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Situational Phobias

The Fear of Being Yelled At

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No One Likes Being Yelled At, but Some More than Others

Do you feel terrified when someone yells at you? Does your heart race or thump when you hear someone yelling?

Do you feel anxious or traumatized when you hear yelling?

It’s normal to feel scared or on alert when someone yells at you. Yelling is a form of negative reinforcement intended to instill fear and restraint. However, a fear of being yelled at to the extent of losing control over the body is not normal.

If this fear sounds familiar to you, you may be suffering with the anxiety or fear of being yelled at.

 

The fear of being yelled at can make day-to-day activities stressful, especially social interaction and professional life. You might begin to avoid public places as they are prone to conflict, or you may hesitate to raise a complaint or disagree at work, fearing your seniors might yell at you. This crippling fear can take on worse forms if left untreated.

However, there is a solution. This is a common fear that is treatable.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the causes, symptoms, and treatments of this phobia.

What Causes the Fear of Being Yelled At?

The question arises: why do we experience anxiety, panic, or breathlessness when someone is yelling at us? The first reason is that our brain understands that yelling is a potential sign of a threat. As a reflex, the brain induces fear. However, this fear becomes a phobia when the symptoms worsen beyond the individual’s control.

When the shrillness in a voice, angry expressions, aggressive body language, or humiliating words send shivers down your spine or cause you to perspire, you know that you suffer the phobia of being yelled at.

Frequently getting yelled at changes the mind, brain, and body in ways that increase the activity of the amygdala (the emotional brain), stress hormones in the bloodstream, and muscular tension.

One of the causes of this anxiety stems from childhood. Being frequently yelled at as a child changes how we think and feel about ourselves and lowers self-confidence. Even after we become adults and leave home, this self-perception persists because the brain wires according to our experiences of the past.

If you grew up in a household where the immediate and most widely administered reaction to the smallest of mistakes was yelling and humiliation, you are more susceptible to developing such a phobia. Our minds gradually begin to associate great threat and ferocity with this type of behavior.

Constant yelling also lowers your self-esteem and confidence and might gradually evolve into severe forms of depression. It sows the seeds of self-doubt, which in turn affects all aspects of an individual’s life—social, personal, and professional. As a result of the anxiety of being yelled at, you develop psychosomatic illnesses and begin to suffer from physical weakness.

Symptoms of the Fear of Being Yelled At

People yell not just to exhibit anger and disagreement; they also do so to impose discipline and supremacy. The best example of the latter is the workplace. Being yelled at by your boss or any other senior official is not an alien experience.

When being yelled at is so common, how does one distinguish between a normal fear and a phobia? Understanding the symptoms of a phobia will help differentiate between a normal fear and a phobia.

  • Anxiety attacks
  • Heavy sweating
  • Breathlessness or shortness of breath
  • Increased heart rate
  • Chest tightening or chest pain
  • Nausea
  • Dizziness
  • Losing control and fainting
  • Lightheadedness

How Can You Treat the Fear of Being Yelled At Phobia?

When this fear of being yelled at begins to interfere with your ability to function normally or enjoy everyday life, you must consult a medical expert, such as a therapist, who will help you. However, while the therapist does their job, it is equally important for you to make an effort as well to speed up the process.

What Are Some Methods of Self-Help?

Communicate

Seek out trusted family members or friends who offer love and support. It may be helpful to discuss your problems with them. Having your feelings heard and being able to vent frustration or pain makes it easier to get through it.

An open conversation with your loved ones may help you deal with your problem more effectively. They may even be able to help you on your journey.

Relaxation Techniques

Try relaxation techniques like meditation and progressive muscle relaxation to calm your senses. These will help your body and mind remain calm during such situations when someone is yelling at you. It can help lower the restlessness and uneasiness you experience.

Other Practical Tips

  • Stay calm, and do not yell back.
  • Spend some time alone.
  • If someone is yelling at you because you did something wrong, accept it and see how you can fix the wrong.
  • Listen to relaxing music.
  • Exercise to take your mind off the yelling.
  • Work on your communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal, to reduce instances of misunderstanding or miscommunication.

If this is a family member you’re dealing with, when things have cooled off, you could explain to them that it’s hard for you to deal with the yelling. See if there is a different way that you could both communicate if a similar situation arises in the future.

Professional Treatment for the Fear of Being Yelled At

The good news is that the fear of being yelled at is a treatable anxiety disorder. Therapy by a mental health professional is readily available. Your psychotherapist may even prescribe you medications along with psychotherapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

The emphasis of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is on changing the negative thoughts that contribute to the anxiety associated with the phobia. CBT focuses on changing thought patterns and employs a variety of strategies, such as making someone aware of mental distortions, journaling, and using relaxation techniques. All these are attempts to change people’s perceptions of fear.

Exposure Therapy

During exposure therapy, an individual confronts their fears and anxieties in a safe and controlled environment under the supervision of a therapist. This exposure can take place in both fictitious and real-life scenarios. This method of treatment reduces feelings of fear and anxiety by gradually introducing triggers that would normally escalate a phobic episode.

Final Thoughts

Phobias are treatable and able to be reduced to the point where they become ineffective. However, this is only possible if you take the initiative to seek help. In many cases, escaping and avoiding might seem like the easy way out, but it is far from true.

Your fear of being yelled at can be managed. How long can you go without speaking to or confronting your seniors? How long can you suffer through instances of yelling at work or at home? There are ways to overcome this fear.

With the right amount of self-help and professional therapy, you’ll soon be able to confront your fears and regain control of your life.

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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