For much of her life, Lynsey Chalmers, 30, couldn’t bear to be beside the seaside. Aquariums, too, were off limits, as were ponds. A goldfish bowl would trigger cold sweats.
Even walking down a supermarket seafood aisle left her shaking and breathless – and she could forget a fish and chip supper.
For, as strange as it sounds, Lynsey suffers from ichthyophobia – a fear of fish.
She believes it all started when she was about three, when she almost choked on a fish bone.
‘I know it’s funny to people, but to me, fish are my worst nightmare,’ she told The Mail on Sunday. ‘Whatever form, dead or alive, in a tank or on a plate, even toys, scare me.
‘If I see a fish I feel instant panic, like I’m going to be sick – I can’t eat or drink for hours afterwards.
‘It may seem odd but it’s changed so much about my day-to-day life. I couldn’t even watch Finding Nemo with my son.’
Lynsey Chalmers, 30 – at the beach with two-year-old son Leo – would scream and run when she saw a fish, until she underwent a radical new treatment in Amsterdam
‘I’ve even been able to sit down with my son and watch Finding Nemo! I never could have imagined how far I’ve come’, says Lynsey
Lynsey is among the more than 10million people in the UK who suffer from a phobia – an extreme form of fear that interferes with their daily functioning. But undergoing a pioneering treatment in the Netherlands has transformed the mother-of-one’s life.
Now, the Paisley-based clerical assistant can swim in the ocean, take her two-year-old son Leo to the aquarium and even cook fish fingers – though she stops short of eating them herself.
‘I’d tried so many things over the years to try to shake off the phobia by myself – from watching fish in a tank to trying to sit in a restaurant as my family ate seafood – but this was the first time it actually worked,’ she says.
‘The progress I’ve made has been unbelievable.’ Lynsey’s story will be featured in Channel 4’s new six-part series The Fear Clinic, which starts on Tuesday. It follows patients with debilitating phobias being offered a radical phobia cure developed by Professor Merel Kindt – a Dutch neuroscientist who has studied the psychology of fear for more than 20 years.
Since 2018, Professor Kindt’s team has treated more than 2,000 patients suffering from extreme fear disorders ranging from a phobia of spiders, mice and enclosed spaces to toilets, eye contact and even sausage dogs.
Their brutal treatment, called Memrec, involves three steps. First the patient must be exposed to their phobia in some way – briefly eliciting their anxiety response to activate all brain connections associated with it.
Then, they are given a drug called a beta blocker. Commonly used to treat high blood pressure as well as anxiety, the medication blocks the effects of the stress hormone adrenaline – causing the heart to beat more slowly and with less force.
Finally, the patient returns the next day for a test where they face their fear once more, to see if the treatment was successful.
In 85 per cent of cases, Professor Kindt says, just one round of treatment is sufficient to permanently alleviate even the most severe fears.
Meanwhile, the traditional treatment for phobias, which involves patients repeatedly being exposed to their fear until their anxiety diminishes, has a relapse rate of around 60 per cent.
‘This high rate of relapse is what inspired me to develop a treatment that targets the fear memory itself rather than forming new memories,’ Professor Kindt says.
‘When you trigger the fear memory and give the patient a medication that interferes with the saving of that memory, then that feeling of fear is weakened.’
In the documentary, viewers see Lynsey presented with plates of raw seafood – which leaves her in tears. But, hands shaking, she was eventually guided over to touch the plates. ‘I knew I had to do it for my son,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to pass my phobia on to him, and I think it will be good for him as he gets older to know his mum conquered her worst fear.’
The next day, having taken a beta blocker and had a good night’s sleep, Lynsey says that she was prepared for another traumatic session. Yet to her surprise, she was able to enter the room almost effortlessly – and even dipped her hands in a tank full of fish.
‘I couldn’t believe the difference 24 hours made,’ she says. ‘It was almost easy to face my fear again.’
Now, more than a year later, Lynsey says her parents and husband Scott are cheered by the progress she’s made.
‘I’ve been able to stand in the sea with fish swimming around my legs. I’ve even been able to sit down with my son and watch Finding Nemo! I never could have imagined how far I’ve come.’
Other astonishing stories featured on The Fear Clinic include Ollie who has a fear of balloons. The phobia came on in childhood after Ollie became trapped into a room filled with the inflatable party decorations.
Another patient who appears on the show, Nina, suffers from amaxophobia – the fear of being a passenger in a car.
There is also Jamaican-born Devreaux, who discovered he had a phobia of sausage dogs when he moved to the UK. Meanwhile Gary confronts his phobia of frogs, which has left him struggling to go about his job as a gardener.
The Fear Clinic airs on Tuesday at 8pm on Channel 4.
