Ligyrophobia is the fear of noise. In particular, it is the fear of loud or strange noise, and it’s a common fear that many people have and can relate to. Also referred to as phonophobia or acousticophobia, people who fear strange noises or loud noises become extremely startled when they hear a sound that is unfamiliar to them.
I know this fear very well. If I hear an odd noise, be it a beep from my printer out of nowhere, a jet going overhead, a loud car sputtering its way down the road, or a sudden sneeze from someone in a quiet room around me, I jolt and shake so badly it’s as if a gun has gone off in the house. Any time I hear a noise that I wasn’t expecting, I nearly crap my pants and have to be consoled and told I’m OK and nobody is hurt.
Ligyrophobics don’t fear all noise, just noise that comes out of nowhere, say a popping balloon, or a strange yell. Noises that aren’t part of daily life can strike a noise phobic as a threat, and can leave them covering their ears and shaking horribly. My particular noise fear is a siren that comes from anything but a police car- if I hear the warning sirens from town that a fire is going on (a persistent war sounding siren that continues for about 3 minutes) I actually fall to the ground where I’m standing and begin bawling and writhing uncontrollably like I’m in incredible pain. I heard the siren once while I was at the DMV and fell to the ground like I had been shot right in front of the counter, shaking and rolling and crying until the noise ceased to echo in my ears.
For me, any sound that even resembles a siren, coming from an instrument in a song, the background noise of a party, someone shouting and it sounds like a siren, causes me to do the same thing. For some reason, even the whine of the vacuum cleaner when it sucks up a wrapper makes me run out of the house blindly to shake in the front yard with the offensive sound still roaring.
I am well-known for my jumpiness at odd noises, loud or otherwise. I get freaked out nearly every day by a strange noise that causes some form of anxiety and embarrassing reaction. Last night, as my family was walking through a Christmas light display famous in our town, I was enjoying the gorgeous lights when I heard a hissing sound and shouted an obscenity and struck out at the noise. In the dark, all I heard was this weird sound, and my family burst out laughing as a bewildered employee of the light show stared at me in shock- he had been blowing air into the ends of the lights to get the water out of them. I heard that noise in my head the rest of the night, and whenever I thought I heard it I’d whirl around with my hands out, striking air.
People who fear odd or loud, or even sudden, noise don’t allow the fear normally to plague them all day long. They simply have a huge overreaction to an odd sound- the type of people who jump out of their chairs when a stack of papers hits the floor when everyone else didn’t even flinch. With noise being a part of our daily lives, typically just exposure helps to limit the levels of anxiety related to the fear of noise, as we hear odd sounds daily. However, the anxiety related to being so easily startled by daily noise is an embarrassing and stressful situation.
Many a time I have actually whirled around and struck my fiance in the face in utter fright when he whispered something in my ear when I was asleep, or have started shaking and crying on the phone with him when I could hear the drills in the background while he’s on the rig (they whine like sirens). The kids love to spook me, as I quite literally pee a little if they burst through the door and squeal in high voices at me. It’s no wonder I do things quietly- I watch TV at a low volume, I listen to music so low nobody else thinks the radio is on, and I talk so quietly most people have to lean in to hear me. Loud or harsh and sudden noises just send me into a quick panic.
Learning to laugh off the easy startling helps, as dealing with it nearly every day makes it just a personality quirk that is actually pretty humorous once the fear settles down. People who know me automatically laugh off the quick reaction (typically shouting something obscene and shaking or striking out) and strangers who don’t know me usually get startled themselves and then laugh in relief as I laugh and cry in unison while shaking until the stupid noise that got me startled (something as simple as a fax machine or a ringing telephone at a receptionist counter can cause me to react) ebbs in my head. Sometimes, if it’s a particularly loud noise, like a howling dog or a grinding sound, I just start running blindly, especially if I am outdoors, and my best friend has had to nearly tackle me a few times to keep me from running into traffic, but I don’t do that writhing on the ground bawling thing nearly as much as I used to.
Not all noises scare me, either. Sometimes I don’t even notice something that makes other people around me jump at all. That’s the strange thing about a fear of noise- it strikes at any time, and sometimes not at all. It’s just that sudden jolt of being shocked and being unable to control your reaction that makes the fear that much more noticeable. If you can imagine running for your life because you were walking to your car and your neighbor started their lawn mower, then you understand ligyrophobia. If not, and you see me do my classic freak out, feel free to laugh your ass off, because once I quit beating up air and shouting obscenities, I’ll laugh with you, so hard I cry.
Source:
healthmad.com/mental-health/ligyrophobia-the-fear-of-noise/
