Disgust. Normal or alarm?
What is a feeling of disgust, and when does it go beyond ordinary cleanliness? Why do some people associate this feeling with fear, while others have a sharp need for purity? Is it possible to get rid of disgust or is it a persistent character trait?
Disgust, fear of objects that smell or look unpleasant. A sharp desire to distance oneself from something or someone who is regarded as a source of dirt, stench, pain or illness, as well as neglect, exactingness, pretentiousness, legibility, fastidiousness - there are a lot of options for manifesting disgust.
It has always been believed that hypertrophied disgust is a feeling inherent to a greater extent in the representatives of the so-called high society, as a manifestation of a “fine mental organization”, and therefore a more sensitive and vulnerable psyche. And that is why it is customary to think that squeamish young ladies are more common in city libraries, universities, or museums than in village clubs, cowsheds or poultry farms.
How true are these claims?
In addition, sometimes disgust can develop into a phobia or an obsession with cleanliness, significantly affecting the quality of life and psychological comfort of its owner. In such cases, a person begins to deliberately avoid situations and circumstances in which there is a risk of facing potential sources of disdain, or spending 24 hours cleaning-laundering-licking his home, workplace or his own body.
What exactly is a feeling of disgust and when it goes beyond ordinary cleanliness?
Why do some people associate this feeling with fear, while others have a sharp need for purity?
Is it possible to get rid of disgust or is it a persistent character trait?
Let's try to figure it out systematically. A feeling of disgust can manifest itself in the properties of cutaneous, visual or anal vectors in certain conditions.
I feel the microbe on my skin
Representatives of the cutaneous vector are particularly sensitive to the skin. In addition, it is the leather workers who, like no one else, are concerned about the state of their health, because this is a value, a resource that must be spent with restraint and extremely rationally. Sports, healthy eating, diets, daily routine - all this is given to them easily, since the ability to self-restraint is due to their psychological nature, and high-intensity metabolism quickly makes the results of such efforts noticeable.
However, in a state of stress, it is the skin that is the first to react. Stress in the skin vector can be caused by a major material or social loss, such as: dismissal from work, demotion, theft of property or other valuables, it can also be a loss of time, money, opportunities, connections, employees, efforts and others. resources.
Unhealthy conditions of the skin vector or a stress reaction of the skin can manifest itself as a feeling of disgust, as the possibility of bacteria penetrating the skin as a result of tactile contact with dirty objects. Disease-causing bacteria are a direct threat to health, which means they are at risk of even greater loss.
The psychological stress of a skin person in bad conditions results in negative skin sensations, pathogenic microbes appear almost everywhere: on door handles, handrails in transport, in public catering, toilets, and so on.
Increasingly, a person has a desire to wash his hands, wipe them with napkins or antibacterial agents, a feeling of disgust is caused by any shared items, cutlery in restaurants, buttons in elevators, as well as shaking hands, hugging, kissing and other gestures involving contact with the skin of another person …
The skin can react to stress with itching, rashes, redness, spots, even pain or the development of inflammatory reactions.
With an understanding of the psychological background of such somatic manifestations of negative conditions of the skin vector, the problem of disgust is solved by itself and its problematic skin manifestations go away, in addition, the effectiveness of the treatment of skin diseases is significantly increased.
Cleanliness or an obsessive passion for cleanliness?
Representatives of the anal vector sometimes explain their addiction to purity by disgust. The division into "clean and dirty" is embedded in their psychic so deeply that it manifests itself in all spheres of activity. For example, judgments in the style “my blood are my children” or the bride must be a virgin - “a pure woman” is a manifestation of exclusively anal properties.
This very property of the psyche helps real critics, experts or analysts to find and remove that "fly in the ointment" that spoils the whole result of the work, to find an oversight of performers, a mistake in a large-scale project, an incorrectly inserted screw in a huge mechanism and fix it, which makes such highly qualified specialists in their field are the most valuable and demanded workers.
In the case when a person with an anal vector loses the opportunity to realize the existing properties in society (quit his job, retire, and the like), he may try to realize his psychological needs in a different way, which sometimes turns into a real passion for purity.
Explaining to everyone around and to himself his behavior with increased cleanliness, a person begins to fill all his time with cleaning, cleaning, washing, washing and other similar activities, rubbing everything around to a shine and forcing all household members to participate in maintaining the most severe sterility regime.
The manifestation of such super-cleanliness, which affects the quality of life of both the lover of cleanliness and his family members, is evidence of growing shortages, frustrations, and a lack of realization of the innate psychological properties of the anal vector. All this can be successfully corrected by being realized in socially useful activities, while receiving much more pleasure and satisfaction than from the hundredth rubbing the toilet bowl or washing the curtains.
In any case, understanding the nature of one's desires, whether realized or not, makes it possible to receive the fullest pleasure from life - from the satisfaction of existing psychological needs.
Disgust to horror, or fear of dirt
If disgust is associated with the fear of touching something or someone dirty, foul-smelling, which is associated with the danger of contracting any disease, this is most likely a manifestation of visual fears.
Disgust as fear has its psychological roots in the ancient fear of death, inherent precisely in the representatives of the visual vector. If something is disgusting, has an unpleasant odor or looks, it means that it may be a source of bacteria or toxins, parasites may be found in it, which means danger to health and life, especially given the weak immunity of the owners of the visual vector.
The properties of the visual vector find their fulfillment in emotions, the visual person always feels the need for emotional connection with others, he enjoys communication, from the exchange of emotions, but the direction of these feelings and emotions - either to receive or to give - already depends on the level development of the visual vector.
Fear of death, fear for your life - this is the most primitive emotion directed inward, to receive. She was able to give content to the properties of the visual vector only at the very beginning of human development, at the time of early people, the ancestors of modern man. Then visual observation, curiosity, special vision, able to distinguish between a predator or enemies lurking in ambush, multiplied by a strong fear of death from the teeth of these very predators, gave the visitor a unique ability to quickly and strongly be frightened, thereby warning the entire human flock in time about the threat of danger. It was this ability to be frightened that saved the early spectator's life.
Time passed, humanity developed, the ability to be afraid for one's life no longer gave the fulfillment that it had before. Temperament, or the power of desire in the vector, increased with each new generation, the properties of the vector found their realization in art and culture, in raising children and instilling moral values, in medicine and charity.
The primitive early fear of death, fear for one's life grew into the ability to fear for others, to sympathize, to empathize with one's neighbor, to fear for his life and health, which means that they made the viewer able to feel a much stronger and fuller feeling than fear. This is the feeling of love and, as its highest manifestation, the feeling of sacrificial love for all people, for all of humanity, when the fear FOR ANOTHER becomes stronger than the fear FOR YOURSELF. At such a high level of development, a representative of the visual vector does not feel the desire to fill himself with a feeling of fear in any of its manifestations, fear for him is no longer the emotion that can satisfy him.
Feelings of love and compassion many times more fully and more intensely satisfy the need of the visual vector for emotions, which means that the pleasure from such satisfaction is several times greater than the weak and temporary pleasure from the experience of fear.
Emotional connection with a person, which implies GIVING, that is, sincere pity, compassion, love for those people who need help - this is a kind of visual aerobatics, filling vector properties at the highest level, which corresponds to the temperament of a modern person and gives the highest enjoyment of activities based on such feelings.
Often, as a result of erroneous upbringing, the development of the visual vector stops at the level of fear, or rather, at the level of getting pleasure from the experience of fear. The break in the emotional connection with the mother, home scares, scary books, fairy tales, films, violent computer games and the like fix the child in a state of fear, gradually he learns to enjoy self-scare and continues to seek the filling of visual properties in a similar vein. This manifests itself in an addiction to horror films, in the movements of emo or goths, various kinds of superstitions, omens, up to the formation of persistent phobias or attacks of panic attacks.
Disgust, as one of the variants of the manifestation of the primitive feeling of fear of death, is an attempt to realize the existing visual properties at the most elementary level, and the formation of various phobias against the background of increased disgust indicates a low level of development of the visual vector.
Lyrical digression, or the transition to personalities
The author of this text cannot boast of a high level of development of the visual vector, since until a certain time she herself was terribly afraid of the dark, mice, snakes, spiders and even … bridges, more precisely, to cross a bridge over a river if water was visible underfoot. It got to the point of ridiculousness, I was forced to look for another road, bypassing the bridge, or walk with my eyes closed, so as not to see the water under my feet, since it was simply not possible to take at least a step. I was drenched in cold sweat, my legs became cottony, a shiver ran all over my body, all my limbs turned to stone, my eyes grew dark. There was no explanation for this strange phobia, I just avoided any walking on the bridges.
The fear of the dark bothered me much more and more often. A dark entrance, a staircase, a burned-out light bulb in an elevator or corridor, even two steps from the switch to the bed inspired me with real horror, in the silence of the night I constantly heard some suspicious sounds, terrible shadows flashed, or I fancied horrors. The included night light has become commonplace in my room, and the flashlight in my purse is a must.
For some reason I associated disgust with seemingly high intelligence and a refined emotional nature. Most funny now, the sight of a comb with tangled hair, an overflowing trash can, dirty nails, a handkerchief, or a poorly cleaned public toilet caused a wave of nausea and disgust.
And then there was admission to the medical institute. Life turned upside down, study overwhelmed my head, practice in hospitals gave a sea of new sensations and experiences, I wanted to know and be able to do everything at once.
Only now I gradually understand why there was such a greed specifically for skills, a desire to work with people, to treat patients. For the first time in my life, I received the filling of the properties of the visual vector of such a high level.
One watch was replaced by another, one hospital - another, a clinic, therapy, an infectious diseases department, a children's hospital, intensive care … shock! It was a real shock from the emotions that swept over me. Resuscitation from the first shifts took a huge place in my heart, and therefore in my life. It was nursing work - caring for patients, fulfilling appointments, observing hygiene requirements, aseptic-antiseptic rules, communication, human participation and direct assistance to people who need it like no one else - that became my passion. The question of choosing a specialization was finally decided already in the third year.
Only now, after many years, I understand that I was so drawn to work in intensive care. Now I remember quite clearly how, just a few months after the start of work, I absolutely calmly walked along the dark corridor of the night department, entered the patients' wards, not turning on the light so as not to disturb their sleep. The sounds of artificial respiration, which seemed to strangers, were quite ordinary and not at all scary for me.
Any fear is gone, in principle, it is gone at all! Even a hint of any manifestation of disgust when caring for postoperative wounds, when working with blood and other fluids, during hygiene procedures, or helping with food, disappeared. All this was a joy. Work filled me like never before. It was a pleasure never seen before.
Nothing before has brought me such pleasure!
Emotional connection with a person who is suffering, relief of his pain, return of emotions, attachment to each patient gave rise to a sea of feelings of the highest level, in which one could simply drown.
I wanted to give, sympathize, empathize and humanly love all my patients again and again, it didn’t stop even the fact that more than 90% of them would never be able to even remember the faces of those who looked after them. The urge to give was stronger than the urge to receive feedback. Nobody expected gratitude, the very opportunity to give filled.
Quite separate feelings were for those who could not be saved. Yes, it’s sad, it hurts, it’s always a sediment and a shade of guilt that we didn’t do more, even if we did everything possible and impossible.
There were a lot of different things: donating your own blood, and buying medicines for your own money, and zealous arguments with colleagues, and studying books all night long. And the patients left, but still there was no feeling that all this was in vain, there was no feeling that the energy was wasted, there was not even resentment towards the relatives cursing us … there was only a very special feeling of gratitude, no, gratitude to the departed.
It was as if we were not exhausted trying to save their lives, but they were doing us a favor, accepting those feelings, those decisions, the energy that we tried to put into them. Thanks for accepting our commitment.
These are feelings, experiences of such strength, emotions of such a level, they overwhelm the head, sweeping away all this emotional husk and stupid little things like fears, phobias, panic, disgust, superstitions and similar psychological garbage. In comparison with the sensations of the return of emotions, all primitive attempts to consume them seem to be some kind of empty nonsense and childish pranks. They do not fill any more, do not attract more, do not act in life, do not affect its quality, are not present at all in the emotional sphere, they are not there, as if you have outgrown them, thrown them away as unnecessary, as an unnecessary thing.
There were significant changes in life, but an explanation of those changes and an awareness of the nature of their sensations came only now, with the formation of systemic thinking and a deep understanding of what is happening in the psyche.
Thus, even without having an initially high level of development of the visual vector, one can learn to find the fulfillment of the existing properties at the highest level and pull oneself up a notch even in adult life, when the very process of vector development has already been completed, because the end of puberty is far in the past.
If there are properties, then they require their own fulfillment, the presence of a vector means the presence of corresponding desires, but the satisfaction of these desires, more precisely, the option or method of satisfaction, depends only on you. The choice determines the intensity of the filling, and therefore the pleasure you receive.
You can continue to be afraid of brownies and spiders, filling yourself with horror stories, occasionally breaking into domestic tantrums. Or you can try to share your emotions, provide help to those who need it, try to give in full, feel what it means to love people. Love by deeds, actions, efforts, and not idle chatter and imaginary compassion. It is difficult, it is scary, it takes time, effort and determination, but the fulfillment that you receive, I will say without exaggeration, will blow your mind! Try it.
Disgust, no matter how it manifests itself - whether it is love for a mop, or horror of microbes - this is a dead end, an erroneous turn on the path of life, somewhere you turned the wrong way and are trying to get through the jungle, entangled in your own desires and fictional rationalizations.
In such cases, understanding yourself, your nature of desires, the mechanisms of the psyche becomes simply necessary so that life does not turn into an endless run in a circle, either from dirt or to purity. The correct journey through life is that which gives joy, which leads to the present oneself and brings the greatest pleasure from the realization of only one's own, innate psychological properties.
