Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer
3K
3K
740
3K
Menu
Menu
static-img
Bacillophobia – The Fear of Bacteria
Animal Phobias

Bacillophobia – The Fear of Bacteria

Share This Article
Share Post

The Fear of Bacteria Is No Small Issue

Do you feel the need to keep washing your hands after touching something or someone? Are you scared of staying too long in a crowded room and breathing in the air? Are you always worried you’ll catch germs and end up in the hospital?

Do you avoid eating in restaurants? After all, imagine how many people must have touched your plate, utensils, and food. Do you feel a knot in your chest when someone takes a bite of your sandwich? Perhaps you imagine that germs, those tiny invisible monsters, are lurking in a bowl of your favorite cereal.

Do you clean your house nonstop? Are you that person who wipes down their office equipment every couple of hours? Or the parent who hounds their children to use hand sanitizers? Do you avoid touching pets?

It must be difficult for your family and friends to understand what you’re going through. How long can you go on like this?

Overcoming the fear of germs is important, because it can affect your relationships, career, and mental health. You don’t have to live in extreme fear of germs.

What Is Bacillophobia?

In simple terms, bacillophobia is the fear of germs, fear of dirt, or anything that could make you sick. This condition is known by many names: mysophobia, germaphobia, and verminophobia. You may have a constant fear of germs, bacteria, or things that are not clean.

Why do you have this fear? It’s possible some incident took place in the past that made you sick, and this unpleasant memory has stayed with you ever since. As a result, you want to avoid at all costs the germs and diseases they bring. Those with a history of depression and anxiety in their family are also at a higher risk to develop this fear.

Those with a phobia of germs tend to wash their hands frequently. But it’s important to understand that you can’t keep doing that. No amount of washing or disinfecting will remove all the germs.

Bacteria, viruses, fungi are everywhere. They’re unavoidable, and you can’t remove them all. Even plain water, which we use to clean almost everything, contains germs.

Surprisingly, not all germs are bad. The good ones keep your gut clean and break down certain foods, while others live on your skin and provide another layer of defense. Getting rid of these good bacteria can cause even more trouble for your health.

The best you can do is practice basic personal hygiene like bathing regularly, brushing your teeth, and washing your hands before eating and after touching anything dirty. Washing your hands with water and a bar of soap should do the trick. You don’t need to wash every half hour, and you don’t need fancy products. In fact, experts say that the increasing use of hygiene items like sanitizers has increased bacillophobia in the United States.

Symptoms of Bacillophobia

All of us have fears. However, phobias seem unreasonable or unmanageable compared to the usual fears. The disturbance caused by the phobia is often more harmful than the germs themselves. A simple infection can get cured with antibiotics, but what should we do with a troubled mind?

Recognizing these symptoms is essential when dealing with bacillophobia.

Mental/Emotional Symptoms

  • Keeping away from public places and areas that you assume have a lot of germs
  • Avoiding physical (skin to skin) contact
  • Spending too much time cleaning and sanitizing
  • Washing hands too frequently
  • Not sharing belongings
  • Fear of children catching germs
  • Staying away from crowds and animals

Physical Symptoms

  • Panic attacks
  • Increased heart rate
  • Nausea
  • Breathlessness
  • Sweating

The symptoms for most phobias are similar. They often overlap with anxiety and panic disorders. What sets each phobia apart is the focus or trigger. It may be challenging to diagnose bacillophobia, since each person shows different signs of this condition.

What Can I Do to Overcome Bacillophobia?

Now that you have identified your fears, you can start dealing with them . If you’re able to do that on your own, you may find there’s no professional assistance required.

Begin by educating yourself and learning to correct thoughts about germs and infections. Reading articles or watching videos about bacteria can make it easier to understand that they are a natural part of the environment. If you know how they function and how important they are, you can better manage your fear and worry.

Did you first learn about germs from a favorite teacher or family doctor? Share your fear with them and ask for advice. It may be useful to discuss your phobia with friends and family so they can understand the reason behind your seemingly odd habits.

Getting Professional Help

When your phobia proves to be hard to overcome on your own, the next best thing is to seek out a professional. Ask your family physician to recommend a therapist who can listen to your concerns. A therapist, especially one who’s an expert in dealing with phobias, can guide you as you discover the cause of your phobia and eliminate the fear. Therapy can help you manage the anxiety and reduce the obsessions that affect your life.

Exposure therapy is a common way to treat bacillophobia. In this process, you gradually stop doing behaviors that make you feel safe. Instead of every half hour, you could try washing your hands every couple of hours. This may sound difficult, but it could help you slowly lose your fear of germs.

Cognitive behavioral therapy allows people to identify and change thoughts that can be disturbing and destructive. These negative thoughts are challenged and replaced with more positive, happy, and realistic thoughts.

You must learn to trust these professionals and speak honestly about your symptoms. They need to know exactly how you feel and how fear impacts your life. With this information, an experienced therapist will suggest different therapies and coping strategies.

They could also administer tests to see if you’re suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Those with OCD may feel the need to constantly wash and clean themselves and their surroundings.

Coping with Bacillophobia

Even with therapy, there’s no guarantee of completely overcoming a fear of germs or a fear of dirt. That’s why learning to cope with the fear is a slow and daily process. Remember, it took you a while to form a phobia, so it makes sense that it could take a long time to overcome it too.

One of the best ways to deal with any phobia is to keep facing your fears. Familiarity is a useful tool when you come upon triggers. Try going out to public places, sharing a bite with a family member, or even washing hands less often. With each battle you win, your phobia loses its grip on you.

In Conclusion
Why not replace your fears with a healthy lifestyle that will keep you in top shape? A proper diet and basic hygiene is often all you need. When you do your part, your body can do what it’s best at doing: protecting itself. Your body has built-in defenses that can fight off many germs in the environment. Trust them. Go ahead and lick that last bit of chocolate from your fingers.

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.
0LikesShare Post

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.
This Pop-up Is Included in the Theme
Best Choice for Creatives
Purchase Now