What are you afraid of? The world of phobias is sometimes very surprising to us, although it seems almost normal to be afraid of spiders, of flying, of snakes, or we even normalize disorders such as agoraphobia. However, other phobias are more difficult for us to understand. This is the case of xanthophobia or fear of the color yellow, a disorder that we explain to you.
What is xanthophobia?
Xanthophobia is the fear of the color. Thus, as you read, colors can also be the stimulus for a phobic disorder. It may seem that this phobia of yellow is easily solved by avoiding this color, no yellow clothes, no yellow paint in the house or nothing to buy in the super yellow containers.
But it is not that simple. Because away from home, yellow is a color that cannot be avoided. You can’t avoid being in the waiting room in a local painted yellow, you can’t avoid being handed a yellow brochure when you’re walking down the street, you can’t avoid yellow cars, or taxis in some cities. And you can’t avoid the sun either, which is also yellow. Gold the when you take a walk in the park.
Symptoms of xanthophobia
It’s seeing something yellow and starting to feel that something is wrong, uncontrollable nervousness and irrational. Afraid of what? The fear that phobias produce does not have to be of something specific, but rather it is a general sensation, fear that something bad will happen or that it will happen to you. From there, all the symptoms of anxiety begin to develop.
Yes, phobias and anxiety always go hand in hand. That’s why when something scares you, you get dizzy, you have hard time breathing, you have a feeling of unreality, you get even more scared with tachycardia or palpitations, your arms and legs fall asleep, it seems that you have a huge weight on your chest and you may have a panic attack. And all this as a result of a color. But all.
Causes of xanthophobia
The question that we all ask ourselves is how, in this case yellow, can produce a phobic disorder. Like all phobias, the traumatic experience is placed as the main cause. Imagine a child receiving the news of the death of a relative or a terrible accident from a person wearing yellow, for example. Or that at that moment he was coloring a drawing yellow. The emotional charge of that event will be forever linked to that color.
Xanthophobia can be favored by cultural factors, since yellow is considered the color of bad luck and in some cultures it is related to death. The fact that it is a superstition does not detract from its influence, since whenever we talk about phobias we talk about an irrational and excessive fear.
Xanthophobia treatment
Trying to overcome a phobia on your own is not recommended. It is an important and very limiting disorder that requires the help of a professional psychologist. And the most effective therapy for phobias is cognitive behavioral therapy, a method that works on both the distorted thought that creates fear and the avoidance reaction or behavior.
The treatment of xanthophobia is usually accompanied by different support, such as gradual exposure, for example. This is for the person who suffers from the phobia to face the stimulus little by little and verify that the yellow color is not as dangerous as they think.