The world of phobias covers all aspects of life, from situations to animals, through objects and emotions. In one of the strangest and most complicated phobias that we have encountered, the phobia of some foods also appears. In our dictionary of phobias we talk about turophobia or the fear of cheese.
What is Turophobia?
Turophobia is the fear of cheese. The surprise is that a food can cause panic, because it is normal to experience some rejection of cheese or any other food product. In this case it is not a matter of palate or intolerance, but a phobia and must be treated as such.
Being afraid of cheese, in all its variants and even its smell, is a disorder that can condition your life, especially your social life. Sometimes it can be quite easy to avoid the stimulus that causes the, in this case cheese, when you are in your own home, but what about your social relationships if even the smell of cheese can cause an anxiety attack?
Symptoms of Turophobia
For a person suffering from thurophobia it is unthinkable to eat cheese in any of its varieties. It must be said that many dishes are made with cheese and that since it is not a common phobia, you will not take this detail into account when inviting someone.
But it’s not just eating it. People with thurophobia experience anxiety when they smell it and also when they imagine it. It is common for them to turn down many invitations to go out when they imagine that they can be found around a table that will surely include cheese.
Nausea, dizziness, palpitations, distorted thoughts; a feeling of unreality and panic are some of the most frequent symptoms of thurophobia when the person is exposed to the stimulus. But you also have to take into account the feeling of incapacity that this disproportionate fear leaves for something that for the rest of the world is a real pleasure.
Causes of Turophobia
The two most frequent causes of the development are conditioning and anxiety disorders. The conditioning is produced by having lived a traumatic experience related to the stimulus that causes the phobia, in this case a food such as cheese.
What the anxiety disorder generates is that the spectrum of fears expands if it is not treated in time. Living with anxiety is living in a constant sense of danger and any stimulus can seem dangerous. The fact that it is a food that does not make it less important.
Turophobia treatment
For this reason, this phobia of cheese must be treated as soon as possible, not to be able to eat cheese in the future, but to avoid the development of other emotional disorders that are associated with phobias, to avoid depleting the emotional health of the person who eats it. Suffers and also to avoid the social and psychological consequences of having a fear such as thurophobia.
In this case you have to go to a psychologist who will surely put cognitive into practice. This therapy, which works for all phobias, manages to transform the distorted thought that considers cheese as a danger and in this way behavior can be transformed.