CONFESSIONS OF A NEURASTHENIC
WEBMASTER'S NOTE: This work is presented for historical interest and subject background only. Many of the conclusions, attitudes, and treatments discussed here are those of an "expert" of another era, many of which have been overturned by science or are not acceptable in today's world.
CHAPTER VIII.
MORBID FEARS AND FANCIES.
It should be remembered that I am now a full-fledged neurasthenic, with all the rights and privileges that go with the job. Yes, Webster defines a job as being an undertaking. Neurasthenia is certainly an “undertaking,” therefore it must be a job—a big one at that. It interferes with the holding of any more remunerative job and consumes most of one’s time in trying to keep his health in a passable condition. I have had positions of some importance handed to me, which I discharged with eminent satisfaction to all concerned until I got ready to go off at some new tangent. If I did not imagine myself in the actual embrace of some grave physical or mental disease, I feared that something would in the near future attack me; and that brings me to the main topic of this chapter—morbid fears.
These foolish, fanciful and often groundless fears are dignified by the name of “phobias.” A man who is afraid of everything should not[Pg 51] be dubbed a low-down coward—he is simply afflicted with “pantaphobia.” It doesn’t cost a bit more to be scientific and it carries with it more éclat.
Another one of these fears is agoraphobia—the fear of an open space. A fellow who has it is afraid to cross an open lot or field, and if he does make the venture, he carries with him a big stick or some weapon of defense. This, like many other phobias, is explained by scientists as being of simian inheritance. Our grandparents who lived in trees a few thousand years ago had a much tougher struggle for existence than any of us have today. Tree-tops were their only places of safety. If one of them happened to fall out of a tree into an open space on the ground where there was nothing to climb into, he was likely to be attacked by a lion or a tiger. This always filled the life of our little ancestor with intense fear and so affected his brain that the impress of it has been handed down and occasionally crops out in some of us. Our dreams of falling, we are told, are a vestige of the mental condition experienced by our [Pg 52]monkey-foreparents when they made a misleap and fell to the ground.
There is also the fear of a confined area, the fear of a crowd, fear of loss of speech at an inopportune moment, fear of falling buildings, fear of being alone, fear of poison, fear of germs, fears ad nauseam. I have qualified in all of them and taken post-graduate courses.
Another one of these fears I shall speak of and in no spirit of levity. It is too pathetic for pleasantry or jest. It is the fear that you will in some thoughtless moment, when the occasion is most ill-timed, utter some vulgar or profane word. These ugly, repulsive words or thoughts will cling with the greatest tenacity and defy every effort to eradicate them. They are of a nature entirely foreign to one’s disposition and character; for the neurasthenic, with all his eccentricities, is usually refined and exemplary. A minister of the Gospel whose life was of almost immaculate purity stated that the word “damn” often tortured his life and caused him to fear that he would give it an untimely utterance. I have found that many persons are similarly afflicted, but are rather reluctant to let their fears be known.
[Pg 53]Hydrophobia demands a few words. A few times in childhood I was scratched by a dog, in consequence of which I stood in mortal fear of hydrophobia. It was a popular belief that the poison of rabies might lie latent in the system and not manifest itself until years after. This belief obtains with many people to-day. The “madstones” in the possession of many credulous people help to perpetuate the fear of this awful disease. As a matter of fact, the madstone is simply a porous rock which may adhere to a warm, moist surface and exert an absorbent action. Any poison introduced under the skin is disseminated through the system in less than two minutes. If the doctor ever gave you a hypodermic, your knowledge on this point is convincing. The folly then of applying something, days or weeks later, to absorb the poison of a mad-dog’s bite from a localized spot is at once apparent. Any owner of one of these stones who hires it out should be prosecuted for getting money under false pretense, and then dealt with by the humane societies for engendering morbid and groundless fears.
Scientific men are yet divided on the question as to whether or not hydrophobia is a[Pg 54] bona fide disease, or whether it is only a functional disturbance in which the element of fear predominates. No hydrophobia germ has ever been isolated, and when the doctors these days can’t find a germ to fit a disease, it looks as if there was something wrong. It has many times been demonstrated that persons of a susceptible nature can be scared to death. But I don’t care how much assurance I get from scientific sources, I can’t get over the habit of being a little exclusive in regard to uncanny canines.
There is scarcely a disease or a symptom that I ever heard of that has not at some time preyed upon my mind lest I become a victim of it. These fears are hard to throw off or laugh out of existence when once they have become a part of your very being. In order to avert untoward conditions which I thought might overtake me, I have changed from one occupation to another about as often as the man in the moon modifies his physiognomy. In making these changes I have often found it about like dodging an automobile to get hit by a street car.
