We and all that surrounds us cannot exist without sunlight. It is important for us just like water and air, the entire ecosystem of our planet depends on the influence of the Sun. But there are people who will give a lot, if only the sun was not at all - it is Heliophobes.
What it is?
Heliophobia is called Pathological fear of sunlight, sun rays . It is noteworthy that no living being, except for a person, is not peculiar. There are night animals that have adapted to the dark and spend all their lives in it, but it is not connected with fear.
Heliophobia is a psyche disorder, a disease that is assigned to modern psychiatric classification to phobic disorders (code F-40 in ICD-10). This type of pathological fear is not as often as the fear of dark (naphobia), however, by various data of sunlight is afraid of about 0.7-1% of the planet inhabitants.
A feature of this phobia is that it is not attached to the natural manifestations of the instinct of self-preservation.
If a person is afraid of depth, darkness, height is hypertrophied "work" of this instinct, which is called upon to save a person from extinction. The sunlight is necessary for the body and fear of it cannot be explained by the manifestation of instinct of self-preservation and survival.
Do not confuse Heliophobes with people who suffer from a pigment kservoch. This is a rather rare dermatological disease associated with the development of heavy solar burns, even with a short impact of ultraviolet rays. Such people fear the Sun are quite reasonable, their fear is rational. Heliophobes are nothing like that, their skin does not differ from the skin of the rest of people in their properties, they do not threaten them, they will be in the sun, and therefore their fear is irrational, unjustified.
Quite often, Heliophobia is associated with the presence of other fears.
For example, in patients Hypochondria (an obsessive state of searching for sickness) may develop fear of sunlight due to the delusional belief that the person has prerequisites for the formation of melanoma or other malignant diseases. With some forms Sociophobia People avoid brightly illuminated by the Sun places due to what it seems to them that it is in such places that everyone looks at them, consider them.
When carchaticallyopobia (fear of oncological ailments) Heliophobia is formed at first as a concomitant symptom But over time is transformed into an independent, full-fledged mental illness. The fear of sunlight is often developing on the background of the launched Agorafobia (fear of open spaces). But the pathological fear of the solar rays may well be a separate disorder, and then the diligent avoidance of the Sun is the only "strangeness" in the behavior of a person.
The fear of open sunlight is associated with a number of other phobias and against the background of obsessive thoughts and action syndrome, the actor and film director Woody Allen suffers.
History has kept data pointing to a similar mental illness among the famous writer Onebor de Balzac. He was afraid of daylight, the sun did not give him calmly think, work, live and feel happy. Brilliant French writer all his works wrote at night. With the dawn, he drank sleeping pills and went to bed, tightly closing the shutters in the house, at sunset he got up, drank strong coffee and sat down for literary work. It is his phrase that belongs: "If necessary, the night can last infinitely."
Because of his phobia, Balzac suffered from morphine addiction, since Morphine took as a sleeping pill.
In 2011, a resident of Houston Lyle Bensley was detained in the United States, who at his young years he had imagined himself a vampire, to which there is no little 500 years. He went out to the street at night, and during the day it was closed in the Dark Chulana and slept. He is terribly, he was afraid to hysterics that the rays of the sun burn him. They detained a young man with a delusional disorder and mania of greatness only after he sacred a woman, deciding that it was time to give his vampire essence full freedom.
The main symptoms and their diagnostics
In general, Heliophobe is an ordinary person, his intellect is not disturbed, mental abilities are normal. The only symptom is a diligent avoidance of situations that can cause an attack of fear.
If Heliophobia, a person exposed to her - the only disorder, then a person understands that his fear is not justified that there is nothing to fear. He may agree with such arguments, but when in the sun, he ceases to control his emotions and may lose control over his own behavior. The brightness of symptoms with such fear can be different - from the state of anxiety to the panic attack.
It should be noted that for people subject to phobiam as a whole, the opinion of others is very important.
Therefore, Heliophoba is confident that his "fad" can be convicted of others, perceived with them with the negative. He is afraid that the attack of panic can happen in public. As a result, Heliophobes choose an avoiding type of behavior - they try to exclude any situations from their lives in which they can experience panic. In practice, this means the following: It is necessary to exclude staying in the sun.
With a minor phobic disorder, when a person is afraid that the rays of the sun will cause him heavy burns or oncological disease, Heliophobe can wear closed clothes, gloves, sunglasses, headdress, trying not to leave open areas . In this form, almost year-round it will leave the house to go to work, study or shop.
Gradually, fear can become stronger and aggravated by sociophobia, and then the person will try to minimize the episodes of the exit to the street at all.
If initially fear is universal, and the patient is afraid of the sun light at all, he can go to the night lifestyle, as Balzac did it - find a job in the night shift, visit only 24-hour shopping and shopping centers, fully close the windows with dark blinds or tight curtains. Light degrees of heliophobia manifest themselves the need to go outside on a sunny day. Mandatory with an umbrella for protection against rays, in excessive use of sunscreen. Heliophoba you will never find on the beach.
What happens if the "dangerous" situation still overtakes a person, it's not so difficult to understand. The brain catches a false hazard signal, a large amount of adrenaline is produced. Pupils are expanding, tremor appear, excitement, anxiety.
Heliophoba cannot focus on anything, ceases to understand what is happening around. Heartbeat is rapidly, breathing becomes frequent, shallow sweat, performs cold sticky sweat.
In severe cases, vomiting occurs, loss of equilibrium, consciousness. If a person remains conscious, he obeys the teams of the deep central part of the brain - the limbic system. This means that it will show the maximum speed, endurance, like an avid athlete-Olympian, to escape and hide from dangerous circumstances as soon as possible. Then, when the level of adrenaline comes to normal, a person himself does not understand why he ran to him, he feels defective, tired, some begin to feel a feeling of shame and guilt.
It is necessary to say that it is not necessary to rebuild such attacks that there are no desire for such fobs, and therefore they are ready to show miracles of invention, just no longer to be in frightening circumstances. Avoiding behavior with a mental disorder is fraught with severe consequences: The sun rays contribute to the production of vitamin D in the body, and the symptoms of hypovitaminosis D. are very quickly manifested in the darkness.
It is an increase in bone fragility, metabolic disruption, heart problems, leather, intestines. A dream is disturbed, the nervous system and the work of the organs of vision suffer.
The night lifestyle does not contribute to the normal generation of melatonin, since this substance is synthesized only while sleep at night. Numerous hormonal disorders in the night lifestyle exacerbate mental problem, anxiety and constant "combat readiness", hazard expectation leads to the development of delusions. Gradually begins to seem that sunlight and actually gives physical pain.
Fear drives a person in a framework that do not give him to live fully - He can't go on vacation, and sometimes learn or work, social contacts become scarce, rare. About creating a family, raising children and speech does not go.
The maximum that a person with heavy heliophobia can afford is to have a cat, he will be happy to make the owner of the company during the night-to-nights.
Psychiatrists are diagnosed with diagnosis and diagnosis. To do this, they use special tests to the level of anxiety, as well as a conversation and examination of the state of the brain through CT or MRI.
Causes of the disease
The exact reasons that can lead to the development of this type of phobia, doctors are unknown, because there is no ultimateness, such as, for example, fear of closed space (claustrophobia) or fear of spiders (arachnophobia). There are assumptions that the disorder is developing as a protective reaction in the formation of incorrect installations.
If in childhood the child burned hard in the sun, got heavy sunburns, which were hurt for a long time, he could have a certain pathological relationship between the sun and pain, danger. Usually such children are very impressionable, melancholic, anxious, they have a rich and painful fantasy.
Cases are described when Heliophobia developed against the background of a thermal impact with hallucinations, which man suffered as a child. After that, the sun can begin to be perceived as something mystical. Sometimes panic fear of its reasons goes into another negative experience, for example, the child experienced a strong shock, fright from an animal attack, but at that moment his attention was concentrated in the sun (it was on a sunny day on the street).
After that, the image of the Sun and the perception of sunlight may be interrelated with a panic.
A person with sluggish schizophrenia or before the debut of the disease can manifest quite pronounced heliophobia. And a delusional disorder begins to precede the fear of the sun with a mass of unscientific and frankly ridiculous justifications (I'm afraid of sunlight, because it can make me black or burn a duck).
Optionally, exactly contact with the Sun causes the development of phobia. Sometimes an impressionable child can form incorrect beliefs when watching a film in which the sun killed either when contemplating the strong devastating consequences of drought, solar burns in others.
Sometimes, parents add their contribution, constantly reminding Panama, that the sun is dangerous, you need to be careful.
The more often the kid hears, the greater the likelihood that he can start to be afraid of sunlight and heat. If there are relatives who fear of the child in the child's family, that is, a high proportion of the likelihood that the similar model of behavior and world carriage will simply take on faith and will use it. It has long been proven that the object of fear of mom or dad causes an unconscious excitement from a child.
Treatment methods
This type of phobia must Requires a professional approach in treatment. It is almost impossible to cope with such fear yourself, and ineptful attempts to do this can lead to aggravation of phobic disorder. And therefore, you need to refer to the psychiatrist.
Typically, treatment takes place in outpatient conditions, only heavy forms require hospital stay. The most effective method is psychotherapy with the mandatory detection of deep children's causes of phobia. Additionally can be assigned Antidepressants With a confirmed fact of increased anxiety and depression.