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Animal Phobias

Alektorophobia – Fear of Chickens

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Are You Chicken of Chickens?

Let’s face it. Chickens are adorable. If you grew up on a farm or spent summers on a farm, having had chickens afoot or the daily morning collection of eggs were all something to look forward to. But if the mere sight of a chicken causes you to break into a cold sweat, you might have an excessive fear of chickens or alektorophobia.

The fear that envelops you at the sight of a live chicken—or even a picture of one—can be overwhelming. It’s hard to explain to others, and even to yourself, how a chicken can freeze you in your tracks. Talking about it is difficult. Unlike the fear of snakes or tigers, a chicken is considered harmless, and society is hasty to judge and mock.

At about 70 centimeters in height, chickens are more likely afraid of us. But for you, it’s the other way around.

It’s not too late, though, because there are many proven methodologies to help you overcome your fear. Understanding how and when it first started is vital in getting that chicken fear cooped up and under control.

What Causes the Fear of Chickens?

Believe it or not, your alektorophobia has a beginning.

Most people with this specific phobia cannot recall how the gripping fear started, but it most likely began from a negative and traumatic experience. Most animal-related fears stem from an actual frightening encounter with that animal, in this case, a chicken.

When you were young, you might have crossed paths with an aggressive duck or chicken. Being small and vulnerable, the chicken left a frightening mark in your life, and that chicken won the first round.

Additionally, our environment and genetics can also be a cause of your fear. If you grew up with elders who were anxious around chickens, you might have adapted that nervousness and developed the same reaction and perspective about chickens.

 

What Is the Fear of Chickens?

Chickens may be your least favorite animal, but overall, it should not cause you to panic. If it does, you don’t have a deep dislike of chickens, you have a fear of chickens.

Is there a fear of chickens? Yes, there is.

This fear is called alektorophobia, and it’s specific to chickens or hens.

As the name suggests, this phobia leads to an irrational fear of chickens. It may even include other feathered creatures, including their eggs. The fear can be triggered by seeing a live chicken or even an image of a chicken. Sometimes, alektorophobia is a fear of what the chicken might do to you.

Although this is not a very common phobia, the severity of your fear can impact your social life and your self-confidence. Based on studies, you can categorize your fear from lowest to highest:

Level 1: You get scared at the sight of a chicken.

Level 2: You get scared at the sight or representation of a chicken, regardless if it is live or not. The fear of rubber chickens and chicken toys falls under this level.

Level 3: You get scared at the sound of a chicken even if there is no live chicken around.

Level 4: You get scared at the mention of the word ‘chicken’ and other words associated with it, like eggs.

Level 5: You are so scared that you don’t even consume chicken, because it becomes a reminder of your fear.

Symptoms of Alektorophobia

There are two types of alektorophobia symptoms: physical and psychological. Based on the severity of your fear, you may experience some or all of these symptoms:

Physical Symptoms:

  • Dry mouth
  • Difficulty in breathing
  • Increased heart rate
  • Nausea and dizziness
  • Shaking uncontrollably
  • Sweating and chills
  • Vomiting

Psychological Symptoms:

  • Avoiding chickens – live or otherwise
  • Feeling of guilt or shame about your fear
  • Constant thoughts of chickens attacking you
  • Irritability and restlessness
  • Immediate and intense fear
  • Hearing audible chicken noises sans the actual chicken
  • Need to get far away from chickens
  • Panic attacks

How to Deal with Alektorophobia?

If you feel like your fear is taking away opportunities and negatively affecting your relationships, then it’s time to face down the chicken. Being scared and unhappy because of your phobia is an unpleasant situation. The feeling of helplessness, and the constant barrage of irrational thoughts can be wearing.

Are you ready to get your fear of chickens under control?

Although there is no direct approach to overcome this phobia, there are many available treatments you might consider. Consulting and seeking the help of a medical professional may be advantageous for you.

Self-Help

As with every phobia out there, dwelling on the why is useless. Focusing on the how is more important in overcoming this dilemma.

Alongside professional help, learn some relaxation and breathing techniques. By focusing on your breathing, you are sending your brain an important message, and that is to remain calm and to relax. Deep breathing is one of the proven ways to fight off anxiety. It works well, too, for impending panic attacks.

Another thing you can do is identify your trigger points. Is it the chicken’s proximity to you or the clucking that worries you? By knowing these triggers, you can start focusing on how to control your thoughts and your reaction to the situation and the chicken.

Lastly, face the chicken. Face your fear. You can do this gradually by first looking at an image of a chicken and listening to its sound. Then you can move on to watching them from afar before progressing to being in close range to them. Constantly and regularly exposing yourself to your fear can eventually desensitize you to it—no more anxiety.

 

 

 Learn to Conquer Your Fear of Chickens

Professional Treatments and Care for Alektorophobia

Reaching out to a medical professional or a therapist about your phobia is advisable. Knowing that there are others like you, and hearing them speak of how they overcame their fear is comforting and motivating.

Various treatments have proven helpful. Based on the severity of your phobia, your therapist will recommend which treatment may benefit you the most.

Hypnotherapy – Also referred to as hypnoanalysis. It can help determine the root cause of your fear of chickens. This will eventually pave the way to learning about your fear patterns and how you react.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – CBT involves gradual exposure and measured desensitization to chickens. This will challenge your tolerance and your anxiety reaction. CBT takes time, because the progress solely depends on you, but it’s proven to be effective.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming – This is based on the principle that you are the one who creates words that are associated with your phobia. These are the words you think about repeatedly which can trigger your fear. By doing this repeatedly, your therapist will gauge your physical reaction and expressions and help in remodeling your thoughts when your ‘banned’ words are said.

Energy Therapies – There are a lot of options in this bucket. You can try Tai chi, meditation, and qigong (pronounced chi gong) to help you create and develop a positive image of chickens. Energy psychology is intended to modify the life force energy, or your chi, to banish your fear of chickens.

Medications – Benzodiazepines might be prescribed, but this is more to treat your anxiety and not the fear itself.

Choosing the right treatment can provide a permanent solution to your phobia.

 

Learning to Cope with Alektorophobia

While you wait for the professional alektorophobia treatments to kick in, learning to control your reaction and lessening your anxiety will help empower you.

Your fear of chickens does not define you as a person, but being able to fight it and even overcome it makes you a stronger person.

There are several ways for you to ease your fears. Get your family and friends’ support, because at times like this, a strong support group can make a difference and influence your motivation.

 

Conclusion

Overcome your fear of chickens one day at a time. Perhaps there will come a day when you can enjoy an adventure or two with the bespectacled, helmet-wearing chicken and his friends.

Stories Submitted by Our Readers

Fear of Chickens

I had a recurring dream that I was attacked by chickens with ugly, scary beaks. I would wake up very scared. We didn’t even own chickens; I do not know why I had the dream. I was so afraid of chickens and still will not visit a farm that has them unless I have a bodyguard, so to speak. I always ensure a person is between me and the chicken. If one flaps their wings close to me, I scream at the top of my lungs and freeze. Avoiding them is best for me, however, it does help a bit when I eat chicken. I feel like I have a bit more power over them.

SUBMIT YOUR STORY

FearAZ.com is looking for personal stories of any 'fear of' or phobia. If you have an interesting story you'd like to share, we welcome your submission. If the story fits with our content and guidelines, we'll add it to our site.
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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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