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Bolshephobia – Fear of Bolsheviks

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Peace, Land, and Bread: My Fear of Bolsheviks

Bolshephobia may leave you feeling restless and unable to function at the mere mention of the Russian Revolution, Lenin, the Majority, or the Bolsheviks. Those around you may think you’re merely exaggerating, but what they don’t understand is you have a phobia they’re unaware of.

 

What Is Bolshephobia?

Bolshephobia is an example of a political phobia. As the name suggests, it is the fear of the Bolsheviks.

In Russian, Bolshevik means “one of the majority,” members of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party who looked up to Vladimir Lenin as their leader. They were responsible for taking over Russia’s government in 1917 and were considered the central political power in the country.

The Bolshevik revolutionaries, also referred to as Reds, were the culprits in the massacre of the Romanov family following the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in 1918. Other people who were murdered that night were members of the imperial entourage—the court physician, lady-in-waiting, footman, and head cook. The bodies were stripped, mutilated with grenades, and buried in the Koptyaki forest.

The Bolsheviks destroyed the czarist leadership in Russia and later made a name for themselves as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. They were known to enforce their rules with ruthless and aggressive tactics.

People with bolshephobia avoid experiences that remind them of these turbulent times.

Common Symptoms of Bolshephobia

Bolshephobia symptoms are classified into physical and mental/emtional symptoms.

Physical Symptoms

  • Chills
  • Excessive sweating
  • Dry mouth
  • Headache
  • Increased heart rate
  • Muscle tension
  • Nausea
  • Shallow breathing
  • Shortness of breath
  • Upset stomach
  • Vomiting

Mental/Emotional Symptoms

  • Anti-social behavior
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Feelings of shame
  • Irritability
  • Mood swings
  • Morbid thoughts
  • Poor concentration

 

Causes of Bolshephobia

The root cause of political phobias and all other phobias is unknown. However, here are the most likely causes:

Environment

Growing up, you may have heard stories about the Bolsheviks from your grandparents, older family members, or others. If you were exposed to scary, aggressive, or morbid stories, your reaction is to stay away from anything that reminds you of them.

This survival instinct can develop into fear, especially if you nursed the phobia for years. Bolshephobia can also arise from witnessing Bolsheviks during one of their revolutions even if only depicted in movies. The images might have been embedded in your mind and memory.

Genetics

If you have family members who were diagnosed with mental illness, depression, or anxiety, you become more susceptible to phobias such as bolshephobia.

Related fears or phobias can branch out into a fear of the Bolsheviks. These include war anxieties; thanatophobia, the fear of death; foniasophobia, the fear of being murdered; hemophobia, the fear of blood; and phobophobia, which is associated with predispositions.

 

Bolshephobia Treatment

Bolshephobia doesn’t have to haunt your existence forever. There are effective ways to address your fears and live freely.

Self-Help Treatments

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

This is an evidence-based program with an eight-week timeline that includes intensive mindfulness training to help you with your stress, anxiety, and other mental challenges. This is one of the most effective treatments if you have extreme anxiety.

MBSR features a structured program that entails learning various skills to help you reduce the effects of your fear.

Yoga

Several yoga poses can help relieve the anxiety caused by bolshephobia. This form of meditation in motion can teach you to release the negativity of your body while calming your mind.

Yoga can redirect your anxiety into a productive, slow workout session. The calming breathing and stretching exercises can also strengthen your body and mind so you don’t get overwhelmed by fear.

Journaling

Journaling can reveal the triggers of your fear. It can also make you more conscious of how you respond to it and how you can work on reducing your phobia. When you feel afraid, write down what you’re experiencing, the cause, and how you dealt with it. This is a great method to combine with therapy sessions.

Professional Treatments

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

Another treatment for bolshephobia is DBT. This method can provide you with more effective coping skills when anxiety strikes. Dialectical behavior therapy may take up to six months and is usually done in group sessions.

One of the standard practices in DBT is half-smiling. To do this, you practice lightly smiling while thinking of Bolsheviks or anything related to the group. This practice teaches you to overcome the scary and even painful emotions you feel as a way to manage your phobia.

Consult a Therapist, Psychologist, or Psychiatrist

If you need help dealing with your bolshephobia, a therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist can help you. Mental healthcare professionals can assist you as you explore your emotions and find out their root causes. They can also formulate a treatment plan for you and guide you through it.

 

Living with Bolshephobia

Living with irrational fears like bolshephobia is difficult. Upon the mention of the Bolsheviks or anything related to this group, you may become uncomfortable and experience overwhelming fear. You might avoid objects and situations associated with the Bolsheviks even in modern times.

You might skip watching films or documentaries where the Bolsheviks might be mentioned or portrayed. You might also find yourself avoiding books and other reading materials related to these revolutionaries.

Many times, you may feel isolated and afraid that others won’t understand how you feel. You see others who can read about Russian history and watch movies about Bolsheviks. Unlike you, others remain detached from the horrors of those events.

Instead of fearing the past, you can live with anticipation for the future. Bolshephobia won’t disappear overnight but you can take steps to help you manage and eventually conquer your fears.

 

Conclusion

Don’t let the past hinder you from living your present and enjoying your future. Take the first step today by looking for ways to treat your bolshephobia. Though you live in fear of historic events, you can still change your future by doing something about bolshephobia now.

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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