SECRET FEARS?

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11833, 14 January 1933, Page 12

SECRET FEARS?

WHAT IS YOURS?

Everybody has his or her secret fear —or nearly everybody—a fear which is generally so Unreasoning and baseless that its victims scarcely ever confess to it lest they -be laughed at. But their sufferings from it are very real, at times becoming so acute thattjie prey of a secret fear will spend hard-earned guineas on consultations ini order to be cured. A iwell-lcnown author is the victim of a. shrinking from stairs—just, ordinary'stairs which you find in every house. He told the writer that it required quite an effort of will tor him to descend an ordinary flight, and that he could only do it by holding firmly to a handrail as he went down, lit there were no handrail he was o'l; iiged to appeal for the support of somebody’s arm. He knows that his fear is absurd; but be cannot overcome it. Another man is afraid of railway trains. No consideration on earth will induce him to travel by rail; and when he lias to make a journey of any distance ho has to work out an elaborate system which involves Toadcoaches, trams, and buses, fo as to avoid tlio need of entering one of the comfortable compartments provided by the railway companies. Allied with these fears is the nervous dread of finding oneself in a small confined space, which is known to neurologists as “claustrophobia.” This fear can become so overwhelming that it leads sufferens to fling themselves out of windows, which accounts for some mysterious “suicides” and accidents. The opposite of this is agoraphobia, or the fear of open spaces. TJio person afflicted with this ‘phobia is terrified at the idea of crossing a field, or any open space like Trafalgar Square. In towns he avoids the wider streets, and goes out of his way io find the narrowest alleys and passages.

A. well-known painter its a victim of this fear; and when some wellmeaning friends enticed him on to a wide heath intending to show him how ridiculous Ms ’phobia really was, he promptly collapsed and had to he given brandy and taken homo in a closed car.

The claustrophobia victim, on the other hand, revels in largo rooms, and in a small one has the feeling that tho walls are going to fall in and crush him.

Fear of heights is well known, and so common that it can scarcely he classed as a neuropathic condition. Some quite well-balanced people are not free from it; and simply dare not even look out of a high window. Less common is the dread of cats, which afflicts some otherwise sensible people. It has nothing to do with courage, for a well-known sufferer from this peculiar ’phobia was gallant old Lord Roberts, a V.C. The veteran fighter could not bear to he in the same room with poor Pussy. This particular dread is no new one, for Shakespeare alludes to it in one of Ids plays.

A peculiar dread known to neurologists is called folic de doute. This complaint leads a householder who has locked up for the night and retired, to get out of bed and go all round the house again in order to make sure that he really has leit everything secured. The sufferer cannot persuade himself that everything is all right. One business man who suffered from folio de doute would go downstairs several times during the night to see that all fires were out and that there was no danger of a conflagration. Once, or oven twice, was not enough to reassure him.

TJie.se fears take all kinds of odd forms. One man may be afraid of trees; and a sufferer from this form of neurasthenia confessed that ho never went near trees because of the haunting idea that the branches would fall on him. Another patient was afraid of still water, though, curiously enough, running water did not affect him. A. river or brook had no illeffect, hut the neighbourhood of a pond would cause him to shudder violently and break out into a cold perspiration.

All classes of people suffer from these ’phobias—the ploughman and the navvy just ns keenly as the highstrung artist or man of affairs, states “Neurologist’’ in the Johannesburg “Star.” There is no real cure, for the fears are too deeply-seated to ho overcome.

The process known to well-meaning people ns “laughing him (or her) out of it” is not only futile, but needlessly cruel. Ridicule only hurts the sufferer without doing any real. good.