There is a great controversy surrounding drugs. While on the one hand they alert us to the risk of self-medication, on the other hand there are those who deny any medication, even vaccines. And indeed, drugs are not without their side effects, but in most cases they are absolutely necessary to regain health. Rarely have we discussed in our dictionary of phobias one as dangerous as pharmacophobia or fear of drugs . Do you know what is it about? We talk about its symptoms , its causes and its treatment .
What is pharmacophobia
Pharmacocophobia is the fear of drugs or medications . It does not matter if it is a question of ingesting pills, giving an injection, inhaling some medicine or even applying some cream. Anything medically prescribed and originating from a pharmaceutical company is considered so dangerous that the person with this phobia feels an irrational fear .
The phobia or fear extends to those places where medications are prescribed or where you can buy them. Pharmacies, health centers and hospitals are prohibited places for people with pharmacophobia. And that’s when the avoidance behavior characteristic of phobic disorders appears .
And we wonder, can you live without going to the doctor, without ever going to a hospital or without taking the treatment prescribed to heal an illness or disease? As you can see, if in other phobias we warn of the daily limitations imposed by fear and of the drastic reduction in the quality of life, in pharmacophobia this goes one step further and endangers life itself . The highest risk is death, which can be reached if you refuse to treat a disease medically.
Symptoms of pharmacophobia or fear of medications
The symptoms of pharmacophobia are the same as anxiety . Sweating , feeling of danger , rapid heartbeat , shortness of breath , dizziness , fainting , vomiting, or even a panic attack . The thought of having to take a medication can cause a real emotional overflow.
Because pharmacophobia not only has physical symptoms, it also has psychological symptoms. We are talking about extreme and irrational fear caused by distorted thinking that has become obsessive . If you have pharmacophobia, it is not that you refuse to take drugs because you prefer to die, it is that you think that the drug itself will kill you or leave you with unacceptable consequences.
An anxiety crisis does not come only when you are faced with a box of pills or an injection . It can also happen to you when you feel any and minor discomfort and you think that you would have to go to the doctor to see what it is. Or even when you see someone in your environment take a medicine, when you find it in a drawer around your house or when you see it on television.
Causes of pharmacophobia
And what is the origin of this phobia ? As you know, phobias are characterized by a feeling of excessive and unmotivated fear . And in the case of pharmacophobia, fear is excessive but it is not entirely unmotivated. The fear of taking drugs has a real basis because we all know that a drug cures a certain ailment but its side effects can cause a new one or cause certain consequences.
There is also the theory, increasingly accepted although it may seem like a conspiracy theory, that Big Pharma is playing with our health. That their medicines treat illnesses that they themselves create to continue selling their product And even if this is not the case, the truth is that pharmaceutical companies produce great suspicions in most of the population. What am I really drinking?
One of the most frequent causes of pharmacophobia is found in that common problem that many people suffer when taking a pill. These people have had a really bad time at times and felt like they were suffocating when the pill gets stuck in their throat . It is a more frequent problem than it seems and that, together with a previous anxiety disorder , can cause the phobia to arise.
And like any phobia, in some cases we can go to the traumatic experience to understand its origin. A hospital admission for something serious in childhood, having seen the consequences of the drugs in someone in the family or even a medical error, which there are also, could have generated a huge emotional burden and remained in the form of trauma. From there to developing pharmacophobia only goes a small step.
Treatment of fear of drugs
The first problem we face when treating pharmacophobia is intrinsic to the disorder itself. Phobias are overcome with psychological treatment , of course, but in most cases a pharmacological treatment based on anxiolytics is also necessary to reduce the anxiety component. And in this case, the drugs are the problem.
So you have to start with the psychological treatment that most of the time opts for a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in which distorted thinking about drugs is worked on . In principle, it must be recognized that medications carry a certain risk, but the truth is that they can also save your life. And the risk of side effects, in the case of pharmacophobia, is oversized.
By working on irrational thinking, it is possible to reach that more objective point of view about drugs, but the therapy does not end here. Because now it is necessary to transform that behavior or conduct to which the person has become accustomed, which is the avoidance of all contact with any medication.
Avoiding avoidance is accomplished with Exposure Therapy . And no, the therapist is not going to put a pill in front of you and tell you to take it. Exposure Therapy works if it is done gradually and progressively and you can start by daring to go to a health center or even go into a pharmacy and become familiar with the drugs.
It does not hurt to have an in-depth talk with a professional from medicine or from the pharmacy itself who offers a more positive, albeit realistic, view of medicines, their risks but also their benefits. By now, the person with pharmacophobia already knows perfectly well that they need drugs to maintain their health , the only thing that they still do not dare to take.
As all phobias present with high doses of anxiety, therapy must also be aimed at reducing the emotional burden produced by the medications. And to handle very useful strategies such as breathing exercises , relaxation or Mindfulness , something that in the long term will protect that person from a relapse .
We would like to warn you that pharmacophobia is a serious, life-threatening disorder. So forget about those prejudices when going to the psychologist and avoid being treated by a coach who promises almost miracles or various pseudo-therapies that ensure you overcome the phobia in a short space of time. Put yourself in the hands of a professional because your life is at stake.
You can read more articles similar to Pharmacophobia: the serious fear of drugs or medications , in the Phobias category in Diario Femenino.
