Choosing a dish at the restaurant or your outfit tonight already takes you time? Let’s not talk about decisions that have more impact in your existence. A real physical discomfort can grasp you, to prevent you concretely … from choosing. This difficulty has a name. It is today called “decidophobia”.
What is decidophobia, this inability to decide?
As the name suggests, decidophobia belongs to the register of phobias, these unreasonable and excessive fears that trigger anxiety and discomfort. Concretely, people who suffer from decidophobia are paralyzed by the fear of making daily decisions. A discomfort which can, at the extreme, trigger physical manifestations typical of anxiety.
- Panic ;
- Coupé;
- Nausea and dizziness;
- Dry mouth;
- Sweats …
Above all, this reaction stops you in a daily life made of decisions. To the point of sometimes spoiling your days or your relationships.
Anxiety of the decision: what is said to you
Do you recognize yourself in this description? But what does this inability to make simple decisions mean? For psychologist Johanna Rozenblum, the refusal (or impossibility) of making a decision evokes several things:
“As they say, choose it is to give up. To make a choice is therefore made a decision and to give up all the other possibilities. And for people who doubt make the right decision, and who actually have a fear of failure, it is an end in itself. They do not see in failure an ability to bounce back, to draw teaching, to take another direction. So making the wrong decision becomes a real phobia. “
The paradox in this? By refusing to decide and get wet, these people themselves create immobility that lead them to failure. “And there is nothing more anxiety -provoking than immobility, because we no longer project ourselves into the future.” A vicious circle, very complicated to live.
Fortunately, getting out of indecision
But how do you get out of this bad step when you have lost the habit of cutting out?
For Johanna Rozenblum, a work on oneself is essential. “Obviously you have to learn to make choices, put things into perspective as to their impact and their importance, and to say that if the choice was not the right one, and well it remains extremely rich in lessons”. An awareness which then allows, and by deduction, to orient yourself, to make choices, and to advance step by step.
This work can be helped by medical treatments to reduce anxiety. Or cognitive behavioral therapy, which promises good results in phobias. However, will remain to choose … your therapist. When in doubt, make you help by a loved one, this time.