Cherophobia is the extreme and irrational fear of gaiety or happiness. Those who have this phobia aren’t always sad, but they’re afraid to express happiness and they are afraid to have fun.Cherophobia, like other phobias, may be caused by a past traumatic or negative experience. It may also be caused by an intense fear of disappointment.
A phobia is a strong, persistent fear of situations, objects, activities or persons. The main symptom is an excessive and unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. Other phobia symptoms include shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and an overall feeling of dread. Phobias are the most common form of anxiety disorders.
Do you suffer from Cherophobia? Please share your story. How was it triggered and how does it affect your life?
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9 comments:
im not sure how my cherophobia was triggered but now i constanly run away from any happiness that enters my life like right now i have a wonderful job and a wonderful boyfriend and people who actually want me to be around them and actually like me for me and i dont have to try to please them but i want to move with my mom for a "new start" like i have done with my whole life i run away from happiness is there anything you could tell me to help me out
I don't know if I am cherophobic per se, but I do exhibit tendencies of it. I do tend to 'shun fun' but I love a good laugh (laughing is safe enough, right? lol). If I had to guess I would say a childhood filled with all the wrong kinds of 'fun' being had by the adults around me played a major part-lots of drinking, drug use/abuse, etc. This is what they called 'having fun' and a 'good time' so really I haven't quite embraced what good, clean fun is. Also there IS the lingering fear of disappointment...there is an episode of King of the Hill where Hank is picked to carry the Olympic torch-he deserves it and is honored and takes it very seriously. If I remember correctly his son encourages him to be excited about it-he resists but once he's running with the torch he begins to have fun and be excited! Then he falls and the torch goes out. That scene pretty much sums it up.
I believe I had or might be still have cherophobia. The first time I experienced it was 28 years ago when I was so excited and being really funny with my buddies. Then I got news of the passing of my favorite grandpa. I was shocked and really pained. From then until few months ago when I learned of this condition on "what the fuck facts" through twitter I get really scared when I start being excited. I put stops to moments and even leave scenes in fear of a sad thing following my excitement. Pathetic condition!
But since I know about this problem I went online and got some facts. Today I am convincing myself that it is not true and consciously fight the urge to quit being happy and leave scenes.
Still with me but I keep fighting it. It is an awful condition and can zap your social life and make others feel you are not a fun person
My entire life from the age of 10 has been a consistent cause and effect of good things happening then coming tragic ends. My family would finally get out from under debt, but then my father gets laid off of work, a week before Christmas. So like good parents they put themselves into debt again. And even as a child I knew what was happening, a few months later my parents almost lost the house. This just one example of hundreds of little and big examples. And I think this what triggered it, I have trust issues, I was a loner for the majority of the past 10 years, my closest friends finally brought me out of the depression I fell into but I still feel as if when people are happy around me, I get distance, I go to a party and instancely want to leave. But I am working on being happier, and I believe it is possible.
Well, I'm not entirely sure if I'm cherophobic but whenever things are actually going good suddenly my mind brings up a thousand scenes of things that could go wrong and then I'm back to worrying instead of enjoying the moment. Would really like it to stop!
I been advised by a therapist that I have severe cherophobia since I was 10...
I often run away from my relationships and family the moment that I may feel happy or relaxed, which has made so many chances pass me by. I'll always pick the uncomfortable seat or not eat, or eat to much to avoid pleasing myself. I've become very good at hiding the way I live but not out of choice, my Cherophobia to my family was believed to be martyrdom and more or less bullied me until I stopped. The downside is obviously you live your life in a state of either depression or boredom, but the upside is when someone forces happiness upon you because you so rarely experience joy it's bizarrely amazing...
For example I'll use someone you love smiling at you. The normal feeling would be joy and pleasure. For me It causes great anxiety to the point of fainting, throwing up, seeing bright lights and sweating profusely.
I'll now talk about what caused my Cherophobia (This isn't well structured.) Growing up my Mom had four jobs and my dad wasn't about so I was pretty much raised by my sister. She has autism and her own anxiety of not being loved so from a very young age she knowingly conditioned me to have Cherophobia. She convinced me that being happy would hurt other people worse then death. She did this through bullying, lying about me to family, taking friends I brought over aside and convincing them to hate me
So that was my home life but my school life was pretty much ok during the single digit years. I used to like preforming and on rainy days I would entertain the whole school. I was oddly bright and had my future ahead of me. Until one day the headmistress (Who I recently learnt also suffers from autism) took me aside after making some people laugh at a joke. believing it was inappropriate she spent 5 hours humiliating and fucking me up. To start she took me out into the school hall and told me that a women who used to own the school who I admired but recently died was ashamed of me. She kept at this and put up a picture of her making me stare at it for an hour or two. As students passed me by to their next lesson and tears streamed down my face I lost all their respect. Next on the carnival of weird punishment she kept me after school making me clean the whole carpeted school by picking up tiny specs of dirt individually for hours. All while telling me I would now not get into any high school and that my future is now over. Then it gets dark and I haven't dealt with what happened next.
But I know why I feel this way and it's not all bad. I'm dipping my toe into the bubbling cauldron of joy and one day my skin will callous enough that I can lay in it. Each toe dip is excruciating and I can feel it getting worse as time goes on but I think it'll work out in the long haul. (I think my toe is a metaphor for my finger or something)
Your comments makes me tough. I also fight with it. Thank you.
I dont know if i suffer from this im strong in my professional life. Things are under control there but personal life is a mess. I cannot commit. I cannot trust because of my experiences i chose to stay away rather than getting involved because im always sure its going to end badly. Im afraid
i am not diagnosed with cherophobia but i do seem to have many of the symptoms described.
when i was around 8 years old my family went on a trip to disneyworld. if you've never been there it's basically 5 disneylands. we were set for a week and a half vacation there. on the second day i recall saying out loud "this is one of those days that makes you feel alive".
the very next morning we received a phone call that my grandmother had died. i had been very close to her. my mother was devastated and we had to call the whole trip off.
i feel like i blamed myself for the completely ludicrous reason that i had simply "called the thunder down" and that expressing my joy had somehow triggered the event.
decade or so later i moved out of my home and attempted to start a life in a different state with my girlfriend of 4 years.
everyone doted on us. her family loved me and i felt that i had a truly wonderful relationship with my best friend.
one evening she came out of the closet to me. she said she was not heterosexual and had internalized her sexual identity through fear of her oppressive family and an abusive childhood.
i was devastated, felt cosmically rejected, suffered mutiple nervous breakdowns and am back in my hometown only now with a distinct lack of any desire to trust, love, or allow myself to be happy for fear that it may come back on me in similar fashions.
when faced with the idea of potential success i retract, not because i don't believe i can do it but because i fear it and the potential failure waiting.
my friends are all acquaintances, with potential girlfriends i'm fond but not in love, and what really scares me is just how comfortable i am with that.
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