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Animal Phobias

Fear of Cockroaches – Katsaridaphobia

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What Is Katsaridaphobia?

Cockroaches. Most people don’t like these critters anywhere near them.

While most dislike cockroaches because of their looks or tendency to be in dirty spaces, some people have a full-blown phobia of them.

What is cockroach phobia called? Katsaridaphobia.

Like other phobias or extreme fears of something, people who have katsaridaphobia can suffer some serious symptoms of this condition. Some individuals with a cockroach phobia can have panic attacks just by thinking of cockroaches. If you feel you or someone you know has a phobia of cockroaches, read on to learn how to manage this phobia in a safe way.

What Are the Symptoms of Katsaridaphobia?

Katsaridaphobia has been around a long time. Our ancestors were taught to have a patellar reflex—otherwise known as a ‘knee-jerk reaction’—to critters like cockroaches which invaded their dwellings, as they often harbored disease. These days, most people still have this knee-jerk reaction when seeing cockroaches, but those who have a cockroach phobia can suffer from much more.

Physical symptoms that may occur when seeing a cockroach can include excessive sweating, hyperventilation (or breathing too fast), tightness in the chest, racing heart, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, or a tingling sensation in hands or arms. These symptoms themselves are common signs of a panic attack, but may occur independently, depending on each person. Some people even have one or more of these symptoms when just thinking of cockroaches, though these tend to be rarer cases.

There aren’t just physical side effects to having a phobia of cockroaches. Many have psychological side effects as well. Possible side effects include heightened anxiety, extremely intense emotional reactions and taking drastic measures to keep a home cockroach-free. Some individuals may spend hours scrubbing their house, spraying floors and walls with anti-cockroach spray, and checking every corner for a cockroach. These actions can limit a person’s ability to live a normal life as it may interfere with their work or social interactions.

How Can I Overcome Katsaridaphobia?

Fortunately, there are many ways to treat kataridaphobia. There are two common routes to follow:

Self-help

Self-treatment for katsaridaphobia is similar to treatment for all other phobias, with plenty of options available. First and foremost, katsaridaphobia is rooted in both fear and anxiety, common emotions that every person feels at different points throughout their lives.

The case that everyone feels these emotions is comforting just knowing you are not alone and that everyone deals with it in their own way.

The most common way to deal with anxiety is to ensure that you feel more positive emotions than negative ones. Think about what makes you feel good. Is it spending time in nature? Getting exercise? Being around loved ones? Figure out what gives you the most positive feelings, including feeling joy, calm, and amusement, and make sure you do what makes you feel good as much as you can every day! If you get stuck in a cycle of negative thinking, your anxiety, stress, and fear will continue to build up and cause harm in your life.

Getting Professional Help

If you feel that you would prefer professional help instead of self-help, you also have plenty of options available. Fortunately, there are many ways to get professional help in the form of therapy and, in extreme cases, medication. As mentioned above, katsaridaphobia is born out of anxiety and fear, so receiving professional help for these two emotions will help to control your katsaridaphobia.

There are different kinds of therapy available. Talk therapy is very common and includes speaking with a therapist about your katsaridaphobia. The therapist will help you deal with your anxiety and fear by helping you understand where these emotions come from. Our anxiety and fears may often start from a past event or even may be genetic, coming from our family genes.

Exposure therapy is another popular option for those with katsaridaphobia. This kind of treatment involves being exposed to your fear and findings ways to cope with it, with the long-term goal of having less of a reaction when seeing your fear. In the case of katsaridaphobia, this could mean having a therapist show you pictures or videos of a cockroach, or even bring some cockroaches into a session with you. Initially, your reaction may be severe, but by facing the fear head-on and talking through it with your therapist, you will find yourself less and less reactive to cockroaches.

Some medications may help lessen the emotional and physical pain you may have with cockroaches. Anti-anxiety medication is great for reducing the possibility of panic attacks, which may come when seeing or thinking about cockroaches. Another option is anti-depressants, which can help with depression you may feel in not being able to control your phobia.

How to Avoid Katsaridaphobia

Now you know the answer to “what is cockroach phobia called?” The key step to avoiding katsaridaphobia is to ensure at least a modest level of cleanliness in your household. Cockroaches are attracted to leftover food and dirty spaces. Make sure your house is clean, and that all food that is not eaten is either properly stored or thrown away.

Most people fear cockroaches on some level, so don’t feel like you are alone! There is lots of help available, from self-help to professional help. You can learn to keep the fear of these creepy critters under control!

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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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