Happiness - a dirty word?

I recently discovered something that's been a real eye-opener for me. You may already be aware of this, but it turns out there's a phenomenon for the “fear of feeling happy”. It's called Cherophobia! On a side note it is important for me to point out that this is not a formally recognised mental illness but because it involves a fear response and avoidance behaviors, it can be considered a type of anxiety disorder. 

As I understand it is an irrational aversion to happiness, where you fear and subconsciously avoid putting yourself in situations that might bring you joyfulness. Why? Well because people with cherophobia often believe feeling happy will lead to negative consequences. 

Am not sure if the following describes you, but in the last few years they certainly describe me:

Struggling to feel comfortable with the concept of happiness.

Downplaying any feelings of happiness or joy when I do experience them

Feeling uneasy to accept any form of a compliment

Actively engaging in an ”internal” negative self-talk - basically being my own worst critic

And beneath it all is a quiet doubt that I'm even entitled to happiness.

 Is this something you can resonate with?

The phenomenon of Cherophobia often goes hand-in-hand with other mental health disorders like anxiety. So basically when this happens, the tendency to constantly focus on potential negative outcomes is simply intensified. 

The next bit is a real biggie for me and that is that something bad will happen if I allow myself to be happy. The irrational fear that we are somehow more vulnerable when we are happy. Why? Well as I understand it, it is because of the belief that extreme happiness must be followed by an equal and opposite amount of sadness or misfortune. So we try to brace ourselves against the sense of sadness and disappointment that we are convinced will come. 

There are lots of theories as to how this phenomenon manifests itself and everyone's experience will be different but I do know that mine stems all the way back to my childhood where the “blame game” often sat on my shoulders. 

The ironic thing is that it is only now when I have learned about Cherophobia that I have put the two things together. Yes, I have always known my childhood wasn't a happy one but now I can understand my feelings a bit more and acknowledge the impact it truly has had on my adult life. 

 

This in turn is allowing me to process my internal struggles more and I am hoping that in turn that will help me get a step closer to understanding myself a bit more. This new clarity has been so powerful and if I am honest a stunning discovery. 

While writing this I was remembering all the truly happy moments in my life and found they mainly involve my amazing family. But one thought that popped into my head was the day I married my hubby ☺️. 

It was a fairly small intimate affair with just family and a few of our friends and quite informal which was just the way we wanted it. Fast forward to the reception and we all arrived at the hotel for lots of photos before we were to sit down for our meal. Because it wasn't a large affair it soon became obvious that one set of friends was nowhere to be seen. As the hotel was very close to the church none of us could understand what was taking them so long to get there. It was only when all the photos had been taken and we had sat down that they came rushing in laughing so hard they could hardly get a word out. What no one had realised was there were two hotels in very close proximity to the church that had very similar names. And bizarrely there was also a wedding reception at the other hotel. Our friends had not only mistakenly gone there but they had had the complimentary champagne and some lovely horderves before being “introduced” to the bride and groom who they had never seen in their lives before 🫣. After some profuse apologies they hotfooted it out of there and upon reading their invitation again realised their mistake and galloped to the correct reception. The best part was having a friend with a video camera, videoing the whole wedding . (I know showing my age 🤭). So all you can hear when we arrived at the reception is everyone shouting their names or asking where they might be 😆. Yes, things didn't go quite to plan and we were worried where they could be but do you know what, it ended up actually adding more laughter to the day. 

Thank you for reading and a virtual hug to you all. Look out for my next blog in a few days🥰