Have you ever heard a tale about ghosts and suddenly couldn’t sleep? If yes, you are one of the billions who fear ghosts and scary stories.
Fear of ghosts and other supernatural beings has been around for centuries. As a matter of fact, this has always been a common situation in children. This fear comes from stories, folktales, TV shows, films, and experiences.
Children often outgrow this fear as they turn into adolescents; However, some children do not outgrow this it worsens and develop into phasmophobia. Phasmophobia is an irrational and extreme fear of ghosts.
An individual with this condition always experiences an overwhelming fear when the thought of ghosts or supernatural beings, such as vampires, werewolves, witches, etc., comes to mind.
Most times, they may find the fear irrational and unreasonable, but they have no control over it.
However, phasmophobia can be challenging to diagnose because it is typical to experience a little bit of fear when we watch films, hear stories, hear folktales or fairytales, or experience a situation that suggests the presence of a ghost or strikes up an imagination about ghosts.
The difference is we can control the fear, cover it up, or pretend like we are not afraid, but a person with phasmophobia may not be able to control the fear.
Phasmophobia, to certain people, maybe overwhelming that it may interfere the typical day to day activities of the individual.
Possible Causes of Phasmophobia
Experts are not sure about the real causes of phobias, in general, development, specifically phasmophobia.
However, some factors contribute to the development of phasmophobia and there are:
Genetics and Hereditary
Unfortunately, a lot of people have medical conditions and disorders passed down to them by their ancestors in the same way traits are naturally passed down.
Parents with anxiety disorders may pass it on to their offspring, causing them to suffer and develop this condition unexplainably.
Trauma
Trauma is the most common cause of phobias. Phobias may develop from a traumatic experience that had happened in the past but keeps haunting the individual.
An individual with an unpleasant experience about ghosts may develop fear towards ghosts, and this subsequently develops into phasmophobia.
Contributing Phobias
Phobias are often related. Most times, a particular phobia contributes to the development of another phobia.
A good example is an autophobia, which is the fear of being left alone, may lead to the development of phasmophobia.
Also, persons with autophobia who are scared of being left alone, especially at night, may as well have phasmophobia because ghostly impressions are highly related to the dark and being left alone.
People like this feeling that if they are left alone, most notably in the dark, ghosts will attack them.
Currently, experts are not sure phasmophobia develops first and then cause other phobias, or that other phobias result in the development of phasmophobia.
Other related phobias include the following:
- Fear of night (Nyctophobia)
- Fear of darkness (Achluophobia)
- Fear of shadows (Sciophobia)
- Fear of Halloween (Samhainophobia)
- Fear of witches (Wiccaphobia)
- Fear of vampires (sanguivoriphobia) and
- Fear of death (Thanatophobia)
Effects
Just like every medical condition, phasmophobia has severe and adverse effects on an individual’s life, and these effects can be life-limiting.
Persons with phasmophobia often feel the presence of supernatural beings like ghosts around, and they fear what the ghosts may do to them.
They usually feel watched, and any noise or strange situation (for example, flickering lights) makes them dread confronting “the ghosts.”
They might get so scared in such situations, and they manifest some physical characteristics such as insomnia, numbness, dread, etc.
Symptoms of Phasmophobia
Persons with phasmophobia may manifest the following symptoms when they hear, think, or see anything that would strike up images relating to ghosts:
- Panic attacks
- Insomnia
- Difficulty sleeping alone
- Extreme anxiety
- An intense sense of dread
- Fear of going to the bathroom at night
- Fear of the dark
- Fear of being alone
- Avoiding being alone
- Daytime drowsiness (due to lack of sleep)
- Reduced productivity (due to lack of sleep)
It is typically overwhelming and many times interferes with the individual’s way of carrying out their daily tasks.
Persons with phasmophobia may feel that it is up to them to ward off ghosts that may confront them; thus developing certain rituals in the attempt of warding off the ghosts they think or see.
These rituals can become compulsive, hindering you from continuing your typical day-to-day activities, thereby making you develop an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Treatment of Phasmophobia
This condition is a severe ailment; thus, it should be treated once diagnosed.
It is okay to be afraid sometimes, but phobia has unreasonable and extreme fear for a particular object or situation, and this can come in the way of the person’s way of living their healthy lives, manifest unpleasant symptoms, develop into other phobias and probably get complicated and may cause the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Fortunately, treatments that can help relieve the symptoms of phasmophobia and subsequently cure this condition are available and are of two main categories which your doctor may decide to use either or both to help you, and they are:
- Therapy
- Medications
Therapy
This is a psychological disorder; thus, it requires therapy as its treatment. In treating this disorder using therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is highly effective because this therapeutic technique is mostly used in the treatment of other phobias because of its effectiveness.
In this treatment, your therapist cooperatively works with you to help you identify and comprehend the primary source of your fear and professionally teach you specific coping mechanisms to help you cope with the symptoms of phasmophobia.
The coping skills involve the following:
- Breathing exercises: This helps calm you down whenever you are nervous or getting extremely scared and prevents panic attacks and other symptoms.
- Guided visualization: To help you control your thoughts about ghosts, thereby helping to control your fears
- Distractions: Distractions help distract you from ghost thoughts. Music, films, and books that are not strikingly related to ghosts are good sources of distractions. Engaging in other hobbies is another good distraction.
These methods help you learn to manage your fears and control your reactions to an object of fear.
Medications
Medications such as antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs can help relieve you of specific emotional symptoms and the irrational fear you uncontrollably manifest when you encounter anything relating to ghosts.
These medications are nevertheless valid and quick, and they may also help control the physical symptoms of this condition.
We hope that you found this article helpful. Kindly leave a comment below.
References,
- de Oliveira-Souza R. (2018). Phobia of the supernatural: a distinct but poorly recognized specific phobia with an adverse impact on daily living; DOI
