It is clear that all human beings cause some anguish and uncertainty about the end of life, but when this anguish is extreme and irrational it can become a mental disorder. If, for example, you notice a lot of anxiety when attending a funeral or your heartbeat skyrockets when you see on television that there has been a traffic accident with several fatalities, you may. But don’t worry, you don’t have to settle if the fear of death doesn’t let you live. Necrophobia can be overcome; it has a treatment and a solution.
What exactly is necrophobia?
Necrophobia is the fear of death and everything related to it: morgues, skeletons, corpses, cemeteries, tombs, hearses. But beware, just because you are afraid of death does not mean that you suffer from necrophobia. Ingrid Piston defines it very well: “we are all afraid of death, it becomes a phobia when this fear is exacerbated. That’s when you have to deal with it.”
That is, it is logical that you fear losing, for example, a loved one or losing your own life. Human beings do not get along well with the, and death is largely unknown to us. The problem comes when this fear conditions you in your daily life and limits your activities.
How to know then if you suffer from necrophobia? You will notice it because when you come into contact with something related to death you will begin to experience all the symptoms of anxiety: sweating, palpitations, obsessive thoughts, shortness, dizziness… “In two words: you become paralyzed”
And necrophobia is not something that appears overnight. Normally its origin comes from having lived unpleasant experiences in the past regarding death: “having seen live how someone is killed, seeing a dead person or a corpse when you are too small and you are not yet ready for it…”.
The truth is that it is inevitable to have experiences with death since all of us throughout life are going to have to attend a funeral at some point, for example. Therefore, necrophobia is quite limiting. But it can be overcome. And its solution is fundamentally to go to a psychologist.
Advice from a psychologist to overcome the fear of death
If the fear of death is preventing you from developing your life normally, you need to consult a psychologist so that he can indicate the best treatment to follow. For the treatment of phobias, the most used therapies are Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure. Both work so that the patient gradually exposes himself to the feared situation (in this case death) until little by little he stops fearing it. For you to understand it in a practical way, the psychologist will first show you videos or images of corpses, skeletons, or things related to death and when you have learned to control anxiety in those situations, you will be prepared to expose yourself to something greater, for example, attend a burial or funeral in person.
Although these therapies are effective with all phobias, as Ingrid tells us, in the case of necrophobia “the psychologist also works trying to modify or change the beliefs that people have about death as something horrible and terrifying”. This is so because necrophobia can also develop as a result of a fear inherited from parents since we were little. If our parents are afraid of death, it is likely that we are too.
On the other hand, in addition to psychological therapy, to overcome necrophobia you can also rely on different relaxation techniques or start meditating or practicing, an ancient technique through which you can reconnect with the present moment and remove all symptoms of anxiety. That is present in your body.