Hypengiophobia - or, in simple terms, an overwhelming, excessive, irrational fear of responsibility - is one of the most common human anxiety disorders in the modern world. The word comes from the Greek "hypengyos" meaning responsibility and "fobos" meaning "fear".
Everything is from childhood
Like all other phobias, this disorder is triggered by a trauma experienced by the person at some point in their life in the past.
Most likely, in childhood, too strict parents of the future hypengiophobe severely punished him for his mistake, literally repelling the desire for independent decisions. Or an overprotective mother or father has instilled in the child the idea of being unable to make the right decisions on his own. Already this is often enough to form a powerful dominant "Super-I", from the power of which a person tries to escape with the help of irresponsible behavior. However, later the situation could be aggravated.
For example, some erroneous decision made by a person caused extremely adverse consequences - an accident, a catastrophe, a tragedy, or just an unfortunate failure. This traumatic experience activates childhood traumas repressed into the subconscious and triggers a phobic mechanism - taking responsibility is regularly and consistently associated with intense negative emotions.
Horror-horror-horror
Hypengiophobe feels an extreme degree of anxiety up to emotional shock and complete destruction of the ability to work. A person is afraid both of the very possibility of making a mistake, and of the social condemnation that comes after making this mistake. The symptoms of this disorder are inability to formulate thoughts, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, tremors, and a general feeling of panic in a decision-making situation. These sensations do not allow the hypengiophobe to take responsibility.
Sometimes an individual realizes the irrationality of his own fears, but more often he convinces himself that too much is required of him, as a result of which he neglects his own duties and actively shifts responsibility to those around him, blaming them for what is happening in his life.
Defeat hypengiophobia? Maybe!
In severe cases of hypengiophobia, a person needs the help of a psychotherapist. The therapy of this disorder involves the completion of personality constructs responsible for the subject's self-confidence, a change in attitude towards one's own skills and abilities, and then the formation of healthy responsible behavior. The most effective methods are cognitive-behavioral therapy, NLP, and the forms are specialized trainings and psychotherapeutic groups.
However, in most cases it is quite possible to manage the disorder on your own. This requires, first of all, the individual's awareness of the problem and the desire to work to overcome it. We hope that our exercises and recommendations will support and help you along the way.
Step by step
Don't try to take on too many things - take responsibility for them gradually - project by project, area by area. This will allow competent control and reduce the feeling of fear.
Start with the little things that don't end up being catastrophic if you don't wash the pot, for example.
Under the microscope
Take a sheet of paper and write down on the one hand the problem that requires you to take responsibility for it, and on the other hand, as frankly as possible, the fears associated with taking responsibility regarding this problem. For example, marriage is the fear of not earning enough money to support the family, the fear of repeating parental or one's own previous relationship experience, doubts about the ability to be the head of the family, etc.
Then analyze each of your fears to see if they are unsolvable.
Flood
A good technique for dealing with fear is "flooding", an imaginary complete immersion in what seems terrifying to you.
Develop tolerance for the stressful situation of making a decision by acting it out step by step in your mind. Repeat the procedure in different versions of its development until the fears disappear. The more often you do this, the more automatic and less emotional your reaction to stress becomes. Accordingly, getting into a similar situation in reality, you will be able to take responsibility for what is happening.
No matter how scary it is to make decisions, it is important to understand that full responsibility for your own life and everything that happens in it is the only way to success, fulfillment and happiness. After all, when a person believes that he is capable of something, or when he believes that he is incapable, he is surprisingly right in both cases. And only you can choose the option that will be implemented in your life.
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