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'Cherophobia' is a fear of allowing yourself be happy - here are the symptoms
The feeling of something going well or enjoying yourself is a positive emotion for most people, but for those who suffer from cherophobia it is quite the opposite.
Originating from the Greek word “chario”, meaning “I rejoice”, cherophobia is the aversion to feeling happy or avoiding fun.
For sufferers it is not a constant feeling of sadness but a fear that if you let yourself enjoy something then a terrible thing will happen.
According to Healthline the most common symptoms are: refusing to participate in fun activities, thinking being happy means something bad will happen or make you a bad person and believing that trying to be happy is a waste of time.
The physical symptoms are similar to those anxiety sufferers experience, panic attacks, breathlessness and sweating excessively.
In a video explaining that she is struggling to feel happy in a new relationship, creator Emily Ann Willcox said: “Happiness feels like I’ve shoplifted it from the universe and fate is checking the stock room”.
She defined it as “the fear that if you let yourself be happy, something bad will follow, like ovulation and thrush”.
Cherophobia is classified by experts as a form of anxiety, but isn’t widely used or well defined and did not make it into the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the main resource for diagnosing mental health conditions.
The fear of happiness could stem from past trauma related to conflict with a loved one or a bad experience at a supposedly happy event.
In Psychology Today Psychiatrist Carrie Barron said that cherophobia is similar to hedonophobia, the fear of pleasure, and believes that if these conditions are “due to the happiness/punishment link in childhood, they could be more common than we think”.
Blogger Stephanie Yeboah explained to Metro that cherophobia is “a feeling of complete hopelessness, which leads to feeling anxious or wary of taking part in, or actively doing things, that promote happiness as you feel that it will not last.
"Ultimately, it's a feeling of complete hopelessness, which leads to feeling anxious or wary of taking part in, or actively doing things, that promote happiness as you feel that it will not last," she added.
Although perhaps symbiotic, treating cherophobia the same way as depression is ineffective as they are two different conditions.
Anxiety treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy and insight-oriented psychotherapy are used to treat and understand the causes by learning the separation between pleasure and pain.