Virtuphobia

Mental condition that renders an individual psychologically and sometimes physiologically incapable of entering any virtual space.

History
The first cases of virtuphobia appeared in year 167, during the first version of the VWorld, the first Virtual Reality environment in Midoria, created by Virtual Worlds, Inc.

Due to negligence in the security measures, some users of VWorld had their Virtual Reality implants hacked, and became prisoners of VWorld until a hefty ransom was paid to the hackers. Their bodies were, for all intents and purposes, comatose, and had to be fed intravenously.

After the ransom was paid, some of the hostages presented symptoms of PTSD, and it was later discovered that they had been tortured inside the virtual reality. These patients later refused to enter any VR environment, even offline ones designed for training. The publication of their stories produced an outbreak of the disease, sending Virtual Worlds, Inc. to bankruptcy due to lack of demand.

Other episodes of virtuphobia appeared due to implant hijacking by black hats, but they became rarer as the security of brain implants became stronger, and an implant offline-switch was wired directly to the user's motor neurons.

The second epidemic of virtuphobia appeared with the screening of the Hyper-reality horror movie "I have no mouth and I must scream", a Virtual Reality adaptation of the Harlan Ellison novel. The impact of the movie was of such magnitude that the movie had to be banned after the first screening. The news spreaded so fast that people began to fear even being kidnapped and shown the movie. The next week, the maker of the movie was found dead in his apartment along with the body of his murderer, who turned out to be one of the movie watchers. After committing the murder, the perpetrator shot himself in the head. His suicide note included a last wish to have his brain incinerated.

The third epidemic, although a milder one, appeared on the debut of the Oddysey Sector of the Grid, where an extreme competitor was unable to separate from the grid due to a malfunction in his VR pod. Network trolls spreaded the rumor that the A.I. in charge of the grid had malfuncitoned and had trapped the competitor. Since then, emergency calls and A.I. agents were added to the Oddysey Sector.

Symptoms
Sufferers of virtuphobia can experience the following symptoms when approaching or hearing mentions of VR equipment: Severe cases can also include:
 * Sudden increase of heart rate
 * Spontaneous tremors
 * Panic attacks
 * Mood swings
 * Sudden panic attacks following a Deja Vu
 * Frequent calls to loved ones
 * Self-cutting
 * Frequent unmedicated use of Happy Pills
 * Obsessive compulsive behavior regarding Virtual Space, such as frequently searching the sky for "glitches", or hiding random objects in known places
 * Paranoia
 * Isolation

Treatment
Sufferers of Virtuphobia can be treated by giving them access to analog equipment, taking them to trips in rural zones, and visiting zoos and animals. Extreme cases may require forced neural reprogramming, or even an emotional lobotomy.

Notable cases
The most notable case of a victim of virtuphobia is Steve Meyer, CEO of Prometheus Enterprises. Due to personal differences with the True A.I. known as Mother, he began to have recurrent nightmares of being captured, digitized and tortured by her in a virtual hell. Fortunately, all fears were unfounded. Steve Meyer received psychiatric treatment and agreed to have neural reprogramming performed on him. After the reprogramming was done, he resigned as CEO of Prometheus and retired to a house in the Atlantean Islands, where he spent the rest of his days.