There are many forms of anxiety, and many ways for anxiety to manifest itself.
There’s generalized anxiety, where a person feels anxiety “generally” without necessarily a specific cause or trigger.
There’s panic disorder, where a person experiences intense episodes of severe anxiety coupled with physical symptoms that resemble medical issues.
There’s obsessive compulsive disorder, social anxiety, and more.
Many of these prompt people to seek treatment, especially when they feel severe or overwhelming. But there is one type of anxiety that many people do not treat: phobias.
About Phobias
Phobias are specific, severe fears of an object or situation. For example, a person might have a severe fear of blood/needles, or a severe fear of holes or bumps, or a severe fear of heights.
Phobias are typically fears that a person rarely or infrequently encounters. Someone with a fear of snakes, for example, does not encounter many snakes. As a result, most of the time, this fear isn’t present – it’s not something that is causing much distress in their lives.
Or does it?
It’s easy to understand why someone might not seek help for a phobia:
- They are not thinking about the phobia very often.
- They are still leading relatively normal lives.
- They feel the fear is justified and normal, in a sense.
Most of the time, the feeling is “well, snakes ARE scary, and it doesn’t matter anyway since I don’t see any” and they move on.
But the truth is that phobias can impact our lives in many ways, even if we are not consciously thinking about them.
How Phobias Affect Behavior, Feelings, and More
At a basic level, phobias deserve treatment because any severe anxiety is hard on the mind and body. Some people encounter a spider in their home, for example, and suddenly feel uncomfortable in their home, scared, stay awake all night, etc., all of which are not pleasant or emotionally healthy. Even if those encounters are rare, they are severe enough to be temporarily life altering. That often deserves professional help.
But it’s also important to realize that these issues ARE more significant than they often seem, and that they do impact us even if we do not realize it:
- Phobias do alter our behaviors. A person with a fear of snakes may not go in their yard as often. A person with a fear of flying may not travel. Someone with a fear of holes may find it difficult to help a partner after surgery. These are ways that our fears can impact us often, even when we do not realize it.
- Phobias affect others. Our children pick up on our phobias. Our partners can often feel exasperated by them. They can make us demand people help us in situations where we should be able to help ourselves.
- Phobias beget more phobias and anxieties. Imagine you have a fear of lizards, and you come into contact with a lizard walking home from work. From that moment on, you may experience more anxiety walking home, which in turn may become more anxiety generally.
We are impacted by the phobias that we have, no matter how frequently we encounter them. That is why it is always a good idea to consider treating phobias professionally and taking them seriously, even in situations were they do not feel like they are frequently life altering.
If you struggle with phobias, I’m here to help. My name is Audrey, and I am a specialist in anxiety serving both Arizona and California, with an office in Chandler, near Phoenix. I am happy to talk to you about your phobias and show you how, together, we can help you take more control over your fears.
If you’re ready to learn more, please reach out to me today to get started.