You can find it under the name of gerontophobia, gerantophobia or gerascophobia, but in all cases it speaks of the same problem: the fear of aging. Obsessed as we are with staying young forever, the traces that the passage of time leaves on our bodies can create some phobias, such as this gerontophobia. In addition, it not only affects the person who suffers it, but often leads to contempt and contempt for the elderly. We tell you everything about gerontophobia.
What is gerontophobia?
Gerontophobia is the fear of growing old or old age. That also includes fear, rejection and contempt for the elderly, for the elderly. It is the elderly who act as a kind of mirror that reminds people suffering from gerontophobia of the natural process of life.
And the mirror. That mirror that after 30 reveals secrets that you don’t want to reveal to yourself. Wrinkles, gray hair, those spots on the skin that you didn’t have for years, the lack of smoothness, hair loss, the fat that insists on accompanying you on your journey and increasingly resists abandoning you.
Later, the passage of time becomes increasingly difficult to hide. Flexibility is lost, sometimes even your memory fails you, who has seen you and who sees you! The fact that you are now a wiser and more experienced person does not lessen your fear of the inevitable: that walk towards the sunset of life.
Symptoms of gerontophobia
The fear of aging is something natural. I wish we were young forever! So is the fear of dying or the, but when this fear manifests itself in the form of anxiety symptoms, obsessive thoughts or the impossibility of being with an elderly person, it is then that we can speak of a disorder. Phobic.
Avoiding contact with the elderly is just one of the ills of people with gerontophobia, because they not only have problems with the old age of others, but also with their irrepressible maturity. Gerontophobia makes you refuse to admit the passage of time, you continually resort to cosmetic surgeries, you don’t want to mature emotionally either and, ultimately, you stay forever in a youthful stage that has little to do with your reality. It is teeter combined with a phobic disorder.
Causes of gerontophobia
The natural fear of aging does not become a phobia except when it is accompanied by an anxiety. A traumatic experience related to an elderly person that is remembered with a huge emotional charge for the development of this gerontophobia or gerascophobia is not ruled out either.
But the social context is the factor that most influences when suffering from this phobia of old age. Our society pays an obsessive cult to youth and it is increasingly necessary to delay aging. As if getting old was something negative, as if by erasing wrinkles with a scalpel you were not going to turn the same years.
Social impact of gerontophobia
Most phobias mainly affect the person who suffers from them and indirectly those around them. But in the case of gerontophobia, it is a problem with a great social impact that affects the vision we have of the elderly and how we relate to them.
The same thing happens with aporophobia, that irrational fear of poverty that becomes a weapon of social exclusion and rejection. It is not necessary to worship old age (and neither to youth) but it is necessary to accept this process with respect and naturally.
Treatment of gerontophobia
Like any phobia, gerontophobia can be overcome if you seek psychological help. It is not convenient to treat phobias on your own or with charlatans who promise a full and happy life in two sessions.
And if you go toe, they will guarantee you, through the most appropriate therapy, not only to overcome gerontophobia, but also to nourish yourself with the necessary resources so that in the future you do not have to face more phobic disorders.