to a near fatal medical situation classifies the fear of elevators as a 'hard phobia.'

Trying Some Self-Help Methods

Your fear of elevators can likely interfere with your social and work life and relationships. Not everyone understands that elevatophobia, like most phobias, can be crippling. But don't be disheartened. Depending on the level of your fear and level of control, you can gradually face and manage your phobia. Here are some recommendations you can try:
  1. Make a List of Everything that Entails Riding in an Elevator This is a systematic approach to getting over your anxiety. By following a step-by-step process, you can identify where the fear kicks in at its strongest. You can write a list of steps like pressing the topmost button and waiting to arrive on that floor, watching as the door closes and opens, being alone inside the elevator, or having delays with the doors opening. Now try doing the opposite. For example, face away from the door or occupy yourself with your phone so that you are distracted.
  2. Create Your Fear Ladder Although the name says fear of elevators, it is not the whole process that scares you. There are just phases and parts of the elevator riding experience that cause you to panic. So go back to the list you initially created and label the fear level you feel. You can do it numerically, too, like ten being 'really scary,' six, 'manageable scary,' and one, 'not scary at all.' You can put the corresponding fear levels so you can focus more time and effort into activities that are more scary to you.
  3. Face Your Fear By now, you have identified what scares you the most. You can try repetitive action to minimize your fear and increase your sense of ‘normalcy’. Remember that the longer you expose yourself to your fear, the better you get at handling your emotions. If you are feeling overwhelmed, stop. Pushing yourself too fast and too soon can backfire. Modify your pace and go slower instead.
  4. Talk About Your Fear People by nature, unfortunately, are not quick to offer understanding and support. You need to tell them what's wrong before they can empathize. Talk to someone who you trust and ask for their support, especially in the initial phase of overcoming your fear. If you are too afraid to ride the elevator alone, you can ask them to go with you, and before you realize it, you are on your floor, and there was no indication of panic.
  5. Learn To Be Patient Be patient with yourself and your predicament. This is, after all, your fight against fear. It might take hundreds of elevator ride practices before the fear gets under control. Even then, there might be some hesitations and episodes of nervousness. These are acceptable and expected, so cut yourself some slack and congratulate yourself for every progress.

Seeking Professional Help

Along with self-help, you can always enlist a medical professional's aid to support you with your elevatophobia. Talking to someone who has experience with similar cases can be comforting, because you know that you are not alone, and this situation can get better. Talk to your doctor about the severity of your fears and the symptoms that you experience. Explain how you deal with it in an attempt to control it. An exam and a health history are made to ensure that there are no unrelated or underlying problems that your symptoms might mask. Usually, phobias like this are approached with a combination of psychotherapy and medication. Your doctor will talk about these options with you, and it's entirely up to you, with your doctor's recommendation, what you want to pursue. For psychotherapy, the most common type is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which aims to help you find different ways of behaving, thinking, and reacting when about to step inside an elevator or when already inside it. With medications, there are beta blockers and benzodiazepines, but note that these can have side effects. Whatever these side effects are, you should promptly share it with your doctor.

Simple Tips to Overcome Elevatophobia

Elevators are not perfect, but their likelihood to malfunction, fall, or get stuck is very low. If you are not fully confident with this information, you can help overcome your elevatophobia by learning common elevator safety tips and basic elevator operations. These should help curb your mild fear until you become more self-assured. In addition to that, here are some of the things that you can do to gradually overcome your fear of elevators—both in getting on and riding one.

Conclusion

Yes, elevatophobia can be a challenge in today's world, but don't allow the elevator to win. Don't let it stop you from taking a job on the top floor or attending a social gathering on the rooftop. Sure, you can take the stairs if you insist and arrive winded and sweaty, with the party about to wrap up. But is this the quality of life you seek? Elevators are designed to make life easier. There are guaranteed ways to help you overcome elevatophobia. Take the first step and seek help. Soon, you’ll see yourself breezing through the floors with those arduous stair climbs little more than a memory.
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