It is the fear of thunder and lightning People having this phobia experience undue anxiety especially when they are outdoors or caught in a thunderstorm. Not just that preparing for extreme weather conditions can arouse considerable anxiety in such people.
While many people view brontophobia as a relatively benign issue, that is rarely the case for anyone who suffers from the condition. When lightning bolts appear in the skies or the sound of distant thunder reaches the ears of the brontophobic, anxiety begins to mount. In mild cases, the individual will usually practice some type of avoidance. This can include putting off traveling during the storm, closing draperies on windows, and moving to the center of the home in an attempt to isolate oneself from the storm as possible.
With more advanced cases of the condition, brontophobia symptoms may include the outbreak of a full-fledged panic attack, including a sense of losing control of one’s sanity or an impending sense of death. The brontophobic is also likely to experience a sense of feeling extremely lightheaded to the point of being about to pass out. Often, the heart will begin to palpitate rapidly, which adds to the feeling that the individual is about to experience some type of extreme harm.
There are a number of brontophobia causes that may come into play. One of the obvious origins of the condition would be some type of traumatic event in the past that involved the presence of thunder or lightning. For example, living through a serious automobile accident that occurred during a storm with heavy thunder and lightning may set the stage for reliving that terrible experience each time a storm begins to form. People who have either been struck by lightning or had a loved one killed as a result of a lightning storm may also develop this severe aversion to any weather conditions that include lightning and thunder. In some cases, the phobia may also develop as a concurring emotional issue to other types of phobias, effectively allowing multiple phobic conditions to feed off one another.
Credit : Wisegreek
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