Living with Claustrophobia

It’s not ‘all in the mind’ when you choose to climb 20 floors instead of taking the elevator

I fully realised the extent of my disorder when I went househunting in Mumbai, the city of skyscrapers. The highrises of the far-flung suburbs of Goregaon and Malad were the only ones we could afford. We wanted a building with less than 20 floors, but this would have meant settling for dilapidated old four-storey structures. The broker insisted that the best flats were on or above the 20th floor, and so we relented, and took a look at a 17th floor flat. I went with my husband to the highrise, and once there, told the broker that I would take the stairs. He looked at me strangely as I started walking up the staircase. “Are you mad?” he must’ve wanted to ask. Instead, he croaked, “Seventeen floors. Kuchh ho gaya aapko toh? Baad mein kya karoge, jab buddhe ho jaoge? (What if something happens to you? What will you do once you are old?)” I ignored him. My husband accompanied the broker (who blamed my condition on a childhood sadma) in the lift, and I trudged all the way up.

I did think about it often: when did I become like this and why don’t I have any childhood trauma to explain it? Or was it, as many amused people suggested, all in my head? Watching Uma Thurman stuck in a coffin in Kill Bill 2 was one of the most unsettling experiences in my life. As she finds herself unable to move, she is quite a sight with her eyes turning red with tears. I had tears in my eyes then—real tears of fear. I got little comfort, let alone courage, from the discovery that Uma did that scene despite being afraid of closed spaces herself. She described filming the scene as “terrifying”, especially given the rawness and reality of it all. But Uma had to do it once, and thank God for that. Living with claustrophobia, which literally means ‘the fear of being enclosed in small spaces or rooms’, can be life changing. Ask me.

The condition, classified as a ‘panic disorder’, affects about 2–5 per cent of the world population, according to a study conducted by University of Wisconsin in Madison. The study also revealed that only a small fraction of people get treatment for the disorder. Most claustrophobics learn to live with their malady by simply avoiding certain activities or situations.

You don’t have to be severely affected to feel the fear creeping up. Rahul Chakor, professor and in-charge, Department of Neurology at TN Medical College and Nair Hospital, Mumbai, says it is all in your head, but not in the way we think. In fact, claustrophobia is a sign that your brain is malfunctioning. “There is a part of the brain called the amygdalae that controls emotions such as anxiety, panic, fear and rage. In people who suffer from all kinds of phobias, like the fear of spiders, the amygdalae works overtime and gets activated more than it should. Alongside, the prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex, which are responsible for your cognitive function, do not get activated. Hence there is an imbalance, and that’s why people feel an unnatural fear. There is no reason [to explain] why this happens.”

There are also other causes cited for claustrophobia. Psychologist SJ Rachman speaks of 21 miners trapped underground in his Phobias: A Handbook of Theory, Research and Treatment. These miners, who were trapped for 14 days, were studied for ten years after they were rescued. Six of them developed phobias that involved ‘confining or limiting situations’. Another factor that could cause the onset of claustrophobia is ‘information received’, according to mental health writer Aureau Walding. He feels that many people, especially children, learn who and what to fear by watching parents or peers. This would mean that if you see someone getting stuck in a tight space or suffocated, you may feel it too.

But, like me, most patients have no clue when and how it all started. Bank professional Sindhu Mohandas, 30, also doesn’t remember when a fear of the dark started taking over. She doesn’t recall a single bad experience that could be linked to her phobia. But she often wakes up in the middle of the night at her Bangalore apartment sweating if the electricity has gone off. And the darkness is harrowing. “I feel totally clueless. It’s like I am in a dark room and there is no door or window. And then I can’t even think straight.” Though she finds it a tad amusing when she talks about it in broad daylight, she knows she doesn’t want to shut herself in a dark room to get over the fear. “I read a piece in the newspaper recently about how the electricity on the Rajdhani train went off and it was pitch dark and people complained of feeling uncomfortable. Since then, I have made up my mind never to take a train.”

Sindhu also never takes an elevator (as she feels there is not enough air), and is always uncomfortable aboard an aeroplane. She also knows that these fears affect her daily life, but sees no way out. “My parents wanted to buy a house in Bangalore and I put my foot down and said ‘You can’t go above the 5th floor.’ It’s stupid, I know. But that’s just the way it is. It’s strange because it’s not as if I am afraid of dying. I am not. But I am afraid of the dark. It sounds silly, right?”

Gunjan Chibber does take the odd elevator ride, especially if it is a glass cabin. But ask her to take a flight, and she draws the line. She hasn’t taken more than two flights in her 30 years. “I don’t travel, except to the hills near Delhi sometimes. I just don’t go anywhere.” The two times she gathered the nerve to take a plane were to meet friends in Goa and Bangalore. And it was quite an effort. “I had to go to a doctor and get him to prescribe a relaxant. I took a pill and then put on my iPod, and that’s the only reason I made it. I know that there is no way to get out mid-air, and that’s my biggest fear. There is no way to escape. And I don’t want to deal with that.”

As Dr Chakor makes clear, anti-anxiety pills are among the few options available. These pills increase the happy neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. “The only other way is to meditate or do yoga that could help you calm down. But there is no cure as such.”

Even though there is documented evidence showing that claustrophobia is an ailment with physiological causes, most people find it funny when a person freezes in an elevator. I have often been laughed at for refusing to take a lift or shutting my eyes and cringing on a plane as it takes off. One person to blame could be actor Woody Allen, who has played a hypochondriac in many of his funny movies. The actor suffers from claustrophobia, cynophobia (fear of animals), acrophobia (fear of heights), carcinophobia (fear of cancer), enochlophobia (fear of crowds), and several others. He once told People magazine, “I don’t like to go into elevators and don’t go through tunnels. I like the drain in the shower to be in the corner and not in the middle.”

It may sound hilarious, but journalist Varun Singh, 26, found it very hard to give himself happy thoughts the day his claustrophobia set in. “I had to get a small surgery done, and for that, needed an MRI. As soon as I got inside the tube and the door shut, I started panicking. I needed to get out of there. The doctor finally had to give me anaesthesia to get me back in.” That was a few months ago, but ever since, Varun has been noticing many other things that have changed his very being. He cannot breathe if he is talking to a tall person standing too close, finds travelling on local Mumbai trains horrifying (as there are just too many people aboard), and can’t enter a tunnel even if its end is clearly visible. As he goes to bed at night, he finds it hard to cover his head with a quilt (he fears the walls will come crashing down). “I am now on anti-anxiety pills,” he says, “A few days ago, I had an attack on a train, and I couldn’t think, got a migraine and just lost all control. My friends had to come and take me to hospital. I am a real estate reporter and I can’t go into a basement. This condition has me stumped.”

For me, it’s a fear that often determines my day. I have often refused party invitations because the person lived on the 25th floor, and nixed vacations that involved flying for more than five hours. The fear itself is so big that I avoid even the slightest inclination to face it. “Fear is that little darkroom,” someone once quipped, “where negatives are developed.” Instead of giving me courage to solve my problem and get into that elevator cabin, those words just make me imagine a dark little room with no escape. Pardon me, but I need to breathe.

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