Button Phobia

[Dinomania]

Discovered this the other day - apparently it's a fairly common phobia.

Well less of a phobia, more of an extremely intense disgust of buttons. Independently, those who suffer from this come up with really similar conclusions:

* the thought of touching one is like touching a cockroach, truly disgusting
* they're bad enough on shirts, but when handing from a thread or bereft of shirt altogether, they're even worse
* the worst kind are the little shiny white ones with holes in them
* there's no problem with the metal kind of riveted buttons you get on jeans

Why?!

Babies and children seem to have this fear from birth, or a very young age. It generally isn't associated with any button-trauma. This has truly interested me - does anyone here suffer from this, or know someone who does?

 

[Dinomania]

Description: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1762971

Experiences: http://www.unusualphobias.com/buttons.html

A couple years ago I tried to face my fear, so I drove to a clothing store 3 hours away (to avoid bad association with any of my favorite stores in case it went badly) and it's a good thing... I went in the store, and after about an hour I was able to put the shirt on, but barely got the first button done before I threw it on the floor and ran away.

Buttons are so disgusting to me that I don't even want to get help for my problem if it includes handling them.

 

[Dinomania]

Erm, dude, they can't help it.

It's funny sometimes, yeah, like the buttons - but having a faulty connection in your brain isn't stupidity, and is no more their fault than someone with a club foot or colour-blindness.

I feel very sorry for people with OCD - it takes over their lives.