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Body Phobias

Phobia of Tongues – Touloungeaphobia

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Discussing Touloungeaphobia

Do you fear you will swallow your own tongue? Do you avoid licking your lips after eating? Are you disgusted at the sight of other people’s tongues?

Does the sight of tongues make you shudder or send chills down your spine? Does the thought of French kissing make you feel nauseous and sweaty?

Human tongues, animal tongues, and tongues from any known creature: do they gross you out or scare you?

Is touloungeaphobia a phobia of Fear or Disgust?

If your answer to the above questions is yes, then you may have touloungeaphobia, the fear of tongues. You may experience a wet, slimy feeling taking over your body when you see, hear, or imagine tongues.

You may avoid going out to restaurants and forming intimate relationships. However, you are not alone. Nearly 10 percent of Americans face some kind of phobia. And yes, you’ll find the irrational fear of tongues on the list of phobias, too.

Touloungeaphobia is treatable, and you can overcome this fear of tongues with self-help and other methods.

Defining Touloungeaphobia

Touloungeaphobia is defined as the persistent and abnormal fear of tongues. The person who has this phobia has a constant fear of swallowing their own tongue. They are also afraid of licking their lips, and kissing is out of the question.

The fear is very debilitating and is a form of anxiety disorder. The individual with touloungeaphobia tries to avoid talking to people, as even a twist of the tongue may send them into a panic attack.

Touloungeaphobia is categorized as a social phobia or a social anxiety disorder. However, most people with touloungeaphobia don’t have other social phobias like fear of meeting new people or performing tasks in front of a crowd. They can even dance and sing on stage as long as no talking is involved. But some may still face a certain degree of stage fright. Also, a small crowd can trigger the symptoms of touloungeaphobia.

Some Probable Touloungeaphobia Causes

Although the exact cause of touloungeaphobia is unknown, certain factors may contribute to its development.

Bad experience: You may have had an experience where an animal licked you when you were young which left you disgusted.

Learned response: Someone in your family or your circle may have constantly been worried or anxious about something. This may have caused you to develop similar anxieties and fears.

Hereditary: Your family may have passed down the phobia of tongues to you.

Related Phobia – Fear of Hair

Touloungeaphobia Symptoms

A person who has touloungeaphobia may experience four or more of the below-mentioned symptoms, depending on the severity of the phobia.

Physical Symptoms

  • Nausea
  • Shortness of breath
  • Sweating
  • Irregular heartbeat
  • Weak tone of voice
  • Dry mouth

Psychological Symptoms

  • Feeling of dread
  • Intense anxiety when someone tongue teases
  • Feeling nervous
  • Having a panic attack

Touloungeaphobia Diagnosis

As many factors may lead to touloungeaphobia, the diagnosis of the fear may involve varied techniques. However, like most anxiety disorders, the diagnosis is based on the patient’s symptoms and behaviors.

Additionally, the doctor may perform physical tests like brain imaging and laboratory tests to rule out the presence of any other mental illnesses. They may also have coexisting problems like substance use or addiction disorders. Thus, the health professional must diagnose all possible mental health conditions to help a person struggling with touloungeaphobia.

Touloungeaphobia Treatment

When touloungeaphobia is diagnosed early, the recovery is often quick and achieved with simple therapies. However, advanced cases of touloungeaphobia may need professional help and in very rare serious occasions, medications.

Overcoming Touloungeaphobia with Self-Help

Self-help is the most affordable and accessible treatment option for any phobia. The person with touloungeaphobia can overcome the fear by training their mind to recognize the fear as irrational and that most of the threat is simply imagined.

At some level, those with touloungeaphobia are aware that their fear is irrational, so they avoid talking about it to anyone. If they focus on the irrationality of their fear, they may train their mind to accept that as well.

Individuals with the phobia can maintain a journal wherein they write about situations that led to a panic attack. They can then reevaluate the scene and try to realize how irrational their response was and that there was no need to worry.

Modifications to diet, lifestyle, exercise, and sleep patterns can help alleviate related stress and anxiety. Trying meditation, yoga, and joining self-help groups can also help deal with the phobia.

Professional Help for Touloungeaphobia

Cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy are the most common therapies for phobias and anxiety disorders such as touloungeaphobia.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive behavioral therapy helps people identify the root cause behind their fear. It then helps them change disturbing and destructive thought patterns that negatively affect their mental state.

It focuses on changing the adverse reaction that a person experiences when faced with tongues. CBT identifies and challenges the negative thoughts and replaces them with realistic, positive thoughts.

Exposure Therapy

Regular exposure to the object of fear has shown to be effective for many phobias.

The therapist gradually exposes a person who has touloungeaphobia to images of tongues and other objects that elicit a fear response. They do this in a controlled environment.

Medications for Touloungeaphobia

The doctor may prescribe medicines for severe cases when exposure to the object of fear leads to panic attacks and extreme distress. However, they give them only to relieve symptoms like anxiety and stress and not to treat touloungeaphobia.

It is also advisable to stop the medication once considerable progress is made, and the person no longer experiences severe symptoms. Usually, the doctor prescribes antidepressants or beta-blockers for a person with severe touloungeaphobia.

Learning to Cope with Touloungeaphobia

Overcoming touloungeaphobia is quite challenging, and people may try to avoid treatment, especially when the fear doesn’t affect their day-to-day life.

And although it is no easy task, it is not impossible either. While some discomfort toward tongues may persist, through self-help and professional therapies, a person may overcome touloungeaphobia.

In Conclusion
Touloungeaphobia can affect a person’s day-to-day life and normal functioning. However, with early diagnosis and proper treatment, a person can overcome this phobia. YES, you can lick this phobia for good!

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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