I am a woman of many phobias; geckos, cats, sudden loud noises, etc., but the most irrational of all is a phobia related to eyes.
To be more specific; ever since I was a kid, there has always been a certain scene in movies & TV shows that I just couldn’t stomach; the scene where the camera slowly zooms in on someone’s closed eyes while playing suspense-filled background music, then the eyes would suddenly open. Nothing scares me like that scene. It gives me a panic attack, that could range from mild to moderate, depending on other factors like, for example, whether or not I am alone at that moment. As I grew older, I’ve accustomed myself to always casually look away when that scene showed up, while drawing minimum attention to the fact that I am scared of such scenes. I don’t recall ever sharing this irrational fear with anyone before today.
Being a curious over-thinker, I decided to research that phobia to get to the bottom of it. The closest thing I could find on Google was “Ommetaphobia, the fear of eyes,” which still didn’t explain this irrational fear to me, as I was not afraid of eyes, but of them suddenly opening. I always found it a challenge to maintain eye-contact with others for more than 2-3 seconds at a time, and I always tried to break the eye contact first, as it always gave me a feeling of unease, especially when the other person suddenly looks away before I do. It was a similar but quite understated feeling as that of eyes suddenly opening; which included nausea, shortness of breath, tense muscles, quicker heartbeat and mild shaking, often followed by a headache.
Over the years, I tried to justify why I would be afraid of eyes suddenly opening. Being an uncertified expert at analyzing myself, I did a lot of observations & came to realize that all of my phobias are somehow connected. My phobia of geckos mainly revolves around how they suddenly move, appear & disappear, causing me stress & anxiety. My fear of cats is due to the fact that cats have a lot of sudden movements. They could suddenly climb something, suddenly run, and suddenly scratch or jump on you. My fear of sudden noises, phonophobia, is because of how sudden noises catch me off guard & I get shocked & angry. My not-so-obvious but very-much-existing moderate form of social phobia is due to the fact that social interactions could easily overwhelm me and I wouldn’t be able to predict beforehand what the topic of discussion would be or have enough time or energy to construct a decent answer to any question I get asked. Being a Sudanese girl, the average social interaction, especially when extended family is involved, would of course include a delicious cocktail of misogyny, sexism, political incorrectness, racism and a few others. In a social gathering, I’d feel very uncomfortable without my phone, so I’d always have it in my hand. Also, I have never ever feared the dark, it’s always been the light that scared me.
What all those phobias & a few others shared was, simply, unpredictability. Unpredictable movements that I am not prepared for.
Therefore, after closely observing myself & my reactions to a number of personal fears, I narrowed down all my phobias to one sentence: the fear of being unprepared, which is basically a way of describing anxiety.
So, of course, I researched anxiety, knowing beforehand that it was a disease of a nation, community & generation.
During my research journey, I learned that caffeine makes anxiety worse, as it is mood-altering. Caffeine can be found in many things like tea, coffee & Coca Cola. I unfortunately drink all 3 daily.
Sleeping problems also make it a lot worse, & I am from a generation of insomniacs. Even sleep isn’t what it used to be. You’d sleep while scrolling through your timeline and wakeup to the sound of a notification. With phones always buzzing, social media telling us how to live, social obligations, work & school responsibilities, rarely ever finding the time to sit with ourselves and meditate or just relax, I feel like the members of my generation & I are suffocating inside our own lives. Therefore, suffering from a constant headache, stress and anxiety is not so unexpected.
There are many ways to overcome anxiety, starting from adjusting your lifestyle to getting medication. Also, there are many ways to overcome a phobia, the most effective being gradually & repeatedly exposing yourself to what you are afraid of and riding out the anxiety.
My point is, maybe if I overcome my very rational anxiety I will be able to overcome my irrational phobias!