get the facts first, THEN panic!

This is a post written on 11th Jan 2010 at 4:20pm in my other blog that I deleted bcos I couldn't stand to see it. And I have changed the date 'cos I don't want it to be the first post :P


Thanks to Irene (link to her blog in the sidebar), I finally know what my fear of small holes are called. TRYPOPHOBIA.

I was just telling Sneha a couple of days ago when I was in Sydney that I have this insane fear of holes. The example I used was honeycombs. I remember when I was a kid, people used to poke holes into their erasers with their pencil (even I did this) or poke staples into it to play that spinning-eraser game then later take them out leaving holes and I used to feel so ugh-ed!! That was when I realised that I hated seeing holes. Since then, I have seen so many things with holes... there was once this email that my mom showed me, it gave me nightmares for days. It was about some lady who bought a bra from a store and didn't wash it before using it for the first time and apparently there had been some worms or something that had dug holes into her breasts and there were PICTURES... I was thoroughly freaked out.

This fear actually extends to things that APPEAR to have holes in them. I remember last year a classmate and I were doing our Physics SPA graph (the one about Newton's cooling curve) in the library and there were 2 graphs that we needed to plot. So we tried to use different symbols and one was 'x' while the other was a dot with a circle around it. Seeing the dots with circles around them made me pukey. Now I realise it's because they kinda looked like little holes. BLEAURGH. I couldn't stand looking at them for more than a few seconds, so I just ripped that paper up instead of bothering to erase the symbols (even though I had to redo the first graph again). Also made said friend sit far away from me 'cos he didn't intend on getting rid of them. :P

In Irene's blog, there was a link to someone else's blog which had an entry about this phobia. As I was opening that link, I had already covered my eyes with my hand and was peeking through the gap. I scrolled DAMN FAST and saw 2 pictures, freaked out and closed the window AFAP. I actually wanted to read more about it, but I didn't dare revisit the page (apparently there's even a video? How sick!). And now I'm too afraid to even google/wiki 'tryopophobia' 'cos I'm sure there'll be some pictures involved :(

Godddd how disgusting.

Honestly, knowing that such a phobia exists and having a NAME attached to it makes me feel even worse. 'Cos it just kinda confirms my fears. And makes me feel like a mental patient. Ugh. Still having goosebumps.