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Body Phobias

Ommetaphobia – The Intense Fear of Eyes

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Looking Into Ommetaphobia – The Intense Fear of Eyes

Eyes: How do you find them?

Yes, eyes, as in those two glowing beacons on your face which transmit sight to the mind?

Are you terrified to look at them? Does the mere thought of them make you feel anxious? Are you fearful of situations that involve the eye?

The fear of touching eyes, does the thought of touching your eyeball disgust you?

If you have a fear of eyes, you have no desire to look at them. In extreme cases, even your own eyes. Seeing a pair of eyes, staring into them (or being stared at), touching them, or even reading about the eyes could trigger the condition. Something as simple as a photo of an eye may leave you screaming or struggling for breath.

How did this phobia develop? Well, perhaps you had a traumatic experience involving the eyes when you were a child. Have you or someone else you know had an eye accident? Do you have a parent or relative who is also terrified of any situation involving the eyes?

Most may find these questions out of the ordinary. But if you answered yes to any of them, you may have a rare condition called ommetaphobia.

Let’s find out more about this curious disorder.

What Is Ommetaphobia, the Fear of Eyes?

Did you have a frightening experience with eyes as a child? Did you see someone’s eye fall out? Did you perhaps watch a scary movie that involved eyes? Or perhaps you had an eye accident yourself that scared you.

Ommetaphobia is an extreme fear of the eyes, either human or animal. It is a rare but very real disorder that leads to serious physiological and psychological symptoms like other phobias. To overcome this, let’s first try to understand the underlying reason for your ommetaphobia and begin to address it.

While the thought of experiencing fear related to an important body part may sound irrational, for sufferers of ommetaphobia, the turmoil they feel is overwhelming and very real.

Ommetaphobia triggers could be related to a strong fear of mutilation or injury. This explains why many sufferers of the disorder are usually adults or children who have witnessed an eye accident or brutal eye injury.

Sufferers of this phobia might also have an intense fear of losing their eyes and not being able to function without them. This paranoia leads them to extreme measures, such as wearing sunglasses or covering up the eyes at all times as a way of protecting them.

The fear of eyes can affect your daily living as well as impact your relationships. Below are a number of real-life examples where ommetaphobia may come into play:

  • Public speaking, when you’re expected to maintain eye contact.
  • At a gathering when people may look you in the eye to speak with you.
  • Having your eyes examined by an eye doctor.
  • Usage of contact lenses.
  • Applying eye drops.
  • Looking at eye masks used in spas or on planes.
  • Getting soap or shampoo in your eyes while washing or bathing.
  • Seeing fake eyes, such as those used in Halloween decorations.

Ommetaphobia Symptoms

The fear of eyes can lead to very intense and distressing symptoms in phobia sufferers. Some of the common symptoms include:

Physical Symptoms

  • Dry mouth
  • Dizziness
  • Fast-paced breathing
  • Nausea
  • Convulsion
  • Hyperventilating
  • Fainting
  • Paralysis
  • Muscle tension
  • Sweating
  • Hot or cold flashes
  • Heart pounding
  • Trembling
  • High blood pressure

Psychological Symptoms

  • Anxiety
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) behavior
  • Acting hysterical
  • Looking down while walking
  • Avoiding mirrors
  • Depression
  • Panic attacks
  • Social anxiety

Even after you’re out of the situation, the symptoms of ommetaphobia can remain for minutes to an hour.

A common response seen in ommetaphobia is that you leave no stone unturned to avoid people or animals who trigger a reaction. You may avoid any situation in which you’re forced to look at eyes, touch your own, or have them touched.

What is important to know is that while your symptoms may only be for the short term, avoidance can prolong it.

Whatever the reason, your irrational reaction to eyes, seeing them, staring into them, touching them, or even reading about them in books, is a serious cause for concern for your health and overall quality of life. Because of its nature, this phobia can affect your well-being. After all, how can you carry out daily life activities and routine if you’re terrified of something you can hardly — if at all — avoid?

Let’s see how we can deal with the issue.

How to Help Yourself Overcome Ommetaphobia

  1. Talk to someone about the problem. Open up.
  2. Meditate to calm your nerves and replace your anxiety with good energy.
  3. Visualize yourself confidently giving a speech on a podium and not minding the number of eyes staring back at you. Do this until you believe you can face the eyes of the crowd.
  4. Expose yourself to your trigger in a gradual manner. You can start with a book or diagram, or practice looking at the eyes of a loved one.
  5. Start a journal and write entries. Document your symptoms, what triggers them, the thoughts that run through your head — everything that can help you understand your condition better.
  6. Daily exercise is good for anxiety sufferers. Get yourself on a consistent schedule of physical activity and watch your stress levels drop commendably.
  7. Avoid caffeine as it can spike your anxiety levels.

Professional Help for Ommetaphobia

Here are some options for those looking for ommetaphobia treatment.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT helps patients exchange their initial thoughts about the eyes with affirming ones, such as the fact that the eyes bring no real danger to your well-being.

Exposure Therapy
This approach exposes patients to the object of their fear in a controlled setting. In this case, your doctor may first prescribe that you stare at pictures of different types of eyes. The therapist may also familiarize you with the importance of the eyes and why it should be looked at with positivity, not fear.

Medication
Doctors may also prescribe medication, but only for a short term. That’s because the medication is more for helping you cope with the symptoms, not treating the phobia itself.

Talk Therapy
Discussing your fears with a certified professional or medical counselor may do wonders for your healing journey. Talk therapy features all the benefits of keeping a journal and more.

Group Therapy
Going for therapy or counseling with a group of people with similar disorders and fear of the eyes could speed up your recovery journey. Knowing that although your personal phobia journey is unique, you can share experiences and exchange notes with people who can relate to you.

Hypnosis
This alternative medicine procedure is popular for taking patients into their subconscious. During hypnosis, patients would be encouraged to confront every fear, trigger, or paranoia they have, and to see the object of their distress as something that is not a danger to them.

Tips for Ommetaphobia

You’re not going to resolve your phobia overnight. But with the right attitude and commitment to treatments, following the doctor’s advice, and helping yourself, you are bound to take back control. Ask someone else to listen as you unburden your fears. Talking about it is the first step to unpacking it.

Eyes, Not Scary Afterall

Visualize a new life that is free from hysteria, anxiety, and panic. Can you picture  it? If you answered yes, then good for you. Go for it, work toward it!

You have it in you. You can survive long being afraid of something that is such a vital part of your existence. You are strong and resilient. Now convert all that strength into good use, and turn your health around.

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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