Intro & Description
Ever heard someone quote "We have nothing to fear but fear itself"? Well fearing fear is called phobophobia. And yes phobophobia is something to be afraid of.
It's hard to exactly define the word with all it's implications, but the effects can be life shattering.
No treatment
Phobophobia is one of the worst phobias to have as it's almost impossible to treat. Normally if you have a phobia, you'd have to conquer your fears to see there's really nothing to be afraid about, that's the standard 'cure'.
But this doesn't work for phobophobia at all. You can't conquer your fear, because there's no situation in which you could make people conquer fear itself. You can make people afraid, that's not that hard, but that's just one fear inducing circumstance, not the essence of fear.
Phobophobics can be afraid of many things, like snakes etc. But there's one thing that scares them more than those 'normal' scary things.. And that's knowing that they have fear. This knowledge induces a lot of anxiety (and fear), which makes them realize they have fears, which induces more anxiety... it's a never ending cycle.
Most people who suffer from this condition, unfortunately, don't recover.