Pyrophobia is the fear of fire. This type of phobia is not common thus, pyrophobia is a unique type of phobia that can affect a person’s daily life functioning while also causing anxiety disorder or panic attacks. Even if a person knows that the thing will not be dangerous, they face problems while visualizing it. A person having fear of fire feel problems being around the fire or even talking about the fire. This fear had been started years ago when the fire was discovered. Animals afraid of fire cannot be considered as pyrophobia as it is natural in them to be afraid of fire.
Symptoms of Pyrophobia
All type of phobias shares mostly the same type of symptoms. The symptoms of fear of fire can be psychological and physical.
Some of the symptoms are mentioned below:
- Feeling of unreasonable fear when thinking or being around the fire.
- Unable to control fear or feeling even a person knows this fear is irrational
- Difficulty in functioning day to day activities, even in lightning a candle
- Fast breathing or breathlessness
- Feeling like need to go to the bathroom
- Shaking
- Dizziness
- Pain in chest
- Nausea
- Sweating
- Fast heartbeat
Symptoms in children are:
- Being cranky
- Crying
- Showing tantrums
- Refuse to talk
- Hesitating to stand near the fire
Causes
There are very different types of causes of pyrophobia. Phobias can be determined very easily but the cause which is behind the phobia is difficult to find. It can be because of the negative effect of something like a person may have a bad experience around fire such as being caught by fire or had seen someone or something being burned. it can be transformed from genes or learned. It’s most likely that if a person has a specific type of phobia it is from their parent or if some loved ones have an intense fear of fire it is learned by another person. It is proven that most of the children who have fear of fire are indeed inherited from the parents larger in a proportion compare to children whose phobia is not inherited. Some people are more sensitive and emotional, this can be a reason for the phobia.
How This Type of Phobia is Diagnosed?
Pyrophobia is a fear that can resist you to do your day-to-day work, or even insist you avoiding events like bonfires, fireworks, etc. even some people face difficulty in lighting the candle. If the fear of fire is so intense that it is even disturbing your daily home, school, or office life you should consult a doctor. They can work together to overcome your situation. Diagnosis involves many things especially in this type of phobia. First is the chat session, they will ask you about the symptoms you see when around the fire or when you talk about fire. It will be better if you tell your doctor about the medical history of your family too. The doctor can also use a different type of diagnosis method.
Treatment of Pyrophobia
There are a lot of treatments available for phobias mainly there are therapies for the phobia of fire the best therapy or treatment can be considered as exposure therapy. This is the therapy in which the one who is afraid of fire will get exposed to the fire. It will help you to face situations involving fire and also control your feelings and anxiety. After some therapies for the fear of fire, a person starts talking about fire, viewing pictures of fire, being around the fire at a distance. Some therapies are the ones in which the therapists help you in learning strategies to manage the feeling and anxiety. You should tell your symptoms in very detail to your therapists so that they can work on those symptoms. When the therapies will be done your therapist will try to enforce the idea that fire is not the thing that one should be afraid of. Pyrophobia therapies have proven that it works effectively. Medication is not always prescribed as it is seen that medication has a lot of side effects still some of the medicines are there like antidepressant which can be prescribed by the doctor.
Conclusion
People having phobias or any kind of trauma can feel extreme inconvenience, the level of anxiety depends upon how extreme your phobia is. Even when they know that there is nothing to fear about, they still feel anxiety and start panicking whenever they are triggered. While some people view their fear as simple and easy, other people can feel the extreme pain and panic in their life. It can change the whole lifestyle of a person. Talking about treatment therapies are shown to be very effective. If a person feels extreme about the phobia one should definitely talk to a doctor about the treatment options and if medication is needed or therapies can be a good option.
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