Hello dear readers! Amatophobia is the fear of dust and everything associated with it. And today we will try to figure out why and at what moments it occurs. And also, how you can take control of your phobia, and in general, get rid of it.
What is it like?
This phobia, although not dangerous, incurable, but brings a lot of inconvenience, negatively affecting the quality of human life.
For example, amatophobes try to avoid visiting places where they have not been cleaned. And this means that they do not go to friends, they also have a hard time in public transport. Getting to work, the first thing they do is put things in order on the table, and only then they begin their duties.
Houses often do wet cleaning, that is, more often than required. Often they try to impose their ideas on others, lecturing about the health hazards of dust mites, urging them to breathe through a gauze bandage and walk with a napkin in their hands.
This, of course, happens in slightly neglected cases. With a mild form, such people simply experience anxiety when they see a layer of dust or just think about it.
Symptoms
Individuals with this phobia think that by inhaling dust, they become infected with something dangerous. The clear idea of how it penetrates the respiratory tract and enters the lungs, then spreads throughout the body, especially increases anxiety.
At such moments, they seem to suffocate, as a panic attack occurs. Profuse sweating begins, even if they are in a room where it is very cold.
Hands, voice, chin and legs are shaking. The gaze becomes literally “glassy”, due to the fact that the perception of the surrounding reality narrows. And the only thing that such a person cares about at the moment is how to survive, to be saved.
Control over your body and behavior naturally weakens. Why he can do unpredictable acts, for which he will feel shame in the future.
That will only increase the development of the phobia. Since the person will begin to be haunted by obsessive thoughts that this will happen again, for example, during an important meeting at work.
The look will fall on the cabinet, the shelves of which have not been wiped, and that’s all, from anxiety, he will forget what he wanted to say and get a heart attack amid experiences.
Naturally, such ideas provoke anxiety, and then the only solution seems to be to simply stop leaving the house. And this already leads to the loss of social ties and, in general, to complete degradation. What is it and how to anticipate its appearance, you will learn from this article.
Often, at the moment of panic, a person feels sick, he has pain in the stomach, in the chest, dizziness and even loss of consciousness, vomiting.
And they also make themselves felt, the so-called psychosomatic diseases. That is, those that arose due to psycho-emotional difficulties, and not physiological failures in the body. They are mainly associated with the human respiratory system, for example, chronic bronchitis, asthma.
Causes
As they say, most of our troubles and problems originate from childhood. That is, the child could be frightened when he finds himself in an abandoned or unkempt place. Where all the objects were covered in dust and dirt, which terrified and disgusted.
Situations are different, but they are basically united by one thing — some kind of image remains in the memory, on which a person was fixed at the time of the panic. And in the future it is such a trigger, a trigger for some kind of feeling.
Suppose a dog bit, it was very painful and scary. But the look at this frightening moment fell on dirty wool. And then in the future, each time he encounters something covered with a layer of dust, he will remember this incident, and, of course, the emotions that he experienced then.
It is sometimes enough for impressionable individuals to hear information about how many bacteria in the air surround us, and what negative impact they have on health.
Better yet, watch a program that clearly shows what exactly the dust consists of. And then, seeing in a beam of light how small particles fly in the air, they simply panic.
Amatophobia can also begin to develop in the case when a person had to fight for his life, falling into a sandstorm. When nothing is visible at all, it is difficult to breathe and it is not clear where to move in order to escape. Small grains of sand cut painfully into the skin, and gusts of wind knock down.
Getting into such conditions causes mental trauma, because it threatens the illusions about one’s own omnipotence, the justice of the world structure, and so on. A person understands that he does not control the situation and that it may well become the cause of his death.
Treatment
You should definitely contact a specialist if you notice that amatophobia has begun to bring changes to your life, or rather, restrictions.
Let’s say you leave your apartment less often, afraid to come face to face with the enemy. At home, you do not let go of the wet rag from your hands and start to suffocate when you see a whirlpool of particles in the Stendhal beam.
So, a psychiatrist will prescribe sleeping pills if obsessions have led to insomnia. Also antidepressants and sedatives, if the nervous system is exhausted and life seems to have lost its colors. Flashes of aggression make themselves felt, or vice versa, indifference to what is happening, and so on.
The psychotherapist will provide emotional support, together with him you will be able to understand the true causes of the development of this phobia. And, importantly, how to react differently to stimuli so as not to put your mental and physical health at risk.
Completion
If you are interested in knowing what the irrational fear of horses is called, or why a person screams at the sight of flowers in pots, and in general, what other types of phobias exist, stay with us.
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Take care of yourself, and, of course, be calm and happy!
The material was prepared by a psychologist, Gestalt therapist, Zhuravina Alina