Halloween and Strange Phobias

A phobia is defined as an unreasonable fear that can cause anxiety and panic.  The word "phobia" comes from the Greek word "phobos" which means fear.  The fear is extremely intense, irrational and interferes with day to day living.  For example, it is reasonable to be afraid of poisonous snakes.  However, when this fear becomes transferred to include all snakes, it is not rational.  There is no reason to fear a garter snake.  Fear of snakes is a common fear but unless it interferes with your day-to-day living, it's not a phobia.

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Phobias are a relatively common type of anxiety disorder.  The symptoms of phobias include shaking or trembling, nausea, dizziness, hyperventilation, excessive sweating and chest pain.  There is a huge variety of types of phobias -- anything from the well known ones such as claustrophobia (fear of small spaces) to the lesser known ones such as porphyrophobia (fear of the color purple).  There are literally hundreds and hundreds of known phobias.

Halloween has become an increasingly popular holiday in recent decades.  Children going door to door in costumes after dark yelling "Trick or Treat" in order to get some candy, grown-ups attending costume parties and teenagers watching scary movies.  It is definitely a time for scaring people.  However, some people are afflicted with phobias that could really get triggered at Halloween.  Here's an interesting list of some uncommon phobias regarding Halloween.

• Triskaidekaphobia - Fear of the number 13
• Wiccaphobia - Fear of witches and witchcraft
• Spectrophobia - Fear of spectres or ghosts 
• Symbolophobia - Fear of symbolism
• Sitophobia or Sitiophobia - Fear of food or eating 
• Sciophobia - Fear of shadows
• Phasmophobia - Fear of ghosts
• Pedophobia - Fear of children
• Hemophobia - Fear of blood
• Demonophobia - Fear of demons
• Coulrophobia- Fear of clowns

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There is even a phobia of Halloween itself - Samhainophobia.  Some of these fears are more common than others but they are all pretty likely to get triggered by Halloween.  Luckily, there are effective treatments for phobias.  One of the most effective treatments is exposure therapy where the patient is exposed slowly to phobic stimulus over a period of time.  For example, they could be shown a picture of a snake until it doesn't trigger the anxiety and then work up to being around an actual snake.  In conjunction with anxiety medications and therapy, phobias can be concurred.

While this list of phobias might sound bizarre or like a "joke", people can be totally caught up in their phobias and really suffer.  One of the more common phobias is agoraphobia which is a fear of being in public places.  This can really damage peoples lives, making it seemingly impossible to even leave the house to get therapy.  Therapy really can help to cure phobias, it's not an affliction that people have to live with.