Why am i afraid of everything

If for a long time you have been wondering "why am I afraid of everything" and until now you have not found an answer that makes you feel calm and even They have probably wanted to diagnose you with some other type of disease with which you really do not feel identified, it is very likely that what you have is treated from a phobia that is not at all common but that nevertheless exists that is called panophobia.

In this Psychology-Online article we are going to answer your question of "Why am I afraid of everything?"and we will analyze in detail what is panophobia, what are the characteristics of people who suffer from it, what are the causes of it and what is the treatment to overcome the fear of everything.

Index

1. Characteristics of a person who is afraid of everything
2. Causes of being afraid of everything
3. What are the consequences of being afraid of everything
4. How to stop being afraid of everything

As you surely know, phobias are intense fears that are directed towards certain situations, animals or objects. People can have a phobia or irrational fear towards interaction with other people which is called social phobia, love such as phobia, closed places, etc.

But when you suffer from panophobia Irrational and intense fear is of everything and not of specific things or situations, so you can fear things, situations, people, animals, etc. at the same time. It is said that the word panophobia It is of Greek origin and it may come from the God Pan who, according to Greek mythology, instilled feelings of panic and fear.

Features of panaphobia

• People who suffer from panophobia or who are afraid of everything they live in constant fear and they may even become afraid of fear.
• It is very easy for people with panophobia to fall into the Social isolation and that they begin to develop other disorders such as depression and anxiety.
• Their self-esteem tends to get lower and lower, they feel Much sadness, guilt and feelings of helplessness appear regularly in the person.
• On the other hand, it is common for them to start having obsessive thoughts and frequent ones about the constant fear they have, which does not allow them to think clearly and concentrate on what they are doing. The discomfort they experience can sometimes be so intense that they may have fear of losing control or they feel like they might go crazy.
• They also appear on the person physical symptoms caused by fear intense and irrational they have. The most common are tremors, excessive sweating, dizziness, abdominal pain, rapid breathing, rapid heart rate, and vomiting.

Another important issue is that they experience constant adrenaline surges due to the alert state in which they remain for all or most of the day. After doing experienced downloads, they come periods of fatigue since the body needs to recover. People who suffer from this type of phobia usually have a very limited and harmful life.

In this other article we will discover the physical and psychological effects of fear.

It is difficult to know what are the exact causes that originate panophobia or fear of everything. However, some of the main ones that have been found are the following:

Having previously developed other phobia

For this type of strange phobia to have originated, the person had to have previously developed other specific phobias. For example, a person may have started out having arachnophobia (fear of spiders), philophobia (fear of love), hematophobia (fear of blood) and in the end has ended up generalizing this fear of the symptoms that he experienced when faced with such situations.

When fear becomes more and more general, the person begins to avoid and / or flee from situations feared, which causes the fear to become more chronic and in this case to produce a panophobia.

Traumatic experiences

Other causes of panophobia may be having had traumatic experiences during childhood or adolescence, so that the person experiences a intense fear of that situation and lives with anguish and fear that it will happen again or even to someone close to them. This situation also causes you to start avoiding situations, people or places and that fear increases.

Genetic heritage

According to some research, it has been found that feelings of fear and anxiety can transmitted through genes as well as personality traits. This makes the person more vulnerable to developing this type of phobia if they are in constant interaction with other types of factors such as environmental ones.

Learned behavior

When you have parents or figures of reference that show fearful behavior in the face of one or more situations, objects, people, animals, etc. the same pattern of behavior is more likely to develop. This is because as children the behavior of parents or reference figures is usually imitated, so in the end they end up being adopted and become part of our behavioral repertoire.

It is evident that suffering from panophobia brings with it several consequences in the person who suffers it. To mention some of them, the following stand out:

• The person ends with isolate yourself from society so as not to arouse fear from him.
• You are unable to achieve his personal goals and objectives.
• The person experiences a lot all the time discomfort not only emotional but also physical.
• You stop having a meaningful life.
• Being afraid of everything prevents the person from being autonomous and independent.
• You live with a Constant tension which can end in triggering another mental or physical disorder.
• In very serious cases delusions, nightmares, visions, among other perception problems can appear.
• It deteriorates every time the self-esteem.

There are different treatments for panophobia. However, choosing between one and the other depends on the specific situation of the person, the professional's orientation and the severity of this condition.

Psychological therapy

One of the therapies that has been shown to be effective in curing this type of phobia is cognitive behavioral therapy. Among the main objectives of this therapy to treat panophobia are to identify with the patient the irrational beliefs that have led him to develop this type of phobia.

Once these types of beliefs are identified, they are analyzed and through cognitive restructuring they are modified by more rational and adaptive ones. After having modified the limiting beliefs, little by little it is achieved that the person goes exposing himself, at first in the imagination and later in real life, to the feared situations with what which the fear is reduced intense that they showed, coming to control their reactions.

Mindfulness or meditation

One of the techniques increasingly used and that has also given good results for the treatment of panophobia is the mindfulness. This is because this technique helps us to focus on the present moment, that is, in what happens moment by moment and to stop judging each of the experiences that we live.

People with panophobia tend to judge all or almost all things, situations, people, animals, etc. as merely negative. With the practice of this technique, the judgment and interpretation of everything that happens to us is eliminated, it promotes the acceptance of the unpleasant as part of the life experience and you learn to let go and stop trying to control everything that you it happens. In this other article we discover you meditation techniques for beginners.

Pharmacotherapy

In the most severe cases, psychological treatment can be combined with pharmacological treatment. This treatment is used more than anything to control symptoms that are highly limiting, however they do not treat the main cause of that condition.

Some of the medications that are often used to treat this type of disorder are: beta blockers, which are responsible for blocking the flow of adrenaline that appears during situations of fear or anxiety. There are also the benzodiazepines that work as a kind of muscle relaxant and antidepressants.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Why am i afraid of everything, we recommend that you enter our category of Emotions.