Friday the 13th sometimes arouses an irrational fear that can turn into a phobia. Its name is “paraskevidekatriaphobia”.
You feel bad today … Afraid that something bad will happen to you … You may be “paraskevidékatriaphobe”, from the Greek “paraskevi” (Friday) and “decatreis” (thirteen). In other words, you suffer from the phobia of Friday the 13th. An irrational fear that can lead to pathological stress in some people.
Where does this fear come from? Friday is a rather nice day since it announces for many the arrival of the weekend… It goes back to the origins of Christianity. Jesus was said to have been crucified on a Friday. And during the last meal with the apostles, just before his arrest, there were thirteen at the table… After History is in charge of making an impression. It was on Friday October 13, 1307, that King Philip the Fair had the members of the Order of the Temple (Templars) arrested and tortured them so that they confessed to crimes which they claimed not to have committed. Then, we can remember that Charlotte Corday stabs Marat on July 13. The Appolo 13 mission ended badly… And then, it was on July 13, 2011 that the rating agencies suddenly lowered Greece’s rating, causing the crisis we know…
More accidents on Friday the 13th
But, is “paraskevidekatriaphobia” a real psychiatric disorder? In fact, superstition can be defined as a phobia. The unreasoned fear of the number 13, which is more simply called “triskaïdekaphobia” becomes pathological when a person imagines all kinds of avoidance scenarios so as not to end up on a train in place n ° 13, go up to the 13th floor or of course meet 13 at the table. In other words, when this irrational fear handicaps everyday social life. A phobia becomes a real disease when there is psychological suffering and deterioration in the quality of life.
This Friday the 13th phobia has even been the subject of scientific studies. One of them, published in 1993 in the British Medical Journal, shows that there are proportionally more road accidents on Friday 13th than on Friday 6th in Great Britain. And that these accidents have a 52% more chance of leading the people involved to the hospital … Other studies reach opposite results. There would be fewer accidents on Fridays the 13th than on other Fridays because the superstitious would take maximum precautions.
The Japanese have a phobia of the 4
But the fear of Friday the 13th is not universal. In other countries, other days are marked by fear. In Japan, it is the fourth day of the month that frightens the superstitious. Why ? Because the number 4 is a very important number for the Japanese. It should be understood that the number 4 and the word “death” are pronounced in the same way. This creates such anxiety in some people that it can cause a threat of heart attack, since stress can be the cause of this type of problem. There has also been work carried out on the subject: we studied in the United States the death certificates of 200,000 Chinese or Japanese who lived in the United States, and we observed, indeed, a peak in cardiac mortality. the 4th day of each month.
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