The phobia you’ve never heard of before.
Many of us have felt love or been in love in our lives. But for people with philophobia, the whole concept of loving someone and being loved back is unbearable.
The feeling of belonging to someone for the rest of their lives is like staring down from a towering skyscraper for people afraid of heights or touching a moving furry spider for people with Arachnophobia.
I once met a girl I had a lot in common with. We finished each other’s sentences and laughed at our own corny jokes together.
Everything was perfect until we fell in love. There was tension in our conversations as we tried our best to conceal the butterflies flying furiously in our tummies. She tried to drop hints, but things spiraled down quickly from there.
I was afraid and my fear made me decide to avoid her at every opportunity.
I chose to shun the person I shared the most laughs with.
I felt repulsed to someone who could’ve been my someone.
It feels terrible to make the best person that's ever walked into your life not share the same path with you.
I let the silence fill the void that I created between us.
I have philophobia and I am ashamed.
“Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That’s the part of the risk. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
― Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
The Origins of Philophobia
The name philophobia comes from the Greek word ‘philia’ (meaning love) and ‘phobia’ (meaning fear).
It is defined as an overwhelming and unreasonable fear of falling in love, beyond just a typical apprehensiveness about it. The phobia is so intense that it interferes with your life.
The origin of the fear of love can be traced back to the relationship that the child has established with his parental figures.
In this scholarly article, the French psychoanalyst Guy Corneau (2004) derived that men, raised in an environment where the mother is always present, while the father is absent and emotionally distant, do not feel closer to women, but are often afraid of them.
This is because these men are trapped in the mother complex. They remain in the first emotional bond that the child developed with his mother during infancy. The child is said to be in a “symbolic marriage” with the mother, having replaced the always-absent father as her spouse.
It is known as the emotional incest of the son.
Maternal overprotectiveness can make the child dependent, passive, and distressed. The child also does not have a model of masculine identity with which to identify and oppose the femininity of the mother.
A long-lasting effect of this is that the son will confuse his female partner with his mother. Thus, he is unable to form meaningful and long-lasting romantic relationships with other women.
Read this to understand more about how phobias develop.
How do you know if you have philophobia?
Symptoms of philophobia include:
- nausea
- difficulty breathing,
- avoidance
- feelings of intense panic
- numbness
- extreme fear
- anxiety
These symptoms can present themselves just by having the mere thought of falling in love.
Treatment Options
Medications
Antidepressants, Benzodiazepines, and Beta-Blockers can help suppress the symptoms that occur when we are facing our fears.
Unfortunately, just like the medications used in other phobias, it does not remove philophobia from our lives.
Psychotherapy
Another form of treatment is CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). This form of treatment causes patients to be repeatedly exposed to their phobias. CBT employs two techniques which are either gradually (systematic desensitization) or rapidly (flooding) exposing patients to their phobias.
They are then taught how to suppress their innate panicky reaction and to control their emotions when facing their biggest fears.
Endnote
Lastly, all of the fears we face are meant to be overcome. Read all you can about the phobias that you have and get the support that you need. It doesn’t always have to be counselors or doctors that help you along this journey as you try to defeat your demons. A few close friends that you trust or a loving family member can also help you as you trudge along this path of overcoming your greatest fear.
References
This Google Scholar article on philophobia by Romina Tavormina (2014)
