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fear of blindness
Body Phobias

Scotomaphobia – The Fear of Blindness

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The Fear of Blindness Is Known as Scotomaphobia

Some 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired. Now, that statistic makes blindness a serious concern. However, that concern takes a wrong turn when it becomes a phobia that’s hard to manage.

We all fear becoming blind when we come across a situation that threatens our sight. But sometimes that fear reaches extreme levels to the point where people are constantly terrified of blindness. This is called scotomaphobia, or a fear of blindness.

Scary, right? But fortunately, it’s curable. You can vanquish your irrational fear of blindness by learning to manage your thoughts. Explore all about your fear and the ways to beat it below.

What Does Scotomaphobia Mean?

People often take cautious measures to avoid straining their eyes. Scotomaphobia involves weaving one’s life around these cautious measures to protect eyesight. So, what does scotomaphobia mean? Scotomaphobia is the intense fear of blindness. Scotomaphobia is derived from the Greek terms scotoma meaning blindness and phobos meaning fear. It is a specific phobia. Specific phobias are phobias of specific objects or situations, in this case, blindness. Those suffering from scotomaphobia experience extreme anxiety when exposed to a situation they feel may visually impair them.

In severe cases, being in an exposure situation is not necessary to trigger a reaction. Just the thought of becoming blind can trigger anxiety and stress in some. This uncontrollable anxiety can even lead to panic attacks. To avoid these extreme levels of stress, you might avoid situations that can trigger anxiety. You evade your intrusive thoughts not by coping with anxiety but by avoiding trigger situations. This can often affect your entire lifestyle. When you resort to such avoidance behaviors repetitively, it can lead to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). You develop a compulsive need to keep doing certain things. These behaviors also affect your social and professional life.

What Causes Scotomaphobia?

One may fear blindness because of the helplessness it can lead to or the deeply unpleasant feelings it can cause. Scotomaphobia causes are not apparent like that of other phobias. It’s largely genetics and past trauma at play. The causes can be social learning, genetic predisposition to mental disorders, or negative experiences involving blindness.

Genetics

A genetic predisposition to mental illness like anxiety disorders or specific phobias can lead to scotomaphobia. Any alteration in the genes of one’s parents is transferred to the child and it increases the chances of developing the same or different disorder. However, a genetic predisposition doesn’t necessarily trigger a phobia unless combined with an extremely negative experience.

Trauma

The trauma can be seeing a loved one becoming blind and the difficulties they suffered. Otherwise, it can be stories of blind people leading a hard life that triggered the phobia. Even an injury that resulted in temporary blindness could trigger scotomaphobia years later.

What Are the Symptoms of Scotomaphobia?

The fear of blindness may seem normal, but its symptoms can impair your life severely. If you identify your behavior with those listed below, you may have scotomaphobia.

  • If you avoid going out because you fear becoming blind
  • If you frequently visit an eye specialist
  • If slight pain in the eye leads to extreme anxiety
  • If you take extreme measures to protect your eyes
  • If you get anxious when in situations that can lead to blindness
  • If you avoid thinking about blindness
  • If you avoid situations that can lead to blindness

Anxiety is the most common symptom and at the center of phobia. This extreme anxiety can have real physical effects. When the person comes across a phobic stimulus, he may have an adrenaline rush. This leads the body into fight or flight mode. Moreover, there are also physical, mental, and emotional symptoms that indicate scotomaphobia. Each individual suffers from scotomaphobia differently, and at different degrees of intensity. Here are some of the most common symptoms associated with scotomaphobia:

Physical Symptoms

  • Increased heart rate
  • Breathlessness
  • Muscle tension
  • Nausea
  • Dizziness
  • Sweating
  • Tremors
  • Hot or cold flashes
  • Headache
  • Butterflies in the stomach
  • Dry mouth

Mental/Emotional Symptoms

  • Inability to manage anxiety
  • Fear of an impending doom
  • Panic attacks
  • Unavoidable anxiety
  • Withdrawal
  • Anger or mood swings
  • Feelings of guilt or shame
  • Confusion
  • Crying or screaming

How to Treat Scotomaphobia

Fear of blindness can be life-limiting and people don’t usually treat it since avoiding the fear is easier. But the thought of blindness can strike you anytime and lead you to the depths of anxiety. You cannot always predict your day either. There may be times when you come across a very real situation that can trigger extreme symptoms. Learning to cope and treating your phobia is vital. Try utilizing tips from the following self-help guide or you can seek professional help to treat scotomaphobia.

Self-Help Guide to Scomotaphobia

Mild symptoms of scotomaphobia can be treated at home with anxiety-reducing exercises. When mastered, these techniques can help keep you calm when you encounter sudden stressful situations.

Meditate

Meditation decelerates your racing catastrophic thoughts. This makes managing anxiety easier. Here are a few forms of meditation that have proven useful in the case of phobias:

  • Mindfulness meditation
  • Meditation during yoga, movement meditation
  • Breathing awareness meditation
  • Progressive relaxation
  • Focused meditation

Be Physically Active

Strenuous exercises burn off negative, anxious energy. Being physically active reduces a great amount of stress and anxiety related to scotomaphobia. This gives you greater control over your body’s stress levels.

Write It Out

Writing about what is making you anxious and venting all your thoughts on paper can make you feel in control. When you find a way to express your fear and anxiety in a journal or notepad, you can see it directly for what it is and manage it more successfully.

Professional Help for Scotomaphobia

If self-help efforts don’t seem to reduce your anxiety level, you can seek professional help. No single scomotaphobia treatment guarantees recovery, but there are some treatment options widely used that have good rates of success. Professional guidance takes you to the root of the issue and eases the anxiety by helping you understand it. Here are a few options to consider:

  • Talking therapy
  • Dialectical behavior therapy
  • Mindfulness-based stress reduction
  • Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
  • EMDR
  • Exposure therapy
  • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

The treatment option your therapist chooses will depend on you, the severity of your condition, and the cause of your scomotaphobia.

How to Cope with Scotomaphobia

If you come to understand yourself and your fear and know how to deal with it, you’re already halfway through treatment. The following tips may come in handy when you face a scotomaphobia trigger:

Ground Yourself; Find Something Tangible

When negative thoughts strike, hold on to an anchor object that physically brings you back to the present moment. Any nearby object that you can hold firmly will do. It could just be a paper ball—old it and focus on how the ball feels against your fingers. It takes you away from your catastrophic thoughts of blindness by providing an alternate stimulus to focus on.

Cuddle with Your Loved Ones

Positive physical intimacy releases oxytocin and lowers the stress hormone. It lowers the physical symptoms of scotomaphobia including blood pressure, and heart rate. If you have someone nearby who you trust, take a moment to hug it out or hold their hand. This will help bring your stress levels down.

Laugh It Out

You cannot laugh and be anxious at the same time. Laughing releases dopamine even when your laugh is fake. Watch a funny show that you enjoy to loosen things up, or spend a moment scrolling through a funny meme account on social media. It will quickly provide some fun relief.

In Closing

Your fear is your mind’s doing. Only you can train your mind to beat it. Scotomaphobia may seem life-limiting, but it doesn’t have to be. With time, patience, and consistent efforts you can contain your anxiety and live without constantly worrying about blindness. Hopefully, now you have explored all about your fear. You know what your next step should be for beating your fear of blindness.

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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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