Most people's phobias only cause problems should they encounter a spider or heights. But when you suffer from a phobia of blushing or driving, it can take over your entire life.
Ruth Addicott spoke to two women from Sussex about their bizarre fears and the extraordinary ways in which they've conquered them
Most people's phobias only cause problems should they encounter a spider or heights. But when you suffer from a phobia of blushing or driving, it can take over your entire life.
Ruth Addicott spoke to two women from Sussex about their bizarre fears and the extraordinary ways in which they've conquered them.
Imagine driving along a dual carriageway behind a car that's doing 30mph with a driver who's slamming on the brakes every few minutes. Most people would lose patience, blast their horn and tell whoever's driving to get off the road.
Put yourself in the place of someone with a phobia of driving, however, and it's a whole different story.
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Jane Leclercq, 45, from Hove, knows exactly what it's like. She can't drive over 30mph and is petrified of going down hills in the car. Her phobia has affected her job, her family and social life, not to mention the lives of other motorists she has put in jeopardy, as well as her own.
Jane's phobia started four years ago when she was pregnant with her son Louis. She was working as a careers advisor in Crawley, driving back and forth to work every day.
When her job suddenly became a lot more pressurised after a restructure, she started to have panic attacks, which gradually turned into a fear of driving.
"My hands would sweat and if the speed dial went above 30mph I'd have to slam on the brakes," she recalls. "Everyone wanted me to go faster on the dual carriageway but I couldn't because it felt as if I was going out of control. Even if the speed dial was 31mph and there was no other car in sight, I'd slam on the brakes."
Her constant stopping and starting caused chaos on the roads, with drivers swerving to avoid collision and honking their horns in fury. But the more they'd rev and speed past shouting obscenities, the more terrified Jane became.
"I was in their way all the time," she says. "They had to wait for me to go down a hill. I passed my test years and years ago but I put a P' sign on my car in the end so drivers would be more sympathetic." One of the worst moments ocurred when she was driving home one night in the dark. "I hate driving in the dark," she says.
"It makes you feel you're going even faster. I was coming into Brighton and about to go around a bend on the dual carriageway when a lorry cut me up on the inside. He was blasting his horn the whole way around and it was such a massive juggernaut, it scared me to death. I burst into tears clutching the wheel. I was shaking so much. I knew I had to just get around the corner. I got to the top of Dyke Road and fortunately there was an AA man in the lay-by.
I told him I was terrified of driving. I was still shaking the following day." Heavily pregnant, Jane eventually started to avoid the A23 altogether and take the back roads to work instead. The detour meant that instead of a 40-minute commute, she had an hour-and-a-half's journey each way.
Her phobia became so bad, it started to take over her life. She became irritable, depressed and increasingly anxious about how she'd cope once she had the baby. She couldn't pick her young daughter up from nursery in Burgess Hill and found herself turning down invitations - anything to avoid the dual carriageway.
On one occasion her daughter was invited to a party at a farm in Hassocks but when the time came to go, Jane was too scared to drive her.
"I felt I'd really let her down," she says.
Jane continued to drive the round-trip to Crawley and back for five months until she went on maternity leave. After a particularly traumatic birth, her condition escalated further and she had difficulty even sitting in a car.
"It really affected my confidence," she says. "Not only had I stopped working but, being a new mum as well, I felt I'd lost my independence. I couldn't stop crying because I felt so useless."
Jane tried anti-depressants and hypnotherapy but it had little effect. Bizarrely, it wasn't until she took up singing and joined a church choir that she managed to get her phobia under control.
"The singing seemed to help my breathing and the more I sang, the more I felt a sense of wellbeing," she says. For the first time in ages I didn't feel strange, I felt as if I belonged it changed my life." Jane now sings with Brighton City Singers every week. She's made new friends, performed in concerts and says the experience made her feel "ten feet tall".
The other turning point for Jane was contacting the National Phobic's Society, which has a special phoneline people can ring for practical advice whenever they need it.
With hindsight, Jane, who currently volunteers at the Brighton Women's Centre, believes her condition was brought on by stress at work and worrying about her pregnancy. Having struggled to conceive for so long, she felt she was putting her baby's life in danger every time she got in the car.
She has now realised it wasn't so much the driving she was anxious about but other issues which had manifested themselves at the wheel. She is now overcoming her fear and making good progress, being able to drive around town and get up to 35mph on the dual carriageway.
"The biggest change is my attitude," she says.
"I'm far more relaxed and I don't take it so seriously if drivers shout. My stomach would have been in knots before, now I just shrug my shoulders and think they've probably had a bad day." Penelope Greenfield, from Horsham, is equally aware of how a phobia can take over your life. She's afraid of blushing.
When people think of blushing, they imagine rosy cheeks and a healthy glow but Penelope's condition is far more extreme than that it is a complete red flush with bright red blotches from her forehead down to her chest. She suffers from severe perspiration and once it starts, an outbreak can last well over an hour.
"When it happens, I panic and just want to escape whatever situation I am in," she says. Penelope has been prone to severe blushing since she was in her early 20s. She can't pinpoint anything that triggered it off, but remembers the first flare-up vividly.
"It was 1975 and I was on a tea break in an apple-packing factory where I worked," she recalls. "There was a big group of us sitting around a table and I suddenly became aware of feeling intensely hot and flushed.
I wanted to escape as quickly as I could so I rushed to the loo and when I looked in the mirror and saw how red I'd gone, I was mortified." It happened again and again and the more anxious Penelope got about blushing, the redder she'd go.
"I started to dread the tea break and dread going to work," she says. "I've been reduced to tears on many occasions because I've found it so exasperating." After three years in the job, she left to give birth to her third son. Over the years that followed the blushing continued, along with well-meaning but futile comments such as "you've gone red" or "you're a bit flushed". Most hurtful of all, however, was her ex-husband, who used to call her "rooster neck".
"I felt upset and totally humiliated," she says. "I don't think he appreciated just how hurtful that remark was." The extent of her problem really hit home when she got a high-pressured job at a local hospital. It involved a weekly meeting, which Penelope soon began to dread.
"That's the worst scenario for me," she says. "Sitting around a table with the spotlight on you. I desperately wanted to talk and make my views heard but I was too scared because I knew as soon as I opened my mouth and everyone was focused on me, I'd go scarlet. It's a very humiliating and uncomfortable feeling when every bit of visible skin is bright red."
Penelope would flare up every single meeting, particularly if it was held in a conference room. "The more I'd worry about it, the redder I'd go," she adds. "People couldn't fail to notice and I just had to sit there." As a result, Penelope soon lost the confidence to speak out, which increased her frustrations even further.
She knew the situations that would spark it off and did her utmost to avoid them, staying quiet in meetings, turning down training courses and avoiding dinner parties all of which involved a large group.
On the odd occasion when she did accept, she'd wear thick make-up and plan her outfit to ensure it had a suitably high neck.
"Obviously, I wanted to wear something sexy but had to disguise the red blotches, so I always wore a dress with a high, ruffled neck," she says.
"I also discovered this green foundation which helped tone down redness.I used to put so much on I'd look like a geisha girl.
"I didn't know anyone else who blushed like I did. I thought I had some problem and wasn't in control of my own body." Desperate for help, Penelope plucked up the courage to see her GP but he was completely baffled. He branded it a "gin flush" and said he'd never seen anything like it.
"He said, Oh you like a drink then, do you dear?' I was absolutely
horrified," she recalls.
"I'd gone to him in desperation and he was suggesting I was an alcoholic. I'll never forget that moment. I felt even more of a freak when he prescribed me tranquillisers and referred me to a skin consultant.
I truly felt I was the only person in the world with this problem." Penelope has put up with the blushing all her life but now, 30 years on, she has finally found a way of keeping it under control - by doing "no hands" massage.
She left her old job and became a qualified therapist and, extraordinarily, the alternative technique (using the forearms instead of the hands) is the one thing that keeps her blushing at bay.
"All other thoughts go out of my head. I'm so immersed in what I'm doing, I don't think about anything else," she says. "I enjoy helping people and, as it has an equally positive effect on me, I find it very relaxing." Another turning point for Penelope was discovering her severe blushing syndrome was actually a recognised condition (Erythrophobia).
"To realise I wasn't a freak after all and there were other people out there suffering from the same thing was absolutely amazing," she says.
Divorced twice, Penelope has been with her current partner Stewart for four years. She says he has never made light of her condition once.
She still blushes from time to time but gets through it and knows there are a million other people out there in Britain going through exactly the same thing.
Series five of the TV drama Monk, featuring the highly phobic detective Adrian Monk, can be seen on Sundays at 7pm, exclusively on the Hallmark Channel.
Emetophobia - vomit phobia
Emetophobia is a term used to describe the fear of being sick, and is also used to describe those who fear seeing others being sick. Emetophobes often fear being sick in public, being near people who are ill with tummy bugs etc.
Brontophobia - fear of thunder and lightning
The most common cause of fear of storms seems to be experiencing frightening storms as a child some people manage to cope well until the immediate onset of a storm, others may obsessively watch weather reports throughout the day.
Toilet phobia
This term is used to describe
a wide variety of fears associated with toilets, urination and defecation.
Sufferers worry about being too far from a toilet or using public toilets. Others fear people may be scrutinising them while urinating (especially common amongst men).
Monophobia - fear of being alone
Monophobics worry about having a panic attack and having to cope alone without their "support" person. This phobia is often associated with agoraphobia and panic disorder.
Do you struggle with an unusual phobia? Tell us about it below
I am a Senior Citizen, and am terrified of getting lost, not because of age, I won't drive anywhere I don't know, won't go to an area I have written instructions how to get somewhere, but so nervous I will get lost, I have always been this way.
I am a Senior Citizen, and am terrified of getting lost, not because of age, I won't drive anywhere I don't know, won't go to an area I have written instructions how to get somewhere, but so nervous I will get lost, I have always been this way.
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