Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer
3K
3K
740
3K
Menu
Menu
static-img
Fear of Trains
Situational Phobias

Siderodromophobia – The Fear of Trains

Share This Article
Share Post

The Fear of Trains Is Known as Siderodromophobia

What is the longest passenger train in the world? This honor falls to the Gahn, an Australian tourist train with an astonishing length of more than 2,500 feet. That’s equivalent to twelve football fields. For people with siderodromophobia, this bit of trivia might be disturbing.

Are you deathly afraid of trains, a popular mode of transportation? Perhaps you have nightmares of being in a train crash. If given a choice, you’d rather walk for miles than get on the subway.

If this sounds like you, you may have siderodromophobia. The good news is you can successfully manage your fear of trains phobia or even overcome it.

Fear of Trains

What Is Siderodromophobia?

What is the fear of trains called? Siderodromophobia is the intense fear of trains or railways.

Are you curious about siderodromophobia etymology? This term comes from these Greek terms:

  1. Sideros meaning “iron”
  2. Dromos meaning “run”
  3. Phobos meaning “fear”

Those with siderodromophobia are scared of railroads, subways, elevated trains, and monorails. As a result, they are unable to travel using these modes of transportation. In severe cases, they cannot approach, talk, or see images about them. They may even react negatively upon seeing a toy train.

Siderodromophobia is often associated with other phobias:

Someone with this phobia may also be afraid of traveling in cars, driving at night, flying, sailing, and so on.

What Causes Siderodromophobia?

Siderodromophobia causes are similar to that of other specific phobias. They can be external events, personality traits, genetics, or media coverage.

Traumatic Experiences

As with other phobias, your fear of trains can be a result of negative past experience, such as a loved one’s death due to a train accident or witnessing a train accident. Events such as these can trigger an intense aversion to trains.

Media Coverage

At times, the phobia doesn’t need a personal trigger event. Media coverage of certain accidents can cause an aversion to trains. Watching an accident clip on TV can stay with you and cause a phobia to develop.

Genetics

Heredity can also be a reason for someone to develop a phobia of trains. Do you have a family history of mental disorders like anxiety disorders or specific phobias? When combined with a trigger event, this increases your chances of developing siderodromophobia.

Popular Culture

Scary stories and urban legends may at time involve those who have been accidentally run over by speeding trains. Others have committed suicide by throwing themselves on railway tracks. No wonder people are scared of these trains.

What Are the Symptoms of Siderodromophobia?

Siderodromophobia affects individuals differently. One person may be afraid of derailment while another might be afraid of crashing.

The following are some behaviors that might point to siderodromophobia:

  • If you fear derailments and railway accidents
  • If you fear unknown conductors or other railway employees
  • If you fear a lack of control
  • If you avoid commuting by train
  • If you avoid going to a train station
  • If you avoid watching TV shows or movies with trains
  • If you cannot go to railway museums or historic sites containing railway tracks

Sufferers may even experience panic attacks. Others either freeze or flee the situation if they come across trains. If the only way to reach a place is to commute by train, some may avoid going altogether. Here are more train phobia symptoms:

Physical Symptoms

  • Increased heart rate
  • Cold sweat
  • Digestion problems
  • Shaking
  • Breathlessness
  • Dry mouth
  • Numbness
  • Crying/screaming
  • Migraine
  • Butterflies in the stomach
  • Hot or cold flashes
  • Muscle tension
  • Nausea
  • Dizziness

Mental/Emotional Symptoms

  • Withdrawal
  • Inability to manage anxiety
  • Fearing an impending doom
  • Fear of taking a train
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Anger or mood swings
  • Extreme anxiety

There is also anticipatory anxiety, which is the anxiety felt before a scheduled trip. One may start fretting about the journey even before boarding a train. It’s quite common and can be worse than the fear felt during the journey. If left untreated, siderodromophobia can worsen and interfere with one’s life. At the mere whistle of a train, someone with this phobia may start trembling and panicking. It reaches a point where they cannot bear even the thought of commuting on a train.

Self-Help Guide to Siderodromophobia

The treatments that work on most phobias also work on siderodromophobia. You can either take up anxiety-reducing initiatives at home or seek professional help. If your phobia is mild, you might consider these self-help methods.

Practice Yoga

Yoga aims to join the mind and body. It is a popular method to release stress since it makes you aware of your body and breath. According to a study, yoga can enhance mood and may be as effective as drugs in treating anxiety and depression.

Exercise

Strange but true: physical activity can relieve stress. When you put your body under pressure, it learns to cope with it. When there is an actual threat, the coping learned during exercise will help you a great deal. Exercises like cardio and swimming reduce stress hormones. The best part: these exercises also prompt the body to release happy hormones.

Meditate

Meditation anchors your mind to a focal point. You learn to focus on all your senses rather than on your panicky feelings. Meditation helps you achieve mindfulness. This practice lets you anchor your mind to the present moment. It combats any negative thinking or emotions.

Write It Down

Keep a journal. Writing what you are stressed about can relieve stress. By listing things you are grateful for, you focus your thoughts on the positive aspects of your life.

Reduce Caffeine

High amounts of caffeine affect your health. Aside from hyperacidity, coffee can worsen your anxiety. Cutting down on coffee will help you manage your phobia symptoms better.

Professional Help to Treat Siderodromophobia

If you’re unable to contain your anxiety through self-help techniques, professional guidance will help you dig deeper into the problem. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a common technique used for siderodromophobia. With this therapy, you learn to:

  • Change your thoughts and responses from the negative to the positive
  • Stop and redirect your negative thoughts about trains
  • Change your behavior towards trains

Beyond CBT, other psychotherapies and medical treatments can also be used to ease siderodromophobia.

  • Exposure therapy
  • Dialectical behavior therapy
  • Talking therapy
  • Mindfulness-based stress reduction
  • Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
  • Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing
  • Hypnosis

How to Cope with Siderodromophobia

Coping with your phobia becomes a necessity when it starts to affect your personal, social, and professional life. If a train is the only means of transport where you live, you will end up wasting time searching for alternatives. That’s just one side of the story. Eventually, the phobia can adversely affect your career as you may find it difficult to commute to the office.

Following are some methods that can help you through your anxiety:

  • Start by spending time at a railway station
  • Breathe purposefully and deeply, focus on it
  • Visualize happy thoughts or a happy place
  • Start listing things to divert attention
  • Chewing gum is also an easy way to relieve stress

Conclusion

Is it possible to have a productive life when you have this phobia? Yes, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort for siderodromophobia treatment. It can be treated no matter what caused it. Only you can train your mind to cope with this phobia of trains. Take simple steps to reduce the pressure and give yourself time to adjust. Soon, you’ll confidently ride the train even during rush hour.

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.
0LikesShare Post

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.
This Pop-up Is Included in the Theme
Best Choice for Creatives
Purchase Now