Michelle Chouraqui’s mom was only trying to make the house smell nice; what she did was make her daughter vomit.
The air freshener, which contained scented wax, was almost empty, leaving “circular patterns like a honeycomb,” remembers Chouraqui, who was only 7 years old at the time. “I felt like someone punched me in my stomach. I was sick and dizzy and ended up throwing up.”
Her parents called her dramatic; her friends called her a liar; her school counselor called her one of a kind.
“I basically suffered in silence,” says Chouraqui, now a 35-year-old accountant in Westchester, New York, who fears many naturally occurring patterns resembling honeycombs or clusters of seeds. The image of sprinkles on a cake in her daughter’s favorite book; pomegranates, peppers and cantaloupe; even sunflowers make her do-not-look-at list.
“I’ve likened the experience of seeing a trigger to having a gun pointed at your head — it’s like you actually fear for your life,” she says. “And when it’s over, it’s like you have PTSD from each experience.”
It wasn’t until about five years ago that Chouraqui learned from a friend that other people had similar aversions, and that it had a name: trypophobia. “I cried I was so happy,” she says.
Trypo-what?
Indeed, trypophobia has a name, but it doesn’t have a universal definition. The experience isn’t currently recognized as a disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, although some experts say it could classify as a specific phobia, which is defined as “an extreme fear of a certain object, place or setting that is often not as harmful as [those affected] perceive,” according to APA’s book, “Understanding Mental Disorders: Your Guide to DSM-5.” Fears of needles, insects and flying are all types of specific phobias.
“It’s just like any other phobia — we avoid pomegranates and honeycombs, just as you avoid tall buildings, bridges or spiders,” says Becca Price, a 19-year-old in Heath, Ohio, who says everything from car grills to peach pits, cheese graters and sliced apples with the core cut out could give her a panic attack.
“I feel sheer panic. I cry uncontrollably and breathe faster. My heart and mind races. My chest gets tight, and I just want everything to stop. In that moment, I would give my left leg for it to stop,” she says. “I want to run away as fast as possible, but it’s in my mind, and unfortunately, you can’t run from your own thoughts.”
[See: 9 Phobias That Are Surprisingly Common.]
While fears of potentially dangerous things like tall buildings and spiders are easier to understand, one theory suggests that the fear of clusters of small holes could derive from an evolutionary desire to avoid holes in which venomous animals lurk, and to avoid circular patterns on plants and animals indicating disease. “The phobia arises in part because the inducing stimuli share basic visual characteristics with dangerous organisms,” researchers wrote in a 2013 study in Psychological Science.
But other experts aren’t convinced “phobia” is the right term for the reaction, which often involves discomfort like itchiness and disgust more than fear, says Jin Zheng, an associate professor at Zhengzhou Normal University in China. His recent research found that preschoolers felt uncomfortable around images of honeycomb-like patterns and images of venomous animals with honeycomb-like patterns, but not around images of venomous animals without honeycomb-like patterns.
“The data provide evidence that the discomfort toward a particular cluster of holes originates not from the fear of dangerous objects but from the unique pattern properties,” he says.
Sometimes, trypophobia has features of obsessive-compulsive disorder too. When Lesley Gordon, a 27-year-old financial analyst in Seattle who has trypophobia, was about 10, for example, she had a nightmare that her body was covered in bumps exploding with pus. “It was this confusing compulsion of wanting to stop seeing it in my mind, while obsessing about it and almost needing to feel the bumps in real life,” she remembers. “It’s the weirdest feeling, like being a moth drawn to a light.”
Those upsetting, recurrent thoughts typically characteristic of OCD aren’t unusual among people with trypophobia, one recent study out of South Africa found. In it, researchers surveyed almost 200 self-described trypophobics and found that one-third washed and cleaned a lot, about 40 percent frequently checked things, a third experienced upsetting, recurrent thoughts and 40 percent were concerned about orderliness and symmetry. Still, while few had all the criteria of obsessive-compulsive disorder, almost 30 percent met criteria for a specific phobia. Many had other mental health conditions like depression and generalized anxiety disorder. “Given the relatively high rates of comorbid psychiatric diagnoses,” the authors conclude it’s key to screen all patients presenting with trypophobia for additional mood and anxiety symptoms.
[See: 7 Ways to Build Resilience for Crises and Everyday Life Challenges.]
Facing Fears
No matter how it’s classified or caused, though, a few things are clear: Lots of people have unwanted — sometimes, severe — reactions to clusters and holes; the response is out of their conscious control and can’t be overcome through logic alone; and help is available, says Julie L. Pike, a clinical psychologist in Durham, North Carolina who specializes in anxiety disorders including specific phobias.
“I would define [trypophobia] as a proposed phobia, and it is not one that is adequately documented at this time, nor is it adequately researched at this time,” she says. “The most important thing is that it responds to treatment.”
She worked with one man, for example, whose fear of circular shapes was so strong he couldn’t leave his home. “The whole house had been rearranged — no doorknobs, no glasses … no fizzy water,” Pike says. But after only four sessions of exposure therapy, which involves slowly exposing patients to the very thing they fear — in this case, looking at a drawing of a circle long before, say, eating a pomegranate — the patient recovered.
“If you’re willing to experience your fear response and continue to stare in a systematic way at the same object over and over instead of avoiding it, your limbic brain habituates, which is just a fancy word for becoming bored,” Pike explains. “Your brain says, ‘Well, this hasn’t killed us. What’s for dinner?'”
For Chouraqui, who hasn’t sought treatment for trypophobia, avoiding triggers when reasonable — like reading her daughter’s favorite book without looking at the picture of sprinkle-covered cake — has helped. “I don’t seek out the images, but I don’t go out of my way to avoid them, and I don’t let them alter my life,” she says. “Learning more about it seems to be the best therapy.” She also meditates, exercises and looks at soothing imagery like “beautiful houses on Zillow,” she jokes.
[See: 8 Ways Meditation Can Improve Your Life.]
Virtual social support has also been therapeutic for many people with trypophobia who often face skepticism — if not flat-out taunts — from people in their lives who don’t understand it. “This fear is very real. It sounds ridiculous and it’s easy to brush off as ludicrous, but many people deal with this,” says Gordon, who’s in the same Facebook support group as Chouraqui and Price. The group has over 2,600 members. “If you’re one of those people, you’re not alone.”
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Living With Trypophobia: a Fear of Honeycomb-like Patterns originally appeared on usnews.com
