What for some may be a unique, special and magical moment for others may be unforgettable on the contrary, because it is a nightmare. The world of phobias thus surprises us with this fear of the stars or siderophobia , a rare disorder that generates a lot of misunderstanding. How can you be afraid of the stars? And this misunderstanding, as with emotional disorders, causes many more complications in the person suffering from the phobia. We tell you in our dictionary of phobias what siderophobia is ( its causes, its symptoms and its treatment ).
What is siderophobia
Siderophobia is the fear of the stars . So, as you read. You look up at the sky on a clear night and what may be a magical experience for you can be a terrifying episode for someone else. The stars that illuminate the dark night, the stars that represent our loved ones who are gone or the stars that make us dream of other worlds more wonderful than ours.
Those same stars that some of us contemplate with emotion, that fill us with energy and illusion, for others are the source of an irrational and excessive fear . Because the immensity of the sky is also excessive, and the same happens with the depth of the night. And what about that shining brilliance of the stars? It is also excessive, like the fear that siderophobia produces.
Siderophobia is a more specific form of astrophobia , a disorder that encompasses all celestial bodies. And it is also related to other fears such as the darkness itself or scotophobia, the fear of the night or nyctophobia or the fear of the moon or selenophobia . As you can see, a whole repertoire of fears and fears of everything that is related to the cosmos or the sky .
Symptoms of siderophobia or fear of the stars
Siderophobia presents the symptoms of anxiety . Nervousness, excessive sweating, dizziness, palpitations, shortness of breath or numbness of the limbs , among others. And above all, there is that feeling of danger before the stars that make the physical symptoms remain a mere anecdote compared to the psychological symptoms .
Because the person who suffers from siderophobia is aware that they have an irrational and excessive fear. In addition, you have the feeling of missing something that most people consider wonderful, which causes your self-esteem to drop to the bottom of the earth because you do not feel capable of enjoying yourself like others.
Not to mention the limitations imposed by this phobia that considerably reduce the quality of life. A person with siderophobia will avoid being in the street at night , better at home because the starry sky cannot be seen from the living room. Nor is it very common that you are invited to spend a night in the country for the sole purpose of stargazing, but it is an invitation that these people would reject.
Not only direct gazing at the stars can trigger the symptoms of siderophobia and lead to a panic attack . It can also happen when they see a postcard or night photograph, a picture on television, or the simple thought of the night sky covered with stars .
Why are you afraid of the stars
At this point it is normal to wonder why a person can be afraid of the stars. Are the stars so dangerous? Well, the truth is that celestial bodies and phenomena are surrounded by mystery and are still quite unknown to us. And the fear of the unknown we do not know if it is something rational, but of course it is very frequent.
Not everyone knows exactly what a star is , so for most they are something abstract . In reality, stars are luminous spheres of hydrogen turned into helium that are held in the cosmos by gravity and are not dangerous at all. But there is a tendency to think that something so luminous could explode at some point and destroy everything .
It has never happened and we do not know if this can happen or not, but the idea is there in the collective unconscious . To this we add its unknown character , the immensity of the cosmos itself and the lack of control we have over that space. We remember that the excessive need to have everything under control is one of the main causes of anxiety disorders.
As with any other phobia, conditioning by traumatic experience is not ruled out as a cause of siderophobia. Surely no one has been misfortune by a star, but simple association is enough. If in the past they gave you terrible news, for example, on one of those clear summer nights and what you remember most about that day is the starry sky, that is reason enough to develop this phobia over time.
Treatment of siderophobia
People with phobic disorders do not have to resign themselves to living with the limitations imposed by their fear. You can beat a phobia , but with the help of a professional . So it is time to lose the fear of going to the psychologist and also invest in mental health, which, after all, is what will determine our quality of life. And how is siderophobia overcome?
The most common treatment for phobias is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy . This therapy works first with those associations that create catastrophic thoughts about the stimulus , in this case the stars. Thought can be modified to discard those that are intrusive, obsessive, recurring, and also useless and exchange them for more helpful and anxiety-free thoughts.
Once thinking is transformed and the stars are no longer seen as dangerous, it is easier to change avoidance behavior . If you do not perceive any threat in the stars, you will not need to avoid them, but the behavior also changes gradually. After all, changing habits takes time.
To help Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Exposure Therapy is also used . This is a gradual process of approaching the stimulus that produces the phobia , first observing images of a starry sky to verify that anxiety symptoms are not triggered and later facing the night sky face to face.
It is also advisable to consult with experts who can offer an objective view about celestial phenomena. Often when misunderstanding disappears, fear disappears because the stimulus is no longer something unknown and mysterious. And since phobias always present with a high degree of anxiety, it never hurts to insist on the practice of conscious breathing exercises or relaxation techniques .
When it comes to listing the resources that a psychological therapy provides against phobias, Mindfulness deserves a special mention . We are talking about a simpler meditation exercise than you might imagine, which consists solely of becoming aware of the here and now, of the present moment. And we can assure you that regular practice of something so simple will become your best investment to overcome phobias and anxiety.