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fear of being contagious
Body Phobias

Tapinophobia – The Fear of Being Contagious

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Tapinophobia – The Excessive Fear of Being Contagious

Quick Fact: What’s the most contagious disease? Measles takes the top spot.

Someone who has measles can infect 90 percent of those around them. Not only that, but the virus stays active up to two hours after someone with measles has left a room.

Childhood diseases like chickenpox and mumps are not far behind, followed by new diseases like COVID-19.

Given how easily diseases can spread, it’s a good idea to take measures to avoid infecting others when you’re sick. But what if this turns into an unreasonable fear of being contagious? What if your daily or weekly routine comes to a halt because of tapinophobia?

fear of being contagious

What Is Tapinophobia?

Tapinophobia is the extreme fear of being contagious. Sufferers constantly worry they will make others sick or even kill them. This irrational fear worries a person to such an extent that they are in constant anguish. At first glance, it seems like a valid concern. There’s no doubt that contagious diseases easily spread from one person to another. You can get some simply by touching someone who is sick. Other contagious diseases can spread when a sick person sneezes or coughs. You can even get them from holding an object that a sick person has touched.

When you’re sick, it’s a good idea to avoid interacting with others, wear masks, and handwash frequently. But this caution can be taken to extremes. Do you refuse to leave your house because you’re afraid you may be contagious even though you have no symptoms? Do you worry that going out may make other people sick? If you answered yes, you may have tapinophobia. In severe cases, some with tapinophobia not only avoid the situations they fear but also the thought of it altogether. The brain creates a reaction to the fearful situation even when the person is not actually experiencing it.

Tapinophobia: A Social Phobia

Social phobias are characterized by phobias that involve other people or social situations. Examples are:

What Causes Tapinophobia?

As of now, there’s no single definite cause for phobias. Like other phobias, a lot of factors play interrelated roles to develop tapinophobia, including trauma, genetics, and upbringing. Let’s take a closer look at these tapinophobia causes.

Genetics

A family history of mental illness increases the chances of a person developing tapinophobia. If this genetic predisposition is combined with a traumatic experience, a person can develop a full-fledged phobia.

Trauma

A physically or mentally painful experience can also trigger tapinophobia. This usually occurs during childhood.
For example, someone close to you may have died of an infectious disease. Another is living through a pandemic, where lockdowns and quarantines affected daily life. Both of these experiences can influence how you behave decades later.

Associated Phobias

A person who already has another social phobia, say agoraphobia, can also manifest tapinophobia.

Any of the above reasons or a combination of these can lead to a person developing tapinophobia.

Symptoms of Tapinophobia

Now that you know what can trigger the fear of being contagious, let’s explore the telltale signs of this phobia. First of all, someone with tapinophobia will make sure they are not contagious by using some or all of the following methods:

  • Washing hands repetitively
  • Refusing to shake hands or hug others
  • Keeping a safe distance from people
  • Developing compulsive behavior to avoid coming in close contact with others
  • Resorting to justifying their fear to themselves

Physical Symptoms

Sufferers often experience panic attacks when confronted with gatherings and other triggers. Other signs include:

  • Sweating
  • Hot/cold flashes
  • Headaches
  • Nausea
  • Shaking
  • Numbness or tingling sensations
  • Increased heart rate
  • Dizziness
  • Breathlessness
  • Hyperventilation
  • Dry mouth
  • Inability to articulate words

Mental/Emotional Symptoms

A fear of being contagious takes a toll on a one’s mental and emotional state and forces them to live in constant dread.

  • Fear of death
  • Anger
  • Confusion
  • Withdrawal
  • Anxiety at the thoughts of being contagious
  • Guilt
  • Feeling sad
  • Inability to handle anxiety

The symptoms vary from person to person and depend on many factors. While some may avoid gatherings, others resort to continuously sanitizing themselves throughout the day.

Self-Help Guide to Coping with Tapinophobia

Tapinophobia treatment starts the day you begin self-help steps to reduce anxiety. The key is to redirect energy toward something productive rather than giving in to the dread.

Yoga

Practicing yoga puts you in a meditative state of mind and relieves the anxiety associated with tapinophobia.

Cardio Workouts

Doing cardio workouts like running, biking, swimming, etc. diverts your mind from worrying. They also help you expend nervous energy.

Meditation

Meditation distracts your mind from negative feelings. Instead, you focus on something calming. When you meditate, you focus on the sounds and sensations around you. You may observe the way your belly rises and falls as you breathe. It takes practice to experience the calming effects of meditation, but it’s worth it.

Caffeine Ban

Caffeine raises your heart rate causing you to feel more anxious. Eliminating (or at least limiting) coffee, chocolate, and energy drinks from your diet will help reduce your day-to-day anxiety.

Seeking Professional Help

You can overcome the fear that you are the reason for other people’s sickness by initiating treatment. Professional help gets you to the root of the problem. No single treatment can cure tapinophobia, but some treatments do reduce the anxiety associated with it.

The following are some techniques used by professionals. They’re not specific to tapinophobia, but they’ve proven to be useful in most phobia treatments.

  • Cognitive behavioral therapy
  • Talking therapy
  • Dialectical behavior techniques
  • Mindfulness-based stress reduction
  • Exposure therapy

Of these methods, the following two are especially useful for those with tapinophobia:

Talking Therapy

Talk therapy is a form of counseling which involves talking to a therapist about your thoughts. With the help of your therapist, you’ll organize your thoughts and understand your reactions better.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Like talk therapy, CBT improves your mental health by allowing you to better understand why you think and behave the way you do. Cognitive behavioral therapy is used to treat anxiety disorders like generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It will guide you to deeply analyze your fears rather than respond with an instant subconscious reaction.

Investing in professional help is worth it. Never take a phobia lightly, because phobias can overcome your daily life. Your anxiety can also sow the seeds of depression.

How to Cope with Tapinophobia

Are you uncertain how to cope with tapinophobia? The first step involves acknowledging your fear. Only then can you work towards coping with its symptoms. One with tapinophobia may develop “safety behaviors” that ensure they do not experience their fear. While these avoidance behaviors create a temporary haven, relying on such behaviors can worsen the condition.

It’s extremely difficult to live in complete isolation. Doing so may require moving to the wilderness and living off the grid. Instead, it’s better to practice stress-management techniques like meditation or yoga. Positive affirmations may also help you cope. Rationalize your negative feelings and tell yourself that it is safe to meet with others. Realize that the normal precautions are enough to safeguard the health of those around you. There is no shortcut to overcoming a phobia. It will take patience, time, and consistent effort.

Wrapping Up

Tapinophobia can seem hard to manage. But with patience and effort, one can beat it. Soon, you can go out without fear of making others sick.

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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