Do you like the color purple? It may be that you are a person in love with purple, violet or purple that you usually dress in that color, that your accessories always have a violet touch or that purple is the protagonist of your home decoration. Or maybe you can’t see this color even in paint and it’s not that you don’t like it; it’s that it causes you fear and anguish. It is then when you can consider that perhaps you suffer from porphyrophobia or fear of the color purple that we talk about in ours.
What is porphyrophobia?
Porphyrophobia is the fear of the color purple, violet, or purple. In this case, one of the colors preferred by many people becomes the stimulus for a phobia. It is true that it is not a very frequent disorder, but we have already seen in our dictionary of phobias other cases of chromatophobia in the case of people who fear or green.
The fact that porphyrophobia is not very frequent does not mean that we do not have to deal with it, since it is a very limiting phobia. This avoidance reaction that occurs in any phobic disorder is difficult to carry out in the case of fear of purple. How do you avoid that person wearing a purple coat on the subway? What if your office has the walls painted purple?
Symptoms of porphyrophobia
When the stimulus of the phobia cannot be avoided, all the symptoms of anxiety appear, those that we already know very well and that begin with a feeling that something is going to go wrong, very wrong. Then it goes to nervousness by beginning to feel a series of physical reactions that go from dizziness to panic through palpitations.
In the end it is inevitable to feel different from others. Why can’t I see the color purple? Why do I consider it a danger color? What can happen to me if I see the color purple? The lack of answers does not prevent the person from suffering self and ending up with a self-imposed social isolation so as not to have to find themselves in the situation that causes fear.
Causes of porphyrophobia
In most cases, porphyrophobia, like xanthophobia and other disorders belonging to chromatophobia, end up causing agoraphobia. The outside world is full of colors, including purple, which the person with porphyrophobia considers so dangerous. It will be better to stay at home and not expose yourself to danger.
And what has happened for a person to consider that a color can do him any harm? In most cases it is a previous anxiety disorder that has generated the most diverse phobias. And many other times what has developed the phobia is a traumatic experience in which the color purple has been related to an episode of great emotional charge.
Porphyrophobia treatment
All phobias can be overcome, but don’t try to overcome your phobia on your own. Psychological help is essential both to overcome porphyrophobia and to prevent the appearance of new disorders in the future, so put you in the hands of professionals.
Therapy is the most effective when it comes to treating any phobia, since it works from that initial distorted thought that considers color to be a danger. From there, the avoidance behavior and the fear itself can be modified.
In color phobias, gradual exposure therapy is also very useful, always guided by a professional. First you imagine the color purple and visualize situations in which nothing bad happens to you, it is just a color. And then, little by little, you are putting yourself in real situations in which you find that color.