Fear of burial and fear of being buried alive - a fairly common phobia, which suffers in one way or another every third inhabitant of the planet. But most people can control their fear and thoughts about a funeral do not cause panic in them, which can not be said about taphophobes.
Description
Taphophobia is not so called accidentally: the ancient Greek word τάφος is translated as “grave”, and φόβος is “fear”. Mental disorder manifests itself the strongest irrational fear of any attributes of a funeral, of the funeral process itself and of everything connected with it. Tafophobe is also often afraid to be buried alive. Do not confuse this phobia with thanatophobia - the fear of biological, physical death.
Often taphophobia also suffers from concomitant phobic disorders, for example, claustrophobia (fear of being in a tight and closed space), as well as necophobia (fear of the dark).
Tafophobes should not be considered cranks. History has known many cases of burial during life, and that is why all funerals are carried out only on the third day after the death of a person. Such a law was introduced in 1772 by the Duke of Mecklenburg in order to avoid the erroneous burial of living people, and the tradition gradually spread to all countries of Europe. The fear of waking up underground and dying in torment from a lack of air in complete darkness can be considered one of the strongest and most ancient.
Nikolay Gogol suffered from taphophobia. This was not his only phobia, but one of the most significant. The poetess Marina Tsvetaeva was also afraid to be buried alive. She wrote about this before her own suicide in a suicide note, and during her life she often raised this topic in conversations with friends, in correspondence, and even in creativity.
Very afraid to be buried alive Alfred Nobel, writer Wilkie Collins. Collins had a panic fear of each going to bed, suggesting that he might fall asleep so soundly that he would be buried erroneously. Therefore, every evening he left a new note for others, in which he asked to make sure that he had really died. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer demanded that he not be buried for at least five days, that there would be no mistake, and therefore, at the funeral of the great man, a sharp cadaverous smell terribly interfered with the many present.
Hannah Bezwick, an ordinary resident of Manchester, also entered the history, who left a will, according to which her body was embalmed and kept unburied for a hundred years. The woman ordered him to be checked regularly for signs of life. As a result, her body became an exhibit at the British Museum of Natural History, and exactly a hundred years later, according to the will of the lady, was buried.
Causes
Taphophobia can be based on a variety of reasons that have had a strong impact on the human psyche. The disease can develop at any age in people of any gender and social status. Death and a funeral, a cemetery and farewell ceremonies - all this is unpleasant, and sometimes painful for those who have lost loved ones, friends, colleagues. But a healthy person does not associate the attributes of death with his own life, which helps him maintain mental health even in very tragic circumstances.
A very impressionable person, suspicious, doubtful, with an unstable nervous system, anxious, prone to depression, who is rich in imagination, can correlate the attributes of death with his own personality, and then a stable platform for the development of taphophobia is formed.
An event that causes an incorrect connection between a funeral, a cemetery, a burial place and a sense of fear, danger, arises as a result of certain events and impressions. Most often at this moment a person is in a state of nervous tension, depression. It may be the death of a close friend. After the tragedy, obsessive thoughts develop about death, moreover about your own, fear of any of its attributes, reminiscent of the inevitable death. Most often, after the loss of a loved one, women begin to suffer from thanatophobia.
In childhood, the likelihood of pathological fear may be affected by attendance at a funeral. (that is why parents are not recommended to take their kids to farewell funeral ceremonies at least until the children turn 16-17 years old). A horror movie can have a huge impact on a child’s psyche (burial alive is a fairly common topic that thrillers directors “mercilessly exploit”), as well as stories and scary stories from parents or peers at night.
Signs
Manifestations of phobia are quite individual and largely depend on the nature of the person, on the degree and prescription of the phobic disorder. But all the taphophobes still have something in common. Largely these people avoid talking about death in any context. If the road home goes past the cemetery, it will be easier for a tafophobe to sell an apartment and move to another area than to force himself to walk past a frightening place that inspires alarm. People suffering from this phobia painfully perceive any information about someone’s death, even if it is a stranger.
Fear of being buried alive and fear of burial may be accompanied by refusal to attend such ceremonies, even if the rules of decency require it (a relative has died). At the physical level, fear is manifested by sleep disturbance. Often, the disorder is accompanied by hypnophobia (a fear of falling asleep, so as not to die in a dream). Such people are often tormented by nightmares, scary dreams.
But with all the rejection of the death of others, taphophobes are very sensitive to their own - they can write and rewrite a will in advance, record video messages addressed to relatives, which they must view after his funeral, letters. They give relatives instructions on the exact burial place, method and related nuances of their funeral (for example, buy only white flowers at the grave or invite an orchestra and perform “Farewell of the Slav” over the tomb).
Gradually taphophobes become real experts in the field of ritual affairs, they know where it is cheaper to order a coffin, where to go for cremation, and also in the know about all the latest news in this industry.
Thoughts that maybe something will go wrong cause a sharp heartbeat, cold sweat, trembling in the extremities, pressure surges, there may be a urge to vomit.
How to get rid of fear?
Without adequate treatment, a person’s condition will worsen; this, alas, is inevitable. Taphophobia tends to progress, so you can not do without qualified medical help. You can contact a psychiatrist or psychotherapist. These specialists will be able to establish the causes of the disorder and prescribe the correct treatment. It is impossible to cope with taphophobia on our own.
The most effective method today is considered psychotherapy. To rid a person of fear, they use hypnosis, NLP methods, and cognitive-behavioral therapyin the framework of which the doctor “devalues” the existing strong emotions regarding the funeral and the prospect of being buried alive, creating new attitudes in which a person begins to regard death as a natural process without mystifying or dramatizing it.
Gradually, a person begins to plunge into those situations that terrified him. For this, the doctor uses the condition hypnotic trance. As the reactions normalize, the doctor can give recommendations to take part in quests, go with diggers in the dungeon, and visit caves with an excursion group.
Among medications, as an adjuvant, it is often recommended antidepressants, sometimes tranquilizers in short courses.
Quite often, experts recommend diversifying the patient’s life - sports, visiting museums, cinemas (exclusively on comedy and life-affirming paintings), reading books, hiking, cross-stitching - everything will fit, if only a person receives a maximum of positive and vivid emotions.
Details on what taphophobia is, you can learn from the video below.
