“Did I remember to lock the door or will someone break in and hurt my family?”
“If I keep my bedroom door shut when I am asleep, how will I hear the sound if an intruder enters at night?”
“I’m terrified of open doors. Even when a door is left slightly ajar, I have this creepy thought that someone is watching me.”
“If I touch this door handle, who knows how many germs I’ll come into contact with?”
Nearly everyone has had an occasional fear related to doors. But for some people, thoughts like these are not fleeting—they’re persistent, bringing a degree of distress into daily life. So what’s behind these fearful thoughts?
Read on to understand the fear of doors, the various culprits that could be causing it, and how to feel less anxious.
Why do I get anxious about doors?
Doors are often used as metaphors because of their duality; they’re both entrances and exits. A shut door may represent closed-mindedness, while a wide open door shows receptiveness to new possibilities. Doorways allow you to leave something or someone behind or welcome them in. They can symbolize decision-making or transitioning, the passage through which you move from one state of being into another.
If doors make you uneasy, that anxiety may be tied to what they open you up to—or alternatively, what they close you off from.
When what’s on the other side of a door—for instance, the outside world—is seen as a threat, you may see doors as a boundary keeping you safe. An open door, like one you potentially forgot to shut, exposes you to an environment that you can’t control.
You may also have had prior negative experiences that you associate with doors. Perhaps your parents routinely disciplined you as a child by sending you to your room, alone, and slamming the door. As an adult, you may still see a door and recall to mind those feelings of aggression, isolation, or punishment.
Doors have even become the subject of frightening headlines in recent years—i.e. “Secure Classroom Doors to Stop Active Shooters”—as school shootings have been on the rise. For those with an intense fear of mass shootings, just looking at a door that seems “unsafe” can be triggering.
Is my fear of doors a mental health concern?
If your fear of doors is affecting your daily life, it may be a sign of a larger issue, such as a phobia or a mental health disorder. Here are some examples:
PTSD:
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) happens after experiencing a traumatic event. If doors played a role in previous traumas, they may cause ongoing distress. For example, maybe you were in a car accident where the doors got jammed and you struggled to escape. This may result in a sense of panic if, say, the Uber driver unintentionally locks your door without your knowledge.
Specific phobias:
Specific phobias are intense fears about a specific object, situation, or activity. Entamaphobia is the fear of doors, which is closely associated with claustrophobia and agoraphobia.
Agoraphobia is the fear of being in a public space where you might become trapped, helpless, or embarrassed. Claustrophobia is an intense fear of confined spaces. Entamaphobia relates to agoraphobia as open doors can trigger a fear reaction, while closed doors that “secure a space” can make some people feel more safe. Similarly, entamaphobia can be linked to claustrophobia for those who feel like they are “suffocating” in enclosed spaces with a shut door.
If you have entamaphobia, you may experience symptoms such as:
- Getting emotional—crying, shaking, etc.—at the sight (or thought) of doors
- Physical symptoms like shivering, sweating, trembling, dizziness, headaches, or nausea in the presence of doors
- Frequently peeking outside of doors to see if there are dangers ahead
- Excessively ensuring doors are locked and/or installing multiple locks on all doors
Since doors are so ubiquitous they may even cause issues within specific phobias that they are seemingly unrelated to. “Maybe people are very scared of loud noises, so they want to do everything that they can to make sure that if a door is open, it won’t slam,” says Dr. Patrick McGrath, PhD, the Chief Clinical Officer at NOCD. “So, they put excessive numbers of wedges and shoes in front of the door to make sure it doesn’t move.”
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
A fear of doors may appear in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a mental health condition defined by two main symptoms: obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are unwanted intrusive thoughts, fears, sensations, feelings and/or images. These may manifest as excessive worries about whether or not a door is secured. The obsessive thoughts may sound like this: “How do I know for sure that the front door is locked? Even if someone else closed it, how do I know that it’s actually closed? Maybe I should go check it again,” McGrath explains. In OCD, obsessions lead to compulsions, which are behaviors or mental acts done in an effort to reduce distress. Repetitively checking if a door is locked is a common compulsion, notes McGrath.
Many door-related obsessions are associated with Responsibility OCD, a subtype of OCD that involves an exaggerated responsibility for others’ well-being. For instance, you may have frequent intrusive thoughts about overlooking something vital. Door fears can also be a part of harm OCD, a subtype that leaves many people afraid that they could be a danger to themselves or others. Or they can be a symptom of ”just right” OCD, which pertains to things feeling “not right” and/or incomplete in some way.
Door-related obsessions in OCD:
- “What if I left my car door unlocked and everything gets stolen?”
- “Someone rang my doorbell and I’m home alone. How do I know it’s not a murderer?”
- “What if deep down I want an intruder to break down my door and steal everything I own?”
- “If I don’t double lock all the doors, what if my dog escapes and gets hit by a car, and I’m responsible for his harm?
- “I must lock and unlock the front door 5 times, otherwise something bad will happen.”
Door-related compulsions in OCD:
- Avoidance, such as staying home to avoid dealing with doors/locks
- Mentally reviewing your memory of checking the locks
- Taking pictures of your door after you’ve locked it
- Seeking reassurance from loved ones: “Did I lock the door?”
- Giving yourself reassurance: “I definitely locked the doors”
- Checking locks multiple times in a row
- Tapping door knobs or locks
- Excessively changing or testing the locks
- Adding more and more locks to each door
- Distracting yourself from your thoughts and worries
Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder
Anxiety around doors might appear in obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). OCPD, which is entirely distinct from OCD, is a personality disorder where one has an extreme preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control. Someone with OCPD may get distressed when all the doors in their house aren’t shut. Or they might not trust anyone else to control door security in their household. They may say to themselves, “Yeah, it’s fine that my partner went through the house to check that all the doors were locked, but now I have to do it because I can’t trust that it was done ‘the right way,’” according to McGrath.
How to overcome a fear of doors
Your approach to overcoming your fear of doors depends on the root of the fear.
If trauma is an underlying cause of your fear of doors, it’s important to work with a mental health professional who can help you get the proper treatment—which may include a combination of medication and psychotherapy. There are different forms of therapy that may be recommended, including cognitive processing therapy—a specific type of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that focuses on how your traumatic event is perceived and how you cope with the emotional part of your experience.
If trauma isn’t at play, a specific behavioral therapy called exposure and response prevention (ERP) is usually a good place to start. ERP was designed to treat OCD, but it can also be beneficial if your issue is a specific phobia or OCPD. (That said, those with OCPD may also benefit from additional treatment modalities, like CBT.)
A therapist who specializes in ERP will guide you as you’re deliberately exposed to your triggers. You’re then taught response prevention techniques to cope with distress. In cases of OCD, you learn how to not respond with compulsions.
The process unfolds gradually. For instance, let’s say you’re dealing with “just right” OCD and you must have all doors open to exactly 90 degrees.
If immediately switching to completely open or closed doors seems too difficult, you can start small—what if you tried to open the door at 92 degrees?”
Dr. Patrick McGrath
You might have an obsession where you have to make sure the door is latched. You compulsively require yourself to check the latch an even amount of times, and are set on doing it six times. “What if you only do four? And then we’ll go down to two, and then we’ll go down to one, an odd number,” McGrath says.
Over time, ERP treatment gets you to a point where your fears surrounding doors simply do not rule your life. You can sleep peacefully, leave the house to go to work, and not be held captive by your intrusive thoughts.
Bottom Line
Whether your fear of doors stems from OCD, OCPD, or a specific phobia, effective treatments like ERP are out there. When you’re ready, the door to a better life is wide open.
