Yeah, because allaphobia is fear of crocodilians.
I came in the thread to see if anyone else was like this. It’s a problem that has plagued me for decades – I have an extremely strong dislike for rooms with only one entry/exit, whether it’s currently blocked or not. And I get panicky if blocked from leaving any situation. The very few times I’ve reacted with some level of violence have occurred from feeling trapped and unable to move the “blocking” party. Once in a public area where a man was convinced he would lose a spot in line, and kept me from getting past to the outside (I knocked him aside). Twice when I was blocked in by double parkers (both cars were damaged as I shoved them out of the way with my truck).
It has gotten better as I’ve aged, but it was pretty extreme in the past. Back then I never, ever sat down in any restaurant or theater without finding and exploring the exits. I had an actual railroad rail welded on the rear of my truck in lieu of a bumper so I could shove my way out when trapped. I refused to enter any situation/venue with valet parking, and I think I’ve only consented to this once.
Our RV has 2 emergency exits and 2 normal doors. Our boat’s cabin has multiple ways out. Our house has an unusually large number of outside doors compared to most. Almost every room in our house has two or more entrances, and our bedroom has three (2 to the outside, 1 to the hallway). Only the guest bedroom/bathroom have single entry points, everything else can be walked “through”. I still remember the realtor showing us houses, and being mystified as he couldn’t see the common element in the ones we chose for offers. I’m still very nervous in public restrooms which have only one door, and have actually changed groups/projects at work to avoid single door work areas. It’s one of the underlying reasons I refuse as much business travel as possible, as upper floor hotel rooms leave me sweating. I traveled on business in my own RV partially to avoid this, and to maintain control of my movements. I must admit my hatred for the security theater was a factor though.
I wonder if there’s a name for it?
I suppose that’s possible, but I think I’m at a level a notch above what you describe. No, it does not affect my everyday life. But it is a newish feeling for me, so it has nudged up a bit as I’ve aged.
Maybe we should call it sympathetic claustrophobia.
mmm
I can only go by what you’ve described here, which includes no physical symptoms and no impact on your social functioning. That’s just not a phobia of any sort. Compare your level of response with pullin’s.
Sounds more like cleithrophobia (fear of being trapped). And yours does seem to rise to phobic levels (But IANA Psychologist)
Yeah, I don’t suppose that I have a legit phobia. Perhaps just phobic tendencies.
My five minutes of research taught me about cleithrophobia, claustrophobia’s cousin, which is more in line with what I have experienced.
mmm
When I was younger I used to think that the older you got, the less you’d be afraid of stuff, because you’d seen it all, and you were like, old, so why worry about dying when it’s right around the corner anyway? But as I age (I am also in my fifties) I find my phobic tendencies getting somewhat worse in some cases. I think the older you get, the more aware you are of how easily things can go wrong.
In my case, it’s my fear of heights. It’s been manageable throughout my life, but now if I watch movies or TV shows where people are up high on precarious building ledges or that sort of thing I get an actual uncomfortable physical sensation in my gut as if I’m the one teetering on the precipice.
Your discomfort isn’t claustrophobia. Because that would freak me out, too, and I’m not claustrophobic. For instance, I’m fine getting an MRI.
(Actually, i have been freaked out playing video games where i get lost and can’t get to the exit and so get killed. Even though dying in-game isn’t a big deal )
It also probably doesn’t rise to the level of being an actual phobia, as others pointed out. But even if it does, I’m pretty sure it’s a different phobia.
Oh man, can I relate to these stories! I’ve had MRIs without a sedative and managed to remain calm, but I had a bone scan a few years ago that came close to bringing on a panic attack. You have to hold your arms over your head for the duration (which gets to be most uncomfortable) and your legs are tightly wrapped so they don’t move. No music was provided as a distraction. They left me lying there in the machine for something like 20 minutes with no verbal interaction at all. I had to struggle to not start screaming.
Remember the movie “10 Cloverfield Lane?” When the heroine wakes up confined to a dingy basement bunker I got so panicked I had to turn the movie off, leave the house and walk about the block a few times. And I often have dreams in which I am somehow confined and wake up with my heart pounding.
I’ve never liked tight spaces but this really manifested itself around 20 years ago right after my father died. For months I opened all the car windows while driving, couldn’t wear sweaters or use anything but the lightest blankets while sleeping (in February!). All of that finally eased off but the thought of being confined in a small space still makes me uneasy.
In most of the cases you’ve described the person in the situation you’ve described is in objective danger. It’s natural and human to become anxious in those scenarios. Do you get anxious when viewing someone in a completely safe but closed in situation (small room or elevator)?
Not at all, and you raise a good point. Thanks.
mmm
Here is a link to the guy swimming under the ice, if anyone is in the mood to feel uncomfortable.
And I should also add: what an idiot.
mmm
A good friend of mine is similar; for her, the particular trigger is being in a traffic jam – it makes her exceptionally uncomfortable and borderline panicky, and she says it’s because she feels like there’s no place she can go if there’s an emergency.
My wife has it a little bit. Elevators mostly.
And also SCUBA diving, even in very clear water. It seems an oxymoron as you are sort of floating with nothing but free space around you. But the mask and other gear can really feel isolating. I understand what she is saying. All that you hear is your own breathing. YMMV.
I’m ok, MRI’s are uncomfortable, but they do their best to make you OK.
After I had surgery on my leg, I turned into an old geezer, walking sooo slowly and hanging onto handrails or furniture. I wasn’t dizzy or weak, it was that subconsciously, I knew that if I started to fall I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. So my brain overcompensated and turned me into great-grandpa.
I was only half-watching TV (the other half of my brain was right here in MPSIMS) and suddenly my adrenaline level shot up. I looked up to see the end of a promo for some Adventures in Nature show. Huh, wondered I, is that why my fight-or-flight reaction spiked?
Half an hour later the ad came on again… and there in the midst of twenty fast cuts was a hiking boot on the edge of a precipice. It was on for less than a second, and only seen by my peripheral vision, but my brain had reacted to it.
I think I have it to some degree but have been able to remain calm enough to get through an MRI two different times. I really, really don’t like how close it is in there! One time the place had a mirror set up so you could see part of the room from inside the tomb, I mean tube, and that helped so much. I wish all MRI machines were set up that way.
I hate shows where a character gets buried alive and usually avoid those.
I recently heard about this young man who got stuck in a tight spot in a cave and was unfortunately not able to be rescued. I didn’t get panicky thinking about it - but it sounds like a terrible way to go. I don’t think I would ever, ever want to crawl through tight spaces like that and can’t understand why anyone would want to!
I have some claustrophobic tendencies. It’s interesting to see so many other folks here that have claustrophobia-like issues, too.
Small world, isn’t it?
I occasionally have something like claustrophobia, not about spaces, but about crowds. If I’m surrounded by people, I sometimes have an urgent need to get out of there, combined with feeling that if I can’t get away from people I might start hitting them to try to get them out of my way. (I’ve never actually done so.)
It doesn’t always happen; I can often be in quite thick crowds without having the reaction. Problem is, I’ve never been able to figure out what exactly the situations are that bring it on as opposed to the ones that don’t; so it feels to me as if any crowd might do it.
So I try not to get into situations in which, if I find myself crowded, I can’t quickly get out of the crowd. And I do think that being sure I can get space around me if needed makes it less likely that I’ll have the reaction. – either it has gotten better with age, or I’ve set up my life to better avoid getting into crowded places; or quite possibly both. Even before covid, it’s been a long time since I’ve had it.
– I’ve had one MRI. It was unpleasant, but not unbearably so. I did spend part of the time working out how I could manage to squirm my way out of there on my own, if some disaster happened and nobody came to slide me out or otherwise help. If I had instead convinced myself that wasn’t possible, it would have been really unpleasant. But I’m not sure how much that had to do with the tight space, and how much with feeling out of control in general.
Apparently some MRI machines have tighter space than that one – there was something in the papers they gave me beforehand about them having extra-wide ones, though the space didn’t strike me as being all that wide.
I’ve never really bought the scene in The Great Escape where Danny, the Tunnel King confesses his claustrophobia but has overcome it in order to dig tunnels (and briefly get trapped by cave-ins in the process).
I had a lengthy MRI awhile back which required repeated breath-holdings and absence of motion. Not very pleasant but fortunately no significant claustrophobia symptoms.
A popular 19th century variant involved the fear of being pronounced dead prematurely and regaining consciousness interred in a coffin. Some people insisted on a coffin with a bell the victim could ring in case of accidental live burial.
These days, you’d want something operating off Wi-Fi, with a bell for backup.
If you’re worried that you will develop claustrophobia (or any phobia), that’s phobophobia, possibly manageable with drugs.
Very, very small. 
Now I have fear of names of phobias. I’m glued to the wikipedia place. And crying 
I also have fears of crocodilians.
Aaaaccckkk
I have whatever is the opposite of claustrophobia. I actually enjoy MRIs. I love small spaces, and if I’m craving one, and one isn’t handy, I’ll just sit cross-legged, and fold over with my face in my lap, and my arms around the back of my head.
That said, the idea of being buried alive is terrifying. There’s quite a lot more wrapped up in that than simply being in a confined space.
I mean, the fear of losing one’s identity is probably a named phobia, and so is the fear of not being able to communicate-- particularly a dire need. Those both probably have happened, the first at least in a sense, if you are alive but mistaken for dead, for you to have been buried alive.
Or, I guess there is the possibility of sadistically being buried by someone who knows you are alive, but those things still go on sort of at a symbolic level-- at any rate, I’m less terrified of the idea of that than the idea of a premature burial. They may be both equally unlikely, but my gut reaction is that the torture scenario is even less likely than the mistake.