Are you afraid of expressing your feelings? Are you worried every morning that you might miss the office bus even though you haven’t missed it even once, atleast in the past year. Are you in discomfort with your job that you might not get the expected recognition even though you know your importance in the organisation and critical jobs are assigned to you? If so then it could be a case of atychiphobia or the fear of failure. Phobia is an intense fear of something that, in reality, poses little or no actual danger. We can develop phobias of virtually anything. Most phobias develop in childhood, yet adults can also develop it later in life.
During childhood we could express our feelings freely. We cried when hungry. We smiled when happy. We yelled when we were frustrated. We didn’t muffle a cry because it might upset people around us. We didn’t filter a smile because it might make us appear vulnerable and result in being hurt. We didn’t hide our frustration to avoid embarrassment. Somewhere as we moved into adulthood, we became afraid of our feelings, stopped freely expressing our true self, began hiding, shielding, questioning, analysing.
While this may seem great because no one saw you suffering or disappointed, when you didn’t pass that professional examination or you failed to get due promotion at your workplace, the unexpressed feelings start manifesting in other ways.
Even famous personalities were not immune to phobia. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States had an intense personal fear of fire. Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire, had a phobia of dogs. Adolf Hitler had a phobia of visiting the dentist. In a book titled Dentist Of The Devil, author Menevse Deprem-Hennen writes: “It was clear that he was extremely proud of his role as dentist to Hitler.” The book states that he once insisted that a simple root canal be spread over eight days, claiming to be unable to handle the pain.
Despite realising the irrationality of the fear; we fail to control our feelings. When exposed to the fear, the terror is overwhelming and intense. If you have claustrophobia, for example, you might turn down a lucrative job offer if it involves riding the elevator to reach the office. If you have fear of heights; you might drive 34 kilometres extra to avoid a tall bridge. But these fears, frustrations and pains don’t disappear. They hide but begin to spill out in ways that seem strange in the form of anxiety and depression. Sometimes it can cause physical discomfort like back pain, migraines, eating disorders and the signs should not be ignored.
- The reader is chartered accountant, based in Dubai.
