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Doraphobia – The Fear of Skins or Furs
Animal Phobias

Doraphobia – The Fear of Skins or Furs

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Excessive Fear of Skins and Furs

Does the thought of furry animals cause you nightmares? Does the idea of having a fur coat or leather bag give you the creeps? When you touch animal fur or skin, do you want to throw up? You can’t even think about animals without getting a panic attack or feeling dizzy.

You’re all alone with your fear of fur and skins while the rest of your friends are happily hanging out with their pets. All you can do is stay at home.

If that’s not the kind of life you want to live, then you need to find the root of the problem and overcome it once and for all.

Everything You Need to Know about Doraphobia

What does doraphobia mean? The Greek term dora means “hide or skin” while the term phobos means “fear.” It translates to fear of skins and fur, but there are various ways in which this phobia manifests.

A person with doraphobia may be triggered by the act of touching animals or their hides, skin, and fur. They either hate the texture or fear the consequences of touching animal skin.

This condition also varies in intensity. A doraphobe may be simply disgusted by fur and skin, while some can’t stand even the thought of it. The fear of fur may overlap with zoophobia (the fear of animals), chaetophobia (fear of hair), or a variety of animal-related phobias.

Causes of Doraphobia

Psychological disorders like phobias and anxiety are believed to be passed down through genes. If your parents, grandparents, or other relatives suffer from any such issue, you’re more likely to develop irrational fears at some point in your life.

However, these generally do not occur without an environmental trigger. An underlying gene may become active after a traumatic or stressful encounter. Such incidents include:

  • A school trip to the zoo that went wrong
  • An attack by a household or neighbor’s pet
  • An incidence of infection or animal bite
  • Learning that real fur comes from animals
  • Watching an animal being skinned
  • A severe allergic reaction to animals, their hair, fleas, or dander

All these can be traumatic, especially if they occur in childhood. The strong emotions from these events can create a lifelong loathing of animal fur or skin.

Other environmental causes could be:

  • Learning in school about diseases animals carry in their fur
  • If a parent has a fear of animals, the child could develop it too
  • If a loved one died due to animal-related causes, one could develop a fear of animals
  • If there was a heavy-shedding dog at home who was dying
  • If an individual relates hair loss with death and disease

Doraphobia causes are not rational by any means. For accuracy, this condition should be diagnosed by a professional.

Symptoms of Doraphobia

Doraphobia is one of the phobias that first manifest in a person’s thoughts and then in their behavior. This means the mental and emotional symptoms are more likely present before you see physical signs, such as panic attacks.

Physical Symptoms

  • Hot flushes
  • Hyperventilation
  • Tightness in the chest
  • Nausea
  • Headache
  • Stomachache
  • Anxiety attacks
  • Tremors or shaking
  • Muscle tension
  • Increased heart rate
  • Dizziness or fainting
  • Sweating
  • Allergic reaction to animals

Mental/Emotional Symptoms

  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Mood swings
  • Anxiety
  • Avoidance of animals
  • Avoiding stuffed toys
  • Feelings of dread
  • Fear of dying
  • Unease or a feeling that something bad might happen if they touch an animal
  • Hatred of fur, fur coats, or animals hides and objects with similar texture
  • Negative thoughts or nightmares about furry animals

How Do You Deal with Doraphobia?

What makes a phobia different is the excessive response people exhibit towards the trigger. The cause may also seem irrational or unreasonable. In contrast, fear is relatively rational and can be kept under control. Fear won’t stop people from living their lives normally, but a phobia will.

When it comes to doraphobia, avoidance is not the solution. Since most people love animals, they’re often featured in advertisements. Unless you stop watching TV, you’ll probably see a furry animal sooner or later.

Pets are also quite common. You can’t just stop seeing your friends or relatives simply because they have a dog or cat. Worse, you probably have the same intense reaction to fur coats, stuffed toys, or objects made of hide. It doesn’t matter if it’s real or fake.

That’s why it’s better to get help as soon as possible if you think you have doraphobia.

Self Help: What Can You Do?

First off, you can practice some simple self-help methods to regain control over your life.

Communicating with someone you trust could help relieve you of your stress. You can ask a friend to listen without judgment. They should know the talk in itself is the solution; all they need to do is listen.

Try to avoid caffeine. Coffee does way more than wake you up. It disrupts your body’s natural activity and causes stomach issues. Plus, being caffeinated feels like you are in fight mode at all times. Alcohol and other mood-altering substances should also be avoided.

If you find it difficult to stay off caffeine, try exercise. While the two aren’t directly related, your body begins to learn natural ways to wake itself up. Burning off some calories keeps you awake, flushes out toxins, and helps you stay calm in the face of a stressor.

Self-help begins with small steps taken to overcome the fear, but every phobia is mental first and physical later. So, treating what is in the mind is the best route.

Don’t just focus on the symptoms. Learn to differentiate between the methods that hide your symptoms and those that actually treat them.

Getting Professional Help

Doraphobia treatment includes methods similar to treatment of other phobias. These exercises are based on what the root cause of the fear is.

  • Cognitive behavioral therapy involves the therapist working with the patient to change negative cognitive pathways into positive, helpful ones.
  • Dialectical behavior therapy teaches the patient techniques to regulate their fear responses. It may include mindfulness, half-smiling, and emotional regulation under the supervision of a therapist. DBT usually comes in when the person can rationalize thoughts but not behavior.
  • Exposure therapy or desensitization does what it says: it desensitizes or exposes the patient to the stressor. This can be done in a few ways. The patient is exposed to the stressor in a controlled way, either directly or indirectly. A direct encounter involves physical contact with furs or animal skin. An indirect encounter requires thinking about furs and skins. Both could help the person get acquainted with the stressor and realize it doesn’t hurt them in any way.
  • Medications such as beta-blockers, anti-anxiety meds, or antidepressants are generally prescribed to substitute the hormonal responses. These supportive measures are temporary. They are not meant to cure phobias and are geared toward reducing extreme physical response.

Learning to Cope with Doraphobia

Self-help tips might be good, but a consultation with an expert is infinitely better. Unless you know what the problem is, how will you know what to fix? The longer the fear has had time to progress, the more time it’ll take to treat it.

The first step is to admit there is a problem. Ask a family member to reach out to a professional if asking for help on your own is too intimidating. Therapy can make people vulnerable, so being accompanied by a relative or close friend can keep your spirits up.

Now that you have the knowledge and strategies, all you need is the motivation to face your fear. Eventually, you’ll be cuddling with your very own pet and enjoying the luxurious feel of fur on your skin.

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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