The atazagoraphobia it is the excessive and irrational fear that other people forget their own existence. This does not refer to those who, for example, are dumped on a date or whose plans are canceled.
People with atazagoraphobia sincerely fear that others will ignore them or even forget that they exist. They may also have an extreme fear of abandonment, but it is not the same type of phobia..
This phobia has other characteristics such as the fear of being ignored and the fear of forgetting, and it can occur as a primary thing or as a secondary symptom of another mental disorder..
For example, a person with borderline personality disorder may experience extreme atazagoraphobia about personal relationships and the emotional ties they create with other people. A person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder may also experience feelings of atazagoraphobia..
People with atazagoraphobia tend to also suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder, which suggests that they are etiologically or genetically related.
It is normal that, sometimes, people worry to some extent about whether our loved ones might forget us or abandon us. However, those who suffer from atazagoraphobia are constantly worried that the people they love the most are going to forget them..
These people may also fear that strangers, people they have met superficially on the Internet, and people who are not close to them will forget them. They need to be very well known and remembered by each and every one of the people who have known them..
They strive to get to know each person they have met in life. The fear of being forgotten also flows in the opposite direction: they are afraid of forgetting. This makes the disorder difficult to treat..
Before continuing to delve into this type of phobia, let's explain what exactly a phobia is.
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Phobias are a popularly well-known disorder, but of which there are erroneous beliefs.
Phobias are part of anxiety disorders. They consist of a marked fear (but not irrational, because phobias are typical human fears but exaggerated) of some external stimulus or situation.
The person can be exposed to the feared stimulus, but at a very high cost of anxiety; it can even cause physical problems. In childhood, phobias can be acquired quickly by association of stimuli and in adulthood they are usually linked to traumatic events. There is also a biological predisposition to suffer from this type of disorder, since anxiety has a high genetic influence.
Contrary to what most people think, diagnosing a phobia does not only take into account the intense fear that the person may feel. It is essential that the person feels a lot of discomfort or that fear interferes in the activities they carry out in their day to day for a phobia (and any disorder in general) to be diagnosed.
Someone with a phobia may have difficulty maintaining ties with friends or family. It may also be difficult for you to keep your job. In addition, the person may spend too much time in their day to day avoiding the feared situation and stopping doing activities that other people would do or that he or she did before, such as leaving the house.
Specialists have identified and defined many types of phobias: social phobias, animals, blood or wounds, contracting a disease ...
Symptoms vary from person to person, simply because each person is different and differ in their mental states, fear levels, and other personality characteristics..
However, the symptoms that are generally shared include anxiety when making plans, anxiety when waiting for something or someone, becoming too emotionally attached to people and objects, and constantly reminding others of the plans that have been made or contacting them excessively.
These people show both physical, psychological and behavioral symptoms. Among the behavioral ones, the avoidance of situations or stimuli that can cause the feelings derived from atazagoraphobia (making plans with other people, for example) stands out..
These behaviors can cause problems for other people in the environment as well. People with this phobia constantly do things that can serve as a reminder of their existence to others, such as talking too much with people at work, suddenly contacting former partners or former friends exclusively to check that they continue to remember that it exists ... They can also make up gossip or stories and repeat them many times to get people's attention and remember him or her.
In this way, we see that people who suffer from atazagoraphobia can emit behaviors that are negative for others in order to gain their attention or interest. For example, they may go on a first date with someone and then call a former lover or partner to "let them know about it.".
This action, far from being a malicious act to hurt the other, is only a request for attention and validation. These people simply want to alleviate anxiety symptoms through acceptance and validation of their existence by other people..
They can also suffer a loss of concentration from focusing too much on the fear of being forgotten or ignored. Thus, they may have difficulty completing the tasks that work or studies require of them, suffering a job or academic decline.
Likewise, friendships and romantic relationships can be affected by individual concerns. All this becomes a vicious circle that can end in depression: the person has more and more concerns about the disorder, so they stop doing activities they did before, contact less with their friends, their circle of friends each time includes fewer people and this fuels their fears of abandonment or forgetfulness.
Depression can occur when attempts to get attention continually fail. If the people around you ignore the individual despite all attempts, not having the necessary resources to deal with this situation, depressive symptoms will appear.
Depression is a dangerous condition that requires immediate attention and treatment, as people with depression comorbid with atazagoraphobia have a high probability of committing suicide..
If a person suffering from this disorder sees that their plans have been canceled or that the other person is late or has stood them up, they may have a panic attack.
These crises, also known as panic or anxiety attacks, include symptoms of abrupt and intense onset such as a rise in heart rate, dizziness, shortness of breath, chest pain, hyperventilation, tingling in the extremities ...
As with many other mental disorders, atazagoraphobia can be caused by a number of circumstances. It can have a biological nature, it can be caused by some type of trauma, or have part of both in its origin.
Another relevant aspect in the appearance of this phobia is the absence of an effective parental figure during childhood or the presence of an abusive or violent parental figure.
If the individual, as a child, was abandoned or given up for adoption by their parents, it could lead to this extreme fear of being forgotten. The intense fear of abandonment may have been caused by an abrupt, traumatic, or very embarrassing breakup (for example, having your first boyfriend dumped you in front of the entire institute).
Fear of forgetting can come from having forgotten a crucial event sometime, such as an important job interview or the birthday of a very close family member..
The family member may have punished the individual with anger or a fight, or the person who was going to hire him may not have given him a second chance to do the interview, missing an important job opportunity..
Losing a job or the respect of a family member can hurt a person's psyche enough to cause anxiety and, with it, these types of disorders. However, specialists have not yet found a very clear cause for this phobia.
The presence of other psychological disorders is also related to this one. As we have explained before, atazagoraphobia is comorbidly related to obsessive-compulsive disorder.
To diagnose this disorder, a specialist is required. Currently there are some online instruments that can be used as a guide and can help a specialist to reach a conclusion, but they should not be used as real diagnostic instruments.
The reason is that there may be many other disorders that underlie atazagoraphobia, and they can only be identified through a thorough interview with the individual..
An appropriate diagnosis will take several visits until the specialist determines that the person suffers or not from atazagoraphobia. Then you will implement a treatment plan. The recovery prognosis for this disorder is very good, unlike for many other mental disorders.
Seeking treatment for the person suffering from this disorder is imperative. Psychologists and psychiatrists can help these people in many ways. There are several treatment methods available, many of them with positive statistics.
Specialists can use a wide variety of tactics to treat someone with atazagoraphobia. Medication to help with anxiety symptoms, such as benzodiazepines and serotonin reuptakes, may be prescribed.
Benzodiazepines like Xanax and Klonopin have properties that calm a person's nervous system and relieve worry, and are helpful during panic attacks. They also relieve other symptoms of panic attacks, such as chest pain and breathing difficulties..
Some antidepressants also work in ways that relieve compulsive activities and obsessive thoughts. Medicinal compounds do not treat the disease, but the symptoms, and specialists should use them only in extreme cases of anxiety. It is essential that the person with atazagoraphobia combine drug treatment with therapy.
There are also many types of therapies to treat these people. Exposure therapy is a type of cognitive-behavioral treatment used to treat many anxiety disorders.
The procedure involves gradually exposing the patient to a stressful situation and allowing him to feel the anxiety. The goal is for the person to become desensitized after a period of high exposure.
This treatment is used for many types of phobias; For example, to treat a snake phobia, the patient is first asked to imagine being around a snake. Afterwards, you are shown pictures or models of snakes and eventually you will have contact with a real snake.
Other specialists use hypnotherapy, which involves retrieving details from the subconscious. Hypnosis requires total trust on the part of the patient towards the specialist, to bring him to a subconscious state without fear of harm. Some patients prefer not to be treated with this technique.
Social or group therapy especially helps people with atazagoraphobia, as it allows them to realize that the people around them are not going to forget them and that they are going to be there to support them. Family therapy and couples counseling also serve this purpose..
Lastly, neuro-linguistic programming is a method that uses words and phrases to reshape a person's thoughts. Apart from these named methods, there are many more. A person who is interested in carrying out any of these therapies should consult with a specialist to decide which one is best for them..
There is a good chance that a person with atazagoraphobia will make a full recovery. Building self-esteem and self-confidence of the subject is essential to end the disorder.
Once the person develops a strong sense of self-worth, the fear of someone forgetting it will subside. The person will learn that he does not need to count on others in that way to be happy.
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