Phobias are obsessive fears, usually directed at a particular object or phenomenon. In some cases, they make life difficult for people. It is far from always possible to determine the cause of the phobia, and even intensive psychotherapy does not always give a result. What is known about phobias today?
Celebrities "with cockroaches"
Among outstanding personalities, various obsessive fears are an order of magnitude more common than among average inhabitants. Thus, the first president of the United States, George Washington, the German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, and the great Russian writer Nikolai Gogol suffered from taphophobia - the fear of being buried alive. Washington asked his adjutant to bury him no earlier than two days after his death.
Meyerbeer left an order for bells to be tied to his hands and feet after death. In addition, he insisted that his corpse be under guard for four days, and at the end of the appointed time, the veins in his arm and leg were cut open.
The device of a special coffin with a bell in case the deceased comes to life
Gogol, who suffered from epileptic seizures, even seven years before his death, left his friends the following written order: “Do not bury my body until there are clear signs of decomposition. I mention this because even during the illness itself they found moments of vital numbness on me, my heart and pulse stopped beating."
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The famous French post-impressionist painter Paul Cézanne was tormented by haptophobia - a fear of touch. It arose after he was accidentally pushed by a boy rolling along the stair rail. Because of this feature, the artist had a lot of trouble, since new acquaintances could not understand what exactly caused him such anger and irritation, and blamed everything on his bad character.
For example, once a colleague-painter Emile Bernard, who did not know anything about Cezanne's phobia, supported his friend when he stumbled, and was shocked when, instead of gratitude, he broke out in abuse … True, the next day he was told what was the matter …
The great Russian poet Sergei Yesenin was afraid of … policemen! The poet Wolf Ehrlich told how one day the two of them walked past the Summer Garden, at the gate of which was a law enforcement officer. “He suddenly grabs me by the shoulders so that he himself becomes face to sunset, and I see his yellowed eyes full of incomprehensible fear,” Ehrlich described this episode. - He breathes heavily and wheezes: listen, eh! Just not a word to anyone! I'll tell you the truth! I'm afraid of the police. Do you understand? I'm afraid!.."
The inventor of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, feared … ferns! This is called pteridophobia. What was the reason for his fear remained unknown. Perhaps this was due to some kind of stress suffered in childhood.
The famous writer and director Alfred Hitchcock suffered from ovophobia - he was terribly afraid of any oval-shaped objects! It got to the point that he could only eat eggs broken and turned into an omelet, since in their "natural" form they have an oval shape, and the yolk is also an oval …
Ordinary people
But phobias also overtake ordinary people. In 1985, 27-year-old Maria Consuelo Dablos was found dead of starvation in her New York apartment. Money was found in her home - about $ 600. Why didn't she just go and buy herself some food, especially since the store was in the same building as her apartment? Only six years later, psychologist Marcia Blake suggested that the young woman suffered from agoraphobia: apparently, Maria Consuelo chose to die of hunger, but not leave the walls of the apartment.
Experts believe that there is a reason for any phobia. So, Charles Vares first got scared of spiders when he was still a baby. At 16, his soccer teammates jokingly threw a handful of spiders at him. Charlie had a heart attack and was no longer able to play football or even go to school.
Claire Bolt was burned by boiling water as a child. Oddly enough, she was not afraid of hot and red-hot objects, but she was scared to convulses by water, for example, flowing from a shower or a water tap. When she passed the bridge over the river or past the beach, she began to shake … Over the years, the woman's condition worsened, she could not even bring herself to wash the dishes in the sink. With severe symptoms, she had to see a doctor.
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Edible hell
Sometimes people are deathly afraid of the most unexpected things, such as food. For example, Lauren Dodd, a 21-year-old journalism student at Newcastle University (UK), is terrified of ketchup. The girl claims that she cannot even bear the sight of tomato sauces or pasta, although whole tomatoes do not cause any unpleasant emotions in her. As well as other food condiments such as mustard or mayonnaise.
Where she got this phobia, Lauren has no idea. The student claims that looking into a plate of tomato soup is for her the same as "looking into hell." Once, Lauren recalls, a friend accidentally splashed ketchup on her clothes. The girl was hysterical. She threw her soiled blouse into the trash can, and she locked herself in the shower and sobbed for a long time.
33-year-old Anna Bondesson from the Italian city of Bari, in turn, is afraid of … cheese. Moreover, any varieties. One kind of ill-fated product makes her cry. By the way, a woman is a business analyst by profession. Anna claims that in supermarkets she is forced to bypass departments with cheese three miles away, so as not to face "face to face with this yellow stinking hell."
The woman cannot stand even the smell of cheese
- Once my colleague put a Parmesan pie in the microwave to warm it up. After a few seconds, smelling the cheese, I was already panicking, - recalls Bondesson.
Once Anna was visiting her new boyfriend, who obviously did not know about her phobia.
“He walked into the living room with a full plate of cheese and offered it to me,” she says. - I ran out of the room in tears, and we, of course, never saw each other.
Will the operation help?
Recently, British doctors have discovered a new effective method of getting rid of fears - this is the removal of one of the brain regions. The discovery was made completely by accident. A 44-year-old man was taken to hospital with severe seizures. They were caused by an anomaly in the left amygdala - the region of the temporal lobe responsible for emotional responses - caused by a rare condition called sarcoidosis.
It was decided to remove the damaged tonsil. Although the operation was successful, afterwards the patient began to notice some oddities happening to him. So, he began to feel aversion to music, and also … ceased to be afraid of spiders, which he had feared since childhood.
The dislike for music has passed over time, but arachnophobia (as the fear of spiders is scientifically called) has disappeared irrevocably! If earlier this person could not even come close to the arthropod, now he is able to easily touch it and even admitted that he has some sympathy for spiders. True, other phobias have not disappeared, so the man continues to experience discomfort if he has to speak in public.
A group of researchers from the Brighton and Sussex School of Medicine led by Professor Nick Medford became interested in this case. According to Medford, it is still difficult to understand why brain surgery led to the disappearance of a particular phobia, but did not affect the rest … Perhaps, he believes, this is due to the fact that fears are of different types.
According to Medford, during the operation, the removal of the left amygdala led to the disappearance of the nerve connections responsible for the panic reaction, while the zones responsible for the feeling of fear in general remained unaffected … Alas, the patient did not have other pronounced phobias, so the scientists it was not possible to assess whether there were any other changes in this area.
However, the study was the impetus to test the technique of excision of certain areas of the brain in order to treat phobias in other patients.
Meanwhile, one should not think that excision of the left tonsil may be a panacea in getting rid of phobias. The fact is that it is located too deep under the meninges, and surgical intervention is not such an easy thing. There are also more gentle methods, such as influencing blood pressure or stimulating specific areas of the brain in order to erase traumatic memories. All of them give good enough results.
Ida SHAKHOVSKAYA