I watched this program on telly last night - Mythbusters to be exact - where they experimented on the fact that the temperature in your feet lowers due to fright or fear, thus the expression "Getting cold feet". All very interesting, but ..... but ...... they did go to the extreme of things in order to get their results and that was to make Torey face his fobia ~ Spiders !!!!! Put a glass box contraption on his head and put goggles on him and then chucked in 25 massive tarantulas with him.
Okay, so I flew of the coutch and was looking for breath, for if there is one true fobia in life it is ARACHNAFOBIA. I wanted to run for that man's part and wanted to rip the thing off his head, but stood frozen .... my logic tells me that there is no way that those spiders can get to me, but the non-logic of the fobia says to me -.... if you get close to the telly those things are going to jump on you.
I have read somewhere that the only true way to overcome your fears are to face them. Then I must be a super coward or call it what you like, for I have been faced with many spiders in my life and each time I go bonkers, my brainwaves become coloured bands before my eyes, my pores open like taps and the sweat pours out me, I get asthmatic sort of breath (TO SOME THAT IS MUSIC, BECAUSE DUE TO THAT I CANNOT SCREAM)....
Right, who of you has a fobia like that and has been confronted or faced with it and has had a cure for it. Who has the same symptoms?? Out with it - I can't be the only sissy on this forum !!!!!!!!
Often what one classifies oneself as being phobic about is more often than not only an anxiety. And there is a gulf between an anxiety and a phobia in terms the cause, reaction and how to overcome either.
Classic story about a certain gentleman in America who went to visit an asylum in the 1970's. During the tour he was taken to the catatonic ward and was stood in front of a man who was a three year wheelchair-bound catatonic after witnessing his wife and children being burned alive. Witness reports at the house fire said he tried but failed to rescue them. A mind-blowing and shattering event by any standards. He slipped into a catatonic state soon after the fire and now had tubes from drips going into his arms feeding him sleep inducing drugs.
The man asked what the drips were for. He was told by the attendant doctors that they were to keep the patient calm.
The man responded by storming off to go find a hammer. He returned and whacked the patient hard on one of his feet! The patient was shocked awake, propelled himself off the wheelchair and punched the first white labcoated person in line of sight.
The medical staff nearly fainted and aked why would the man whack the patient on the foot with a hammer? Why do such a cruel thing?
The man responded, "Surely your job is to waken the man up from his three year state but instead you have cruelly kept him asleep for three years with those drugs. I just solved the patient's problem....you!"
The next patient he treated was at the same institute. They called him back! This time round he got two American footballers to help him carry two telephone poles into the patient's ward dressed up as Roman soldiers. He was dressed as a carpenter. Once in the room he asked the patient to confirm his name. The patient replied," I am Jesus".
The carpenter then nodded to the Roman soldiers who made a theatric effort to lay one pole across the other while the carpenter said to the patient while pulling out a few 12" nails from his sack, "I guess you know that today is Good Friday......"
To which the patient replied, "Yes and my real name is Steven".
Case closed.
Sorry, I had to add that one in just to illustrate the ease at which the man resolves mental issues we think are beyond being treated.
This man's treatment of people with phobias is simple and quick. The way he treats people with anxieties is equally simple and quick and does not involve the use of a hammer and nails!
He uses a few key words after listening to the patient relate his/her problem about their anxieties.
They are most often,"Please, just stop it." And this works. People tend to do just that. They stop fretting about whatever causes the anxiety and are able to go on and resolve the problem that initially caused the state.The brain is a literal organ. It can only carry out yes or no commands. It does not compute gray or mixed up commands. So if you say go, it goes. If you say stop, it will stop. Do not tell you brain to "...maybe stop" because it does not know how to do that.
Phobics require more detailed work to help resolve their problem. A phobic for instance who is scared of lifts (elevators) or escalators will never approach approch the lift or escalator. They immediately use stairs and try to keep as far away from that which causes them to be scared witless.
But what do I know. I can only relate these stories because the man involved taught me a few things. His name is Dr Richard Bandler. Co-founder of NLP.
PS: Arachnophobes typically have their fear/anxieties about spiders resolved within 5 minutes. Do you know how many spiders we eat within our lifetime while we sleep? Oh yes we do. Hundreds. So the next time you wake up with a Namib desert dry mouth that feels and smells like a 10yr old flesh-rotting carcass took a dump in it.......... it was instead a yummy spider at midnight maybe?
Bye
RB
It may be that I may have devoured plenty of the 8 legged crawlies while the moon lit up my room, but willingly set myself into a situation where I can be in contact with them or see them while consiously awake -- no thank you. I am the one 'avoiding the elevator' where it comes to spiders. Have made my mind up that there is nothing to fear, the same harm that these crawlies can do to me, any other critter can also cause ... result of that ~~~ I open my car door and get out while taking a turn off at 25km/h, because a spider ran across the screen on the inside. (Do you understand, I actually put my life in danger to get out of a moving vehicle, while driving it, just to get away from a spider.)
Phobia/anxiety/groundless fear/moerse aansittery ~~ choose wich ever one and apply it to the 'feeling' I have when confronted by a spidy : none of them are darn pleasant, but I am not giving up on myself and will one day get over this silly thing.
Thanks for the very interesting post, Robert - I might apply the waking up technique to some co-workers who seem to be in a catatonic state where it comes to their part in contributing toward team figures!!
There was a very important issue with the catatonic guy - his healers were not healing him. They were wrongfully prolonging the catatonic state and not providing the environment for the patient to be provided proper help to heal.
Nearly jumping out of a moving car to avoid a spinnekop is awesome!
In your mind, project a picture of a spider onto a wall. Now double its size and then double it again. See it? Now reduce it and keep reducing it to the size of a pinhead. And anchor that picture of thesqueeky sounding pinhead sized spider in your mind. That is how you need to see spiders from now on. Miniscule harmless pinhead sized animals that are petrified of you - a giant in their world.
Robert love the story of the hammer .. and yes cruelly so , so many institutions drug their so called irrecoverable patients into oblivion instead of helping them recover ,, .. I will add one ,, the go / stop , no grey or other colours of the mind .. Its an open discussion , I believe the mind is capable depending on the evolvement of processing / dealing with it all .. In my experience of deep meditations etc so much is revealed .. the diffs is the final answer , it is either the yes or the no .. .. the go or stop or the black or the white .. the resolution has to be a definite ... thats the truth of it .... You have discussed the NLP with me before it has its place in the healing of many cases .. then again I know a woman that works by intuition and achieves results that no shrink can ever dream of .. again its a case of theres no "one size fits all "
Quote from: SandyB on July 14, 2011, 08:42:41 PM
.. again its a case of theres no "one size fits all "
Horses for courses. Innit?!
all agreed here ... allgood
Wish those pink elephants would stop stalking me and climbing up walls and crawling across the ceiling..........!
Hit the bottle again ,, they will be washed away ...
Have not been tempted to drink since 9th Feb 2006. I am in awe of myself....!!! :0)
@ Robert - must have been very potent stuff you took to still scare the 'what-si-ma-call-it' out of you!!
That is raw fear, mate - not a fobia or anxiety! quickdop On that one I can have empathy with you - I also fear the feeling of a hangover, but I must admit, I have never been to the point where those elepants turn pink. This far mine have remained grey..... 16_1_231
Dalene you asked if there were any others out there with a phobia, 'Trypanophobia' is the extreme fear of medical procedures involving injections or hypodermic needles. It is occasionally referred to as aichmophobia, belonephobia, or enetophobia, names that are technically incorrect because they simply denote a "fear of pins/needles" and do not refer to the medical aspect of trypanophobia
Trypanophobia is a term that is rarely used among medical professionals. In the United States National Library of Medicine database of medical journal articles, the term "trypanophobia" cannot be found, although the database contains several journal articles referencing needle phobia. The name that is in common usage is simply needle phobia.
Most of that above was nicked (no pun intended) from Wikipidia, when I was very young probable 6 years old we were visiting my grandmother in London's Bethnal Green and I walked in as my grandmother gave herself an insulin injection she was a Diabetic, and the next thing I remember was my father lifting me off the floor, from then on even in the forces having injections were not great occasions for myself, over the years it has diminished.
I get regular blood tests as I take Warfrin, the tests are weekly, (sometimes wish they were very weakly) and I'm OK with them and a trip to the dentist no worries since Oranjemund OK anymore sissy ? or are we the only ones.
Famous people with trypanophobia
Sonny Liston, the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, supposedly had a fear of needles so bad that he refused to go on an exhibition tour of Europe when he first got the title after being told he would need shots.
Conan O'Brien has self-declared a fear of needles (Late Night on October 11, 2005 when offered a flu shot).
Gerard Way, lead singer and front man of the platinum album band My Chemical Romance, said in an interview that he is severely afraid of needles.
Snoop Dogg has stated on his television show Snoop Dogg's Father Hood that he has been afraid of needles since the age of 4.
Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls is terribly afraid of medical needles, and has refused to get stitches for injuries as a result of his phobia.
Jackie Chan, the martial art action movie star who performs all his own stunts, cannot be insured due to the almost certain guarantee of injury during filming as he is terrified of needles.
Kimbo Slice, the street fighter/mixed martial arts athlete, famous for his YouTube videos, has stated that he has a fear of needles on The Ultimate Fighter.
I generally go very pale , cold and see black/ pass out after any procedure with a needle ,, strangely the dentists needle does not do it to me .. ????? maybe the " fear of the needle " is overcome by the prospect of pain if having a tooth drilled without the anaesthetic .. ??
Sandy its Evolutionary basis
According to Dr. James G. Hamilton, author of the pioneering paper on needle phobia, it is likely that the form of needle phobia that is genetic has some basis in given that thousands of years ago humans who meticulously avoided stab wounds and other incidences of pierced flesh would have a greater chance of survival.
The discussion of the evolutionary basis of needle phobia in Dr. Hamilton's review article concerns the vasovagal type of needle phobia, which is a sub-type of blood-injection-injury phobia. This type of needle phobia is uniquely characterized by a two phase vasovagal response. First, there is a brief acceleration of heart rate and blood pressure. This is followed by a rapid plunge in both heart rate and blood pressure, sometimes leading to unconsciousness. The loss of consciousness is sometimes accompanied by convulsions and numerous rapid changes in the levels of many different hormones.
Other medical journal articles have discussed additional aspects of this possible link between vasovagal syncope and evolutionary fitness in blood-injection-injury phobias.
My opinion is that needle phobia or needle anxiety is a learned behaviour likely from when as young kids we were inocculated in groups and took on board the reactions by individuals within the group. I am willing to bet that aside from mainliners, we all still get overly anxious about receiving an injection.
Injections are an invasive process and the perception of resultant pain triggers our rationality to defend the 'attack'. But as the person administering it a benign source (so to speak) we cannot get physical so we mentalise instead. Reactions such as cringing in advance of the needle penetrating our skin causes us to make the mental reaction louder and larger than it needs to be.
Back in 2004 I had to give blood every week for a protracted period. One senior lady at the local community hosptital was so adept at administering the bloodletting that after the third session I failed on future occassions to register her inserting the devise to draw blood. It was over in a jiffy. But one day she was not there and another staffer was covering for her. I reacted negatively to my routine being interrupted and told myself this person would cause me pain. So she did because I'd made up my mind she would!
Now I turn down my imagination's volume before I arrive for the bloodletting! Simples! It works.
Give it a try.
Hoo boy this is getting technical ... per se ,, I according to my doc have the white coat syndrome .. I had a recent medical and all my results for my age are stunning ... cholestrol 4.5 without fasting ,, ie had a mutton curry for lunch and the test 4 hours later ,, my good cholestrol double the norm which means the bad is very low ,, liver , sugar , kidneys all well within limits ,, bone mass 15 % higher than typical.. only prob at time of tests pulse accelerated , BP 140 / 100 ..
When I at work attach myself to one of my colleagues BP machines it registers its more like 115 / 75 .. slightly lower than the " norm " at gym the same scenario even during a moderate workout its not elevated , but yes the docs surgery .. up we go ... I am a wus .... ha ha
No Sandy, I have seen big guys go through some tough experience's and endure situations that ordinary people would say these guys are crazy..................but see them line up for an inoculation!...... bang down they go and maybe its going back to what Bruce wrote the experience when we were young, or the explanation could be as I posted that thousands of years ago humans who meticulously avoided stab wounds and other incidences of pierced flesh would have a greater chance of survival. I know my visits to the pathologist every week is timed to be in the afternoon and that's because I have a rough Idea the nurses will all be back from lunch and I'm the first one in and as its regular you tend to build up a repore with the staff, being in a relaxed state and not tensing yourself helps a great deal.
Now inserting a cannula! that's another matter entirely Doctors and even the anesthetist's are not that good, the nurses are usually the better option, but when in their hands 'Doctors Anesthetist's' you just have to grin and bear it those mentioned should go and practise on oranges for a few weeks before being allowed on a human patient........................ msn emoticon (224)