In day to day life we see people who are afraid of certain things. In this blogpost we will discuss an interesting condition called megalophobia.
Fear is a natural reaction that produces the action of flight. Fear is rational and it makes life possible keeping you away from dangerous things. Imagine if you are not afraid of fire and jump into fire. Sure, you will die or get burn injuries on your body.
Table of Contents
What are phobias?
Phobias are conditions in which a person has excessive and irrational fear of some objects or situation. This irrational fear creates difficulties in day to day life.
Phobia after exposure to a specific object or situation creates anxiety-like conditions in the affected person. So, a person may show anxiety when exposed to a condition he is phobic to.
Megalophobia is a mental disorder, a rare form of phobia.
What is megalophobia?
Megalophobia is a type of phobia in which a person has excessive irrational fear of objects of large size. Any large object even if not generally dangerous may produce anxiety in the affected person.
In megalophobia large objects may appear excessively larger to the affected person. That may create fear.
Some examples that can produce fear in persons with megalophobia are:
- Trains
- Bus
- Ships
- Buildings
- Hills
- Large stone
- Large animals like elephant
- Aeroplane
- Statues
- Towers
- Large machines in factories
- Practically any large object or vehicle that the person sees.
What are the symptoms of megalophobia?
Phobias are disorders of anxiety. Megalophobia is fear of large objects. The symptoms produced in phobia are because of anxiety reactions that appear after exposure to objects or situations. They include:
- Shaking of limbs
- Increased heart rate producing symptoms of palpitation
- Excessive sweating
- Feeling of hot air around air
- Headache
- Restlessness
- Shortness of breath and rapid breathing
- Not able to sleep (Insomnia)
- Dizziness
- Crying
- Panic
- Abdominal pain
- Some people may experience vomiting and loose motions.
What are the consequences of megalophobia?
This condition affects day to day life. Life becomes difficult due to fear in the affected person. The consequences of megalophobia are:
- The person tries to avoid the large objects.
- The person tries to avoid travel by vehicles.
- Affected people may stop mixing with other people and friends.
- The person may lose self confidence because of fear.
- The affected person may try to avoid jobs where he/she comes in contact with large objects and machineries.
How to diagnose this condition?
Diagnosing this condition is a simple task. The person with megalophobia is aware that he is fearful of large objects. He/she has insite of his/her own illness.
Simple history taking and physical examination is needed for the diagnosis of the condition.
How to treat megalophobia?
Megalophobia is a mental illness like anxiety is. It is treatable and any psychiatrist can treat that condition.
For megalophobia treatment strategy is as follows:
Cognitive behavioural therapy
Cognitive behavioural therapy is a self help strategy. Megalophobia being anxiety disorder, this strategy works in this disorder. It is designed to control the way of thinking and behaviour on exposure to certain situations.
CBT helps to control the fear and anxiety in the mind of the person on exposure to large objects that make day to day life easier.
Aims of CBT is making yourself understand how the excessive irrational fear and anxiety is affecting your day to day functions and controlling your emotional response on exposure to large objects.
Along with CBT following strategies help in these conditions are as follows.
Exposure to large objects
Treatment of any phobia is exposing the affected person to the object or situation he has. The phobia gets cured as people learn that fear is irrational and controls the reaction to exposure to large objects.
Systematic desensitization
This method of treatment of megalophobia is more gentle than exposure to large objects. In this method the person with phobia is exposed to successively large objects for a period of time.
Medicines
In this disorder FDA has approved following axiety medicines for the treatment of associated anxiety with Megalophobia.
- Betablockes like propranolol and metaprolol.
- Selective serotonin receptor blockers.
- Selective non-serotonin receptor blockers.
Souces
- Overview – Phobias https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/phobias/overview/
- Samra CK, Abdijadid S. Specific Phobia. [Updated 2021 May 15]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2021 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499923/
- Eaton, W. W., Bienvenu, O. J., & Miloyan, B. (2018). Specific phobias. The lancet. Psychiatry, 5(8), 678–686. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30169-X
- Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012). The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Review of Meta-analyses. Cognitive therapy and research, 36(5), 427–440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-012-9476-1
- Walker, J. R., & Kjernisted, K. D. (2000). Fear: the impact and treatment of social phobia. Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England), 14(2 Suppl 1), S13–S23. https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811000142S103
- Chand SP, Marwaha R. Anxiety. [Updated 2021 May 1]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2021 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470361/