Alektorophobia - Fear the Chickens
She had been afraid of chickens her entire life. As a college student, she had almost daily anxious episodes where she would worry that she would randomly encounter chickens that would maliciously attack and peck her. She became paralyzed by fear when she saw pictures of chickens. And she couldn’t even go to restaurants where chicken was being served.
He was a middle-aged professional who was frightened and disgusted at the mere sight of chickens. Fortunately, since he lived in an urban area, he rarely encountered them. And he adjusted by avoiding areas where chickens might be present—and by avoiding pictures or movies of chickens, which he simply could not look at. Then his neighbors got some pet chickens. Those chickens began to rule his life. Whenever he left his home his mind would go blank, his mouth would go dry, and he would be filled with fear—if the chickens were visible, or even if they were not, because they could show up at any time with their beady little eyes and sharp beaks. His fear increased to include the fear that he would have a heart attack because of his fear, and the fear that he would scream. Eventually, he stopped sleeping and stopped going to work because he was afraid to walk out of his door and perhaps encounter the neighbor’s hens.
Have you ever felt like this about chickens? Probably not. This is a chicken blog, after all, and here you are, reading it. But, if you ever have had fearful thoughts about chickens, you may suffer from alektorophobia. No study has ever been conducted to find out how frequently this phenomenon occurs, but from a variety of anecdotal, personal accounts and from people seeking help from mental-health professionals, it’s obviously a very real thing.
My wife, Kathy, created this piece for an art class. What does it mean? Who knows! Is she a closet alektorophobe? Um….probably not.
Film producer/director Werner Herzog, a likely alektorophobe, has said that looking into a chicken’s eyes is horrific because it is like looking into an empty void. He used a dancing chicken to convey a mood of hopelessness and despair in the final moments of his 1977 film Stroszek. Shannon Elizabeth, who has appeared in any number of horror films, including Thirteen Ghosts, Cursed, and Night of the Demons, finds real-life horror in the thought of being attacked by chickens.
British rugby player Tommy Seymour has described a terrifying childhood encounter with a chicken, “My aunt had chickens and one had a crooked spine so its head was almost upside down. When it was my turn to feed them, I heard this noise that still haunts me and that chicken ran towards me. I ran into the shed and stayed there for an hour with the chicken pecking at the door until my brother found me.” That incident has stayed with him his entire life, and this tough athlete admits that he has a chicken phobia.
Since I have raised most of my chickens from fluffy chicks, pick them up and pet them while I’m in the coop, and am mobbed by them entirely because they are looking for treats, I have difficulty understanding why anybody would find my feathered babies frightening. Fear, though, is not a rational thing. I’m uncomfortable in high places. Other people fear chickens. While some alektorophobes can describe a traumatic childhood experience involving chickens, many can’t pinpoint any exact event, and some have never even been in contact with chickens.
General symptoms of alektorophobia include panic attacks, nausea, and gastrointestinal distress prior to a situation where chickens may be encountered, or sometimes when just thinking about chickens. Other symptoms include physical manifestations of fear, such as dry mouth, sweating, trembling, and difficulty breathing.
If you are identifying with these symptoms and the stories I’ve related perhaps you do suffer from alektorophobia. And here’s the good news—the two case studies that I began with are real people who sought professional help and were able to come to terms with their phobia. It just took some therapy and regular treatment. So, if you or someone you know suffers from an overwhelming fear of chickens, take that first step and contact your healthcare professional.
(This post is an updated and edited version of my July 1, 2016 post
entitled “Fear the Chickens.” )
