Fears never cease to amaze us and we have already seen in our dictionary large number of disorders related to the most unexpected stimuli. From the phobia of stars to the fear of adolescents, including the fear of wrinkles. Any social group, object, situation, animal, or even sensation can be a stimulus to trigger terror. On this occasion, we look at the fear of stairs, a disorder known as climacophobia or batmophobia.
What is climacophobia?
Climacophobia is the fear of stairs, going up or down, it doesn’t matter. And it is also known by the name of batmophobia. We can use both names interchangeably to talk about a rare and very surprising phobic disorder. Scared of stairs? It should be noted that this fear occurs before escalators, which may be more understandable, but also before conventional stairs.
This phobia may be related to a certain vertigo or fear, but it goes much further. What it cannot be related to is claustrophobia, since the person with climacophobia will choose to go up or down in the elevator if there is that possibility. It is important to clarify this: this possibility does not always exist and it is necessary to use the dreaded stairs.
It is surprising that a ladder is the stimulus for a phobia, but that’s how fears are. Irrational, uncontrollable and excessive. If not, we would not be talking about a phobic disorder. And it may seem like a minor problem to you, but can you imagine how the life of the person suffering from climacophobia or batmophobia is limited?
Symptoms of climacophobia or fear of stairs
Imagine the situation. On the subway, at work, in a shopping center, visiting a family member… We find stairs everywhere and we hardly even notice. A person with climacophobia does realize it perfectly, because when he sees some stairs he begins to feel all the symptoms of anxiety. She begins to feel nervous, her mouth dries up, she gets dizzy, she has palpitations, she sweats profusely, and she has trouble breathing.
After a while her legs and arms have gone numb and her catastrophic thoughts have reached a point where her mind is completely invaded. There is only fear. And in these circumstances it is not strange for that person to suffer. All for having to go up or down some stairs.
But it’s not just the physical symptoms, because we’ve already talked about thoughts. The key to overcoming this phobia will be found in those distorted thoughts that perceive the stairs as dangerous, but this will be later when they decide to seek help. For now, the next time he finds himself in a situation like this, he will try to avoid it at all costs.
Consequences of climacophobia or batmophobia
It is precisely the avoidance that creates the terrible consequences of this fear of stairs and in general offal. Because avoiding going up the stairs is not viable if you want to have a good quality of life or if you want to have a full and functional life. As you can imagine, it is not possible to avoid steps in our daily lives and trying to do so will only limit all areas of life.
Isolation is the most fearsome consequence of climacophobia. The person who suffers from it will prefer to stay at home rather than find themselves in the situation of having to go up or down a staircase. But before reaching isolation, his phobia of him will have caused him to lose his job, his friends and contact with his family. We are not facing an anecdote, we are facing a serious problem and we wonder about the causes.
Causes of fear of stairs
What can cause a person to have a fear of a ladder? At the base of most phobias is conditioning. Perhaps that way at first you do not see a situation so frightening as to turn it into a traumatic experience, but let’s imagine the different situations.
And we can perfectly imagine a person who as a child fell down some stairs and had to go through hell to recover. Or that he witnessed a fatal accident involving a person falling down the steps. Or, simply, that he relates the stairs as the place where a misfortune was reported to him. If a high degree of anxiety is added to these situations, we have the necessary ingredients to suffer from a phobic disorder.
Nor can we ignore the symbolism of the stairs. States of depression, for example, are conducive to making this type of association. Each step, each rung that you climb is one more step towards well-being, but for some physical reason you cannot do it. Like when you break your leg and can’t walk, let alone climb a ladder. That symbolic ladder of life, of understanding that in order to reach well-being you have to climb infinite steps can become an obsessive thought and transfer it to everyday reality.
Treatment of climacophobia
We do not want to leave a bad taste in the mouth in terms of the suffering caused by phobias, just to record that it is a complex problem that must be addressed from different strategies. According to the final degree project on phobias “there are specialists who consider that anxiety is a biochemical problem and that it should be treated with medication, there are also those who believe that the solution is in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), that is, in working with the psyche of people through talks, conversations, treatment guides, periodic appointments with the patient so that the person can change the negative thoughts that cause anxiety” .
The truth is that at Dario Feminine we think of no one better than a psychologist to successfully address these strategies, guarantee overcoming the phobia and avoid relapses. And yes, most phobias are treated with Cognitive. This therapy consists of two different parts: on the one hand, the distorted thought that associates the stairs with a significant danger is worked on, and on the other, avoidance behavior is worked on. How do you stop being afraid of stairs? Well, first you have to learn to discard useless or harmful thoughts, because our mind is generating thoughts all the time and not all of them are necessary. In fact, most have to be discarded.
Once irrational thought has been ruled out, we must face the stimulus that causes fear. This is achieved through Exposure. Gradually and always in the hands of a professional, the person with climacophobia will get closer to the world of stairs. First in the form of images, to verify that the emotional charge is less intense. And then step by step, step by step, step by step, as it happens with all psychological therapies but in this case literally.
The treatment of phobias includes the usual practice of breathing exercises and relaxation techniques to reduce anxiety. This is useful not only for phobic disorders, but as an investment for the future in mental health care, since they are tools that will accompany us throughout our lives and that we can use in moments of crisis or confusion.
And let us insist on something crucial. It’s important to put your mental health in the hands of a professional. A phobic disorder is an important problem, not an anecdote or an eccentricity, so stay away as much as possible from sellers against emotional problems and gurus of happy life.