Last update: 10 November 2017
Most of us have suffered at least once a love disappointment or betrayal by a friend or family member. Following this, it was difficult for us to trust the person in question again. Trust in itself is not an easy task, but if pisantrophobia occurs, it turns into a real chimera.
Trust is not free and it slowly disintegrates when we look for intermediate points: you trust or do not trust. It is the result of months and years of shared relationships and experiences. We know we have to wait a long time to get it, but very little to lose it. But it is also said that hope is the last to die and that time heals (almost) everything.
What is Pisantrophobia?
The person suffering from pisantrophobia tries an irrational fear of establishing an intimate and personal relationship with another individual. Previous traumatic or harmful experiences have marked her to the point that fear overcomes the desire to trust other people.
Those who experience this phobia begin to foresee that everyone, sooner or later, will disappoint or betray them. She becomes an extremely disheartened person, who fears that she may repeat the situation that caused her suffering in the past; for this reason, she does not allow there to be the slightest chance of reliving it.
“Why does it always happen to me?”, “I'll never be happy”, “I'll be alone forever”. These are some of the phrases that these people repeat themselves as a diagnosis of a situation that generates in them a strong impotence: wanting, but not being able. Together with mistrust, therefore, they also experience disillusionment, frustration, sadness, anger, guilt or generalized shame.
Conduits developed by the pisantrophobic
Nobody wants to suffer, but if we lose trust, we lose the essential basis of any interpersonal relationship. The consequences of pisantrophobia are not limited to the affective level alone, but are transferred to the remaining areas of life: work, family, couple or socio-cultural.
His self-suggestions lead the person to carry out antisocial and isolating behaviors that harm all these contexts. Some of these conducts are:
- Avoid carrying out activities that involve intimate interpersonal contact. Introversion is the result of the fear of criticism, of an extreme fear of being judged, rejected or betrayed.
- Do not attend events or meetings in which you have to reunite with strangers and in which you are not sure that you like others.
- Do not take any risk that could be emotionally endangering. The person is very reluctant to commit sentimentally to others. She is afraid of opening up. For this reason, she is often considered a lonely, introverted, reserved and hermetic person.
- Avoid maintaining intimate relationships because of the fear of being disappointed again. You don't want to find another partner for fear of suffering again.
All these repercussions increase in intensity according to the degree of involvement of the pisantrophobic with the other person.
The lack of trust is also personal
Spesso the difficulties in trusting others start from a lack of self-confidence. This lack of trust directly impairs intuition, or the sixth sense, which tells us whether we can trust a person or not.
Pisantrophobic people are not without such intuition, but they do not trust their judgment. On the other hand, people who do not have this phobia know well that intuition is sometimes wrong, but this does not generate in them an extreme panic that convinces them that they cannot do it, therefore they trust their own criterion in the absence of a better one. .
This lack of confidence in one's intuition usually also reduces confidence in other skills, such as defending oneself in the event of aggression. Thinking that you are even more helpless, you will become more and more disheartened. In this way, the circle is closed and the phobia is increasingly limiting.
Building an emotional bond in such a context becomes a very difficult task, on a par with wanting to climb a very high mountain suffering from vertigo. The fear of falling increases with each step until it exceeds, in size and intensity, the desire to move forward. For this reason, many people with pisantrophobia abruptly terminate their relationships: their strengths are not enough to keep climbing, to deepen the relationship and to make the dizziness disappear.
Therapy: the best choice
Trust does not return overnight, neither in oneself nor in others. To overcome pisantrophobia, therefore, it is important to ask for help. The psychologist can help us overcome the event that has hurt us emotionally. By attacking the cause, there is a good chance of solving the problem as well.
- Going through a proper grieving process is vital to being able to trust again. To do this, you need to accept the pain you feel and not run away from your feelings. It is not even worth minimizing the problem or looking the other way.
- It requires time and rest. Emotions need to stabilize, so it's not a good idea to start a new relationship. In addition to being rushed, you are most likely not yet ready to trust and past trauma can resurrect.
- Coping with everyday situations that require trust in others. For example, delegating some chores to the partner that allow us to gradually increase the confidence in him, carry out some activities together or naturalize the disorder.
Trusting others again, as well as being a real challenge, is a vital need. The trust we place in loved ones brings multiple benefits. Among them, happiness and self-confidence increases, conditions that allow us to better deal with problems and reduce stress. Definitely worth a try.
