Could anyone tell me the name of my phobia?

Question

I have this intense fear of my neck being touched! It's the weirdest thing! I cant even wear turtle necks. I think its because I watch too many gross shows where someones neck gets sliced....*shiver*.... I cant even think about it I start freakin out and grabbing at my neck. It could also have something to do with my childhood and how people would always tickle me there (HATED it) or maybe I was hung in a passed live I really dont know....I have gotten a little bit better about the whole someone else touching my neck but then when I turn on the tv and there is some crime show on the murderer always goes for the neck and I always HAVE to change the chanel or leave the room because I get so terribly squimish anywhere else Im fine (I dont mind blood and guts I have watched many surgeries and have disected many things) If someone could please fill me in on this completly irrational and strange phobia of mine, I would be very grateful!

Answer 1

Fears and phobias often relate to how secure we feel. Like water coming out of a hole in a cup, our phobias relate to areas of vulnerability, places we feel 'weak' at.

The neck is a prime target because it acts as a juncture between the head and the heart. Also, because it is a relatively small area, it can be grasped more easily and lethally. It is far easier to choke someone to death than it is to punch them to death or rip out their heart.

That being said, phobias can be acquired through the most haphazard and careless of situations, but they usually occur through human involvement. What I mean is that a tv show by itself cannot cause of phobia. What happens is that a tv show (or any other event) becomes the catalyst by which our attention is sharply focused, and the action thus recorded in our brains as a 'fear', but it is the preceeding environment that really creates the phobia.

A child's fear of clowns, for example, can be directly related to the child's previous recognition of feeling 'abandoned' by their caregivers. If mommy walks out of the room, creating a feeling of isolation and helplessness, and the clown intervenes between her return, the clown becomes the heightened focus/catalyst of the child's feelings of abandonment/threat, and thus is a phobia created and/or begun. The fear of clowns then becomes a unconscious substitution for the feelings of helplessness that the child could not intellectually process.

The fact that you touch your neck to reassure yourself suggests that it is the fact that other people can (and have) touched you without your permission (even if they did not understand the affect they were having) that you cannot reconcile. Children are not really taught that they have the power to say 'no', since when they try to say no to 'adult figures', they are usually ignored or overruled. Again, the groundwork of adults ignoring you is probably what created the conditions for your helplessness, that thus became focused by their touching of your neck. The touching of your neck is a symbol for their ignoring your wishes.

Also, if you still have regular contacts with them, those unspoken feelings could be acting as reminders that then become apparent when you accidentally see a neck being touched/threatened on tv. In addition, other people feeding into those feelings, even if by accident, could be why they haven't gone away. Phobias, like anything, require nourishment and feeding to remain 'active'. Your changing the channel is your attempt at 'starving' the phobia, but if other people and/or incidents are reinforcing your feelings of helplessness, then there is no period of recovery where you can notice the difference between your feelings and what you are seeing.

There is no such thing as something or someone being completely irrational. All irrationalities have rational causes and consequences to them. Understanding them is how people move from thinking of them as irrational to thinking of them as being the rational and logical end-result of something.

Answer 2

Aphenphosmphobia is the fear of being touched, but I think it's much more intense than what you're displaying. I don't know if there is a specific phobia of being touched on the neck.

Answer 3

Touched, being touched- Aphenphosmphobia, Haphephobia or Haptephobia or Chiraptophobia.

Answer 4

aphephobia, haphephobia:
An excessive fear of touching or of being touched by other persons. In some cases, fear of being touched may relate to sexual fears. Some people fear being touched because they fear contamination.

also possible: (Aphenphosmphobia)

Answer 5

i had a friend in high school who was the same way, he woudl freak if you touched anywhere around his neck, when we were 19 he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer

im not saying you are sick, im just saying it might not be a "phobia" there might be a reason why your body is sending you these panic signals