All about heliophobia

We and everything that surrounds us cannot exist without sunlight. It is important to us in the same way as water and air; the entire ecosystem of our planet depends on the influence of the sun. But there are people who will give a lot, if only there was no sun at all - these are heliophobes.

Heliophobia is called pathological fear of sunlight, sun rays... It is noteworthy that no living creature, except for a person, has such fear. There are nocturnal animals that have adapted to the darkness and spend their whole lives in it, but this has nothing to do with fear.

Heliophobia is a mental disorder, a disease that is classified as a phobic disorder by the modern psychiatric classification. (code F-40 in ICD-10). This type of pathological fear is not as common as fear of the dark (nyctophobia), however, according to various sources, about 0.7-1% of the world's inhabitants are afraid of sunlight.

If a person is afraid of depth, darkness, heights - this is an exaggerated "work" of this instinct, which is designed to save a person from extinction. The body needs sunlight and the fear of it cannot be explained by the manifestation of the instinct for self-preservation and survival.

Do not confuse heliophobes with people who suffer from xeroderma pigmentosa. This rather rare dermatological disease is associated with the development of severe sunburn, even with short exposure to ultraviolet rays. Such people fear the sun quite rightly, their fear is rational. Heliophobes do not suffer from anything like that, their skin is no different from the skin of other people in its properties, nothing threatens them if they find themselves in the sun, and therefore their fear is irrational, unjustified.

For example, in patients hypochondria (an obsessive state of seeking diseases in oneself) may develop a fear of the sun's rays in connection with a delusional belief that a person has prerequisites for the formation of melanoma or other malignant diseases. In some forms social phobia people avoid places brightly lit by the sun because it seems to them that it is in such places that everyone is looking at them, examining them.

With carcinophobia (fear of oncological ailments), heliophobia is formed at first as a concomitant symptom, but over time it transforms into an independent, full-fledged mental illness. Fear of sunlight often develops against the background of a neglected agoraphobia (fear of open spaces). But pathological fear of the sun's rays may well be a separate disorder, and then diligent avoidance of the sun is the only "oddity" in human behavior.

History has preserved data indicating a similar mental illness in the famous writer Honoré de Balzac. He was afraid of daylight, the sun did not allow him to think calmly, work, live and feel happy. The brilliant French writer wrote all his works at night. At dawn, he drank sleeping pills and went to bed, tightly closing the shutters in the house, at dusk he got up, drank strong coffee and sat down to literary work. It belongs to him the phrase: "If necessary, the night can last forever."

In 2011, a resident of Houston, Lyle Bensley, was detained in the United States, who in his youth imagined himself to be a vampire who was no less than 500 years old. He went outside at night, and during the day he locked himself in a dark closet and slept. He was terribly, hysterically afraid that the rays of the sun would burn him. A young man with a delusional disorder and megalomania was detained only after he bit a woman, deciding that it was time to give his vampire essence complete freedom.

In general, a heliophobe is an ordinary person, his intellect is not impaired, and his thinking abilities are normal. The only symptom is diligently avoiding situations that can trigger a fit of fear.

If heliophobia in a person exposed to it is the only disorder, then the person understands perfectly well that his fear is not justified, that there is nothing to be afraid of. He may agree with such arguments, but when exposed to the sun, he ceases to control his emotions and may lose control over his own behavior. The severity of symptoms with such fear can be different - from anxiety to panic attack.

That is why the heliophobe is sure that his "quirk" can be condemned by others, perceived by them negatively. He is afraid that a panic attack might happen in public. As a result, heliophobes choose an avoidant type of behavior - they try to exclude from their lives any situations in which they may experience panic. In practice, this means the following: you need to exclude exposure to the sun.

With a minor phobic disorder, when a person is afraid that the rays of the sun will cause him severe burns or cancer, a heliophobe can wear closed clothing, gloves, sunglasses, a hat, trying not to leave exposed skin... In this form, almost all year round, he will go out of the house to go to work, study or to the store.

If initially the fear is universal, and the patient is afraid of the light of the sun in general, he can switch to a nocturnal lifestyle, as Balzac did - find a job on the night shift, visit only convenience stores and shopping centers, completely close the windows with dark blinds or blackout curtains. Mild degrees of heliophobia are manifested by the need to go outside on a sunny day, always with an umbrella to protect from the rays, and in the excessive use of sunscreens. You will never meet a heliophobe on the beach.

It is not so difficult to understand what happens if a “dangerous” situation nevertheless overtakes a person. The brain picks up a false signal of danger, and a large amount of adrenaline is produced. Pupils dilate, tremor, excitement, anxiety appear.

In severe cases, vomiting, loss of balance, consciousness occurs. If a person remains conscious, he obeys the commands of the deep central part of the brain - the limbic system. And this means that he will show maximum speed, endurance, like an avid Olympic athlete, in order to escape as soon as possible and hide from dangerous circumstances. Then, when the adrenaline level returns to normal, the person himself does not understand why he ran, what exactly threatened him, he feels inferior, tired, some begin to feel a sense of shame and guilt.

Needless to say, such phobes have no desire to re-experience such attacks, and therefore they are ready to show miracles of invention, so that they no longer find themselves in frightening circumstances. Avoiding behavior in this mental disorder is fraught with dire consequences: the sun's rays promote the production of vitamin D in the body, and when living in the dark, symptoms of vitamin D hypovitaminosis appear very quickly.

Nocturnal lifestyle does not contribute to the normal production of melatonin, since this substance is synthesized only during sleep at night. Numerous hormonal disturbances during the nocturnal lifestyle aggravate the mental problem, anxiety and constant "combat readiness", the expectation of danger leads to the development of delusional states. Gradually, it begins to seem that sunlight is actually causing physical pain.

Fear drives a person into a framework that does not allow him to live fully - he cannot go on vacation, and sometimes study or work, social contacts become scarce, rare. There is no question of creating a family, raising children.

Psychiatrists are involved in the diagnosis and diagnosis. To do this, they use special tests for the level of anxiety, as well as conversation and examination of the state of the brain using CT or MRI.

The exact reasons that can lead to the development of this type of phobia are unknown to doctors, since the ailment does not occur as often as, for example, fear of a closed space (claustrophobia) or fear of spiders (arachnophobia). There are suggestions that the disorder develops as a defensive reaction to the formation of incorrect attitudes.

If in childhood a child was badly burned in the sun, received severe sunburns that hurt for a long time, he could develop a certain pathological relationship between the sun and pain, danger. Usually such children are very impressionable, melancholy, anxious, they have a rich and painful imagination.

Cases are described when heliophobia developed against the background of heatstroke with hallucinations, which a person suffered in childhood. After that, the sun can begin to be perceived as something mystical. Sometimes panic fear by its causes goes into another negative experience, for example, a child experienced a strong shock, fright from an animal attack, but at that moment his attention was concentrated on the sun (it was on a sunny day outside).

A person with sluggish schizophrenia or before the onset of the disease may develop quite pronounced heliophobia. And the delusional disorder begins to be preceded by the fear of the sun with a mass of unscientific and frankly ridiculous justifications (I'm afraid of the sunlight, because it can make me dark-skinned or burn me to ashes).

It is not necessarily the contact with the sun that causes the development of the phobia. Sometimes an impressionable child can form wrong beliefs when watching a movie in which the sun was killing or when contemplating the strong destructive effects of drought, sunburn on others.

The more often the baby hears this, the more likely it is that he may begin to be afraid of sunlight and heat. If the child's family has relatives who are afraid of the sun, then there is a high degree of probability that the child will simply take a similar model of behavior and worldview on faith and use it. It has long been proven that the object of fear of mom or dad causes unconscious excitement in the child.

This type of phobia is mandatory requires a professional approach to treatment. It is almost impossible to cope with such fear on your own, and inept attempts to do this can lead to an aggravation of the phobic disorder. Therefore, you need to contact a psychiatrist.

Usually, treatment takes place on an outpatient basis, only severe forms require a hospital stay. The most effective method is psychotherapy with the obligatory identification of the deeper causes of the phobia in children. Additionally can be assigned antidepressants with a confirmed fact of increased anxiety and depression.