Sometimes phobic disorders, especially phobias of some animals, seem to have an ancestral origin, more related to biology and survival than to cultural factors. But chiroptophobia or fear of bats belongs to the second group, since it is evident that there is no risk in an encounter with this type of animal. Even so, chiroptophobia needs adequate treatment to overcome this fear and prevent the appearance of others. we tell you everything about the fear of bats in our dictionary of phobias.
What is chiroptophobia?
Chiroptophobia is the fear of bats. It is part of those specific animal phobias that trigger an anxiety response without the need to directly meet the animal. Sometimes a visual stimulus through television or an indirect stimulus, such as when the bat is mentioned in a conversation, is enough for the person suffering from the phobia to begin to feel bad.
We know of other animal phobias such as snakes, rats or spiders. And the fear of bats is also common. You have to think that it is a very particular animal, a mammal but with wings, with movements that can occur by surprise and that are also related to the darkness of the night.
The biggest problem with bats is precisely the impossibility of anticipating their movements, their surprise appearance in the middle of the night because even the person who suffers from chiroptophobia is aware that an encounter with this animal is not a danger to their physical integrity. Bats are not dangerous, nor do they attack, but that is not an obstacle for the phobia to appear.
Chiroptophobia symptoms
As with any phobia, chiroptophobia triggers an anxiety response. The stimulus is the bat, live, recorded or in the imagination, and the response is an increasing discomfort wrapped in terror that begins with nervous agitation, sweating, palpitations, tingling in the extremities and difficulty breathing.
From these symptoms, it is difficult to know if these feelings will stop because the stimulus has disappeared or continue until an anxiety attack or panic attack. It depends on the person and the situation they are in. But how many times can you run into a bat? It also depends, of course. The most important thing is to be aware that one is suffering from a phobic disorder and that one must seek the means to overcome it. It does not matter if at first it does not seem so limiting or does not reduce the quality of life, because a phobic disorder will always increase.
Not all phobias produce the same consequences or the same effects on the quality of life of the person who suffers from them. The frequency of the stimulus determines whether that person has to face her fear every day or not and to what extent her usual functions are reduced. And, as you know, many phobias lead to social isolation because the stimulus is everywhere. Why wait to such an extreme to seek help?
The case of chiroptophobia can be misleading and it is tempting to downplay it and look the other way because you don’t really find a bat every morning when you go to work. But the fear is there. And that affects all areas of life, since you have to constantly fight against the anxiety produced by that dreaded moment of having some kind of contact with the stimulus of the phobia.
Why are we afraid of bats?
When looking for the causes of a phobia we have several factors. Most of the time, the phobic disorder arises from conditioning by a previous traumatic experience. What could have happened to you with a bat? It may not be the animal. You can imagine a child who receives bad news, a death or an accident while watching a documentary about bats. It is enough to associate the animal with distress.
Suffering from an anxiety disorder can also generate phobias without having a specific reason. That is, anxiety leads you to live in fear and insecurity and, in this case, the phobia is of bats as it could be of any other animal or any situation. And neither can we forget the sociocultural factor when it comes to treating phobias.
Bats, as we have said, are peculiar animals. That ancestral fear of what is different that sometimes leads us to phobia and other times to discrimination, can appear from the legends generated around bats. The nocturnal flapping of the animal in the dark is not at all reassuring; it is true, especially if it is accompanied by stories about its blood-based diet that we immediately associate with vampires. It should be noted at this point that of the more than 1000 species of bats, only 3 feed on blood and have no predilection for human blood.
Bats can become quite a nightmare when they surround themselves with superstitions and legends. Aren’t bats one of the symbols of Halloween, the most terrifying night of the year? Some rejection of bats is perfectly normal and functional, but chiroptophobia is a limiting disorder for which help must be sought as soon as possible.
How to overcome chiroptophobia: its treatment
It does not matter that the bat is not a frequent stimulus and that anxiety episodes do not occur regularly. Any phobia is indicative of an anxiety disorder that can aggravate the situation and that also favors the appearance of new phobias, to other animals, to other things, to other situations. Phobias are overcome with professional help regardless of what each person can do on their own to face their fears. For this reason, psychological therapy is essential when treating chiroptophobia. Professionals generally resort to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is also the most widely used to overcome anxiety disorders.
Being a specific phobia, Exposure Therapy can also be used, live or in imagination. Yes, the therapist will see to it that the person who is afraid of bats dares to put himself in the situations he fears the most. It is a gradual and progressive exposure, at first being able to talk about this animal, later verifying that nothing happens to see images of bats and, finally, the direct encounter with this stimulus that will be less and less feared.
All therapies to overcome a phobia take time and are usually accompanied by relaxation techniques, breathing exercises and Mindfulness practice to reduce the component of anxiety associated with all of them. Do not think that these techniques are not part of therapy, because they are actually useful tools that you can use for the rest of your life even if you have already overcome the phobia of bats.