Mastering Fear and Phobias
What is your worst fear? We all have them and most of us, more than one. While some fears are natural, their extreme versions called phobias can be debilitating. Whatever the root cause of either, long-buried trauma or just your normal level of irrational reaction to situations, the response is often beyond our control. In no way should someone else’s fear be trivialized. Luckily, there are techniques for many of the phobias which can alleviate the problem or at least make them more manageable.
I was curious about what scares people the most. While fear of flying, heights and closed spaces are commonly known phobias, did you know that one of the things people dreaded most was going to the dentist. Considering how much time I have spent in a dental chair plus my strong aversion to those foot-long needles used for injecting Novocain—also called Trypanophobia—I was relieved to learn I was not alone.
My mother-in-law, Elsie Lauber, had an extreme fear of thunder. The term for this is Astraphobia which is also quite common. Each time there was a storm, Elsie would yell out to the kids to unplug all the electrical appliances. Then, she would barricade herself in a closet until the thunder and lightening had subsided. Elsie had a good reason to respond in this manner. When she was a child the barn on her family’s property was hit by lightening and burned to the ground. She never outgrew this deep-seeded fear.
My husband Ed was viscerally afraid of snakes, Ophidiophobia. I doubt if he were ever bitten by one but if a snake slithered onto the screen in a movie or television show, he would almost jump out of his skin. He would grab my hand firmly, close his eyes and whisper in a shaky voice, “Tell me when it’s over,” meaning when the snake was no longer visible. Ed’s fear of snakes was so intense that he would even refuse to take his grandchildren to the reptile house at the zoo.
Fear of insects or Entomophobia, is another big one. Dr. Michael Apstein declared, “I’m with Ed on snakes. Also, large spiders. I remember being terrified as I called the front desk at a hotel in Mrauk-U in the western Myanmar countryside to come quickly to kill a black tarantula that appeared to be the size of Rhode Island.” While some insects are poisonous, they are an important link in the food chain so we cannot live without them. But that doesn’t mean we want to sleep with them either!
I have a friend, Joan De Collibus, who has a serous fear of dogs but only within a specific context. Joan is an avid cyclist, you know the type who does a 100-mile ride in one clip. Well, one day on a ride in Central Park she encountered a man with his dog. She noticed the dog was not on a leash, but she reasoned its owner had it under control. Suddenly, the dog darted out onto the roadway right in front of her. To avoid hitting it, Joan swerved her bike, fell on her side and ended up in the hospital for two months. It took her a full year of physical therapy to be able to walk properly. Eventually she tentatively resumed cycling but at a much slower pace. Ironically, Joan designs clothing for dogs and owns a small dog herself.
Speaking of dogs, I was bitten by one many years ago when I first moved to Manhattan. Subsequently, trepidation being near any dog, or Cynophobia, has hounded me my entire adulthood. It is almost impossible to avoid encountering dogs on the sidewalk living in city. During Covid-19 buying dogs from pet stores or adopting them from animal shelters became “the” thing to do. This compounded the problem for me as it increased the number of them on the streets.
Unfortunately, dogs can sense your fear. By exhibiting a panicked countenance, you increase the likelihood of being attacked. So, I’ve learned to pretend to like dogs. When they are cute puppies, it’s considerably easier but rest assured, you will never catch me petting one.
Some fears are specific to a situation. For example, one of my friends has a fear of driving to any of New York City’s airports. While she is an experienced driver, the thought of having to maneuver the traffic on the multi-laned highways, along with the complicated airport on and off ramps, puts the fear of God in her. She told me that to get over her anxiety, she told herself, “If those other morons on the road can do it, so can you.” Then she added a little ashamed, “While I know I am capable of driving to the airport, I still prefer to take a taxi.”
A neighbor, Kate Hanenberg, confided in me that she dreaded public speaking, also known as Glossophobia. This is an example of a social phobia, the most common type of fear. Growing up she was very self-conscious of her lateral lisp which made pronouncing the s and z sounds very hard for her. Kate’s classmates teased her unmercifully. Subsequently, as a child and even later as an adult she always managed to find ways to circumvent speaking before a group.
However, when her father passed away, she had no choice but to go up to the podium at his memorial. She was so terrified that her knees were knocking together. “I always thought that was a figure of speech, but it was real. In fact, the whole time I was speaking it was as if my words had an acoustical accompaniment.”
Kate explained that her father had been out of the public eye for five years due to dementia. Many people didn’t know that was the cause of his death. She felt it was important to communicate this in her speech. She found a poem by Auden, “Musée des Beaux Art,” which expressed how suffering goes on while the rest of us go about our everyday lives unaware of it. After reading the poem which she had carefully rehearsed, Kate looked out at the audience and was suddenly struck by the vast number of her father’s friends in attendance. “I started extemporaneously speaking about how important his friends had been in his life.” In the end, Kate was shocked at how well she did. “I had no idea I would be so good at it. It actually turned out to be fun, “ she exclaimed enthusiastically about her new found talent.
Public speaking is the most prevalent social phobia people have. The sensation of “stage fright” can really do damage to both your self-esteem and career. Luckily, there are ways to cut through this fear such as hiring a coach or by asking a friend or mentor for help. While Kate might not have known this at the time, one of the easiest ways to circumvent the fear of public speaking, is to imagine the whole audience naked.
When I owned a marketing agency, I feared that one day my clients might find out that I didn’t know everything. It turns out I was not alone. This is termed “imposter syndrome,” something 70% of us will experience at some stage during our life. No one knows better than we do what our shortcoming are. The good news is that everyone has them. When I turned 50, the light bulb went off in my head and I started telling clients if I didn’t know something, I knew how to find the answer for them. Accepting who I was, even with my deficiencies and feeling worthy of my success made life so much more enjoyable for me.
Everyone experiences the fear of the unknown as well. We all recognize the natural comfort in staying within our “tribe,” eating the food we are used to, and living our lives in a routine manner. When we venture outside of the known, it can be scary. By not stepping outside of our comfort zone, ultimately, we limit our ability to grow and learn new things. While not easy, nurturing our intellectual mind by trying new things—as opposed to maintaining status quo with our primitive brain—can be a rewarding experience.
Like most people, I have little silly fears too which occupy a far too important place in my life. Many of them are cooking related. Let me give you an example. To this day I will not make any dish which requires fresh yeast as an ingredient. Why? Because the first time I tried using it, my dough refused to rise. It was completely my fault as I had neglected to check the expiration date on the yeast packet. I admit my fear of yeast is totally irrational.
My other stumbling block and fear of failure is making mayonnaise. When I bought my first food processor years ago, I decided to test out the machine with a simple recipe for making mayonnaise. It was unbelievably easy to do and tasted divine as I recall. Based on this initial success, I’ve subsequently tried making it multiple times however, each time with dismal results. Considering all my training in cooking schools, I should be able to master whipping up some olive oil and an egg, wouldn’t you think?
I mentioned this to a friend—a professional cookbook editor—who shared with me a similar fear she had early on in her career. For her it was pasty cream. She told me she eventually conquered her fear of the unknown by reading Julie Child’s detailed explanation on pastry cream technique. When she discovered the consistency was supposed to resemble mayonnaise, something clicked. This was the missing piece of information she needed. Once she understood this, the obstacle for making a perfect pastry cream magically disappeared.
After seeing Dorie Greenspan’s recent NYTimes Magazine article on “Mayo Magic” I decided to give mayonnaise another shot. But this time I built my confidence up by reading as many cookbooks as possible on the proper technique, just as my friend had done. This also included having a plan B in my apron pocket. If the mayonnaise separated, I knew what to do. Julia Child’s detailed instructions never fail!
In my research, I discovered I had been missing one crucial step. I had been adding the olive oil too quickly which didn’t allow the necessary emulsification to take place. This time, I laboriously added the oil drip by drip—the step I’d been overlooking—and finally the mayonnaise came together perfectly.
As ridiculous as it might sound, I was exuberant when the mayonnaise came out velvety smooth and unctuously delicious. I rewarded myself with using it to make Russian eggs for lunch. This is one of my favorite Belgian dishes which you, too, can produce by following this recipe: https://bit.ly/3rj4wfn.
While the most common phobias mentioned here are well known, some of the more specific ones are not. Having a fear of chickens, names, beards, or even clouds may seem absurd but certainly not to the person whose life is impacted by them. There is also a fear of fears. No, that is not a grammatical error. The term for this is phobophobia which is more common than
you might imagine. Take for example, if an individual has a fear of sailing. If they experience a panic attack while sailing, they might also fear later developing a fear of water.
So, you see, this is a complex topic, one certainly outside my area of expertise. The fear of being judged, of losing one’s identity, or losing control are serious ones too, which we didn’t even touch on. However, they are also ones best treated by therapists, not lifestyle bloggers.
What is certain, however, is that most fears are a natural part of life and can be broken down and resolved. Nerves, anxiety, and inaction often hinder our living life to its fullest. Sometimes accepting the fact that we can’t control everything and knowing that everyone is in the same boat of insecurity as we are—no matter how well they might camouflage it—can make the process more manageable.