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Other Phobias

Syngenesophobia – The Fear of Relatives

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Syngenesophobia: The Excessive Fear of Relatives

Family is important. But what if you get an awful, sinking feeling at the thought of seeing your relatives?

Are you scared of attending family functions? Does thinking about running into a cousin or aunt have you shaking like a leaf?

Your relationships may not always run smoothly, but if you have panic attacks because of your kin, it may be a sign of syngenesophobia.

Syngenesophobia, or the fear of relatives, may seem absurd, but it’s no joking matter for sufferers. It is so serious that it’s recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. Here’s everything you need to know about syngenesophobia and how to deal with it.

What Is Syngenesophobia?

Syngenesophobia is the irrational fear of relatives. It is derived from these Greek terms:

  • Sy meaning “same”
  • Gen meaning “heredity”
  • Phobos meaning “fear”

Syngenesophobia is a specific social phobia. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it is characterized as an anxiety disorder. Sufferers experience extreme anxiety upon seeing their relatives or one specific relative.

Some families only see each other during weddings, funerals, and reunions. Not everyone likes family functions. But for those with syngenesophobia, these are all scary situations. We all have a meddling grandma, boring uncle, or annoying cousin we avoid like the plague. But most of us are not afraid of our relatives.

Many people depend on extended family in times of trouble. In contrast, those with syngenesophobia are terrified of their kin. They avoid seeing their relatives as much as possible. The excessive worry that ensues may even lead to panic attacks. As a result, individuals with syngenesophobic don’t have close relationships with their relatives. They miss out on having a support group that can be with them through thick and thin.

Related Conditions

In some cases, the phobia sufferer may develop anthrophobia, or a fear of people. They may even opt to skip all social gatherings or refuse to leave the house. This would have a negative impact on their social and professional life. Syngenesophobia is sometimes associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), delusional disorders, and social anxiety disorders.

What Causes Syngenesophobia?

Syngenesophobia has origins and symptoms similar to those of other phobias. Here are some syngenesophobia causes:

Genetics

A genetic predisposition to mental illness like anxiety disorders or specific phobias increases the chances of a person developing syngenesophobia. But genetics is not the only reason for a person to develop the fear of family members. Aside from an inherited tendency, this phobia is triggered by an emotionally challenging event.

Environment

Trauma can lead to syngenesophobia. This can be an event early in life that impaired one’s emotional stability. For example, sexual or physical abuse by a relative can cause this extreme anxiety. The phobic person may have also seen a loved one being harmed by a relative. This trauma may even come from a TV show or movie. Certain relatives, like mothers-in-law, are often portrayed in a negative light in the media. This fear of a fictional character may contribute to a phobia in real life.

What Are the Symptoms of Syngenesophobia?

You may have syngenesophobia if you associate yourself with any of the following behaviors:

  • Choosing to stay by yourself instead of meeting with family members
  • Experiencing high levels of anxiety when around people who are related to you
  • Going into flight-or-fight mode when you are around a relative
  • Having constant or severe anxiety for six or more months
  • Panicking at the mere thought or suggestion of meeting relatives

The symptoms of syngenesophobia vary from person to person, depending on the severity of the condition.

Physical Symptoms

  • Hand tremors
  • Increased heart rate
  • Breathlessness
  • Hot or cold flashes
  • Headache
  • Nausea
  • Butterflies in the stomach
  • Dry mouth
  • Dizziness
  • Excessive sweating

Mental/Emotional Symptoms

  • Panic attacks
  • Persistent or severe anxiety
  • Withdrawal
  • Confusion
  • Anger
  • Guilt
  • Dread

If a person experiences three or more of these symptoms, they may be diagnosed with syngenesophobia. However, only a mental health professional can make a definite diagnosis.

Self-Help Guide to Treating Syngenesophobia

Like other specific phobias, syngenesophobia has no definite treatment. However, you can use self-help techniques to reduce your anxiety. Some opt for professional help to get to the root of the issue. Syngenesophobia treatment starts the day you decide to acknowledge and confront your fear. Here are some stress-management techniques you can practice on your own.

Yoga

Yoga not only brings a positive change in your physical body but also your mind and soul. It brings calm to your anxiety. Practicing and mastering yoga teaches your body to handle stress by breathing through it.

Meditation

Mastering mindful meditation redirects your energy to something positive rather than overwhelming anxiety.

Less Caffeine

Huge amounts of coffee throughout the day can worsen your already anxious state. Cutting coffee and foods and drinks containing caffeine can reduce your everyday anxiety.

Regular Exercise

Cardio routines release happy hormones like endorphins that ease up stress and pleases you. Jogging and swimming are great options for you.

Professional Help for Syngenesophobia

Syngenesophobia may come from unresolved issues that can be pointed out by a mental health professional. Professional guidance to treat an anxiety disorder makes the path to recovery easier. A therapist will help you understand your thoughts and the gaps in them. Some of the techniques used by therapists to treat syngenesophobia are:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

With CBT, therapists help you see the irrationality of your thoughts. They will guide you in identifying the reason for your fear. This therapy helps you feel less anxious about meeting your relatives.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

Neuro-linguistic programming aims to help the patient understand their thoughts, behaviors, and emotional state. The therapist assists you in forming positive thoughts.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy involves forming positive imagery for the fear-instigating objects. EMDR is often used to lessen the impact of traumatic memories.

Exposure Therapy

The most common way to treat a specific phobia is exposure therapy. Gradually, you are exposed to the object of your fear. In this case, they may start with a picture of the relative. When you learn to control your anxiety, the next step can be imagining situations of encountering the relative. The final step involves meeting that relative face to face, with or without the presence of your therapist. As part of the process, you’ll be taught coping exercises for the increasing amount of anxiety.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy involves mindfulness meditation and Hatha yoga to manage stress and anxiety. Meditation distracts your thoughts from the stress and directs them to something soothing.

How to Cope with Syngenesophobia

When the fear of relatives phobia has you taking extreme steps and is ruining your relationships, treating it becomes necessary.
Here are some steps you can take to deal with syngenesophobia:

  • Acknowledge your fear
  • Talk to your family about your phobia
  • Don’t defend your fear or try to rationalize it
  • List the positive traits of your relatives
  • See the gap between your perception and reality
  • Don’t force yourself to meet your relatives before you are ready

While avoiding relatives can seem fairly easy to do, you can’t always keep up with avoidance behaviors. Isolating yourself from your loved ones can lead to depression. Don’t give up. It’s possible to reclaim your relationships and alleviate the symptoms of syngenesophobia.

Related Phobia: Fear of Stepfathers, or Vitricophobia

The Last Word

Thankfully, the fear of relatives is manageable. All it takes is a little patience and effort, plus the right information. Soon, you’ll be able to attend family gatherings and form strong bonds with your relatives.

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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