There are phobias for everything. From buttons to going outside, us humans can be terrified of pretty much everything - and the latest phobia-craze dominating phobia-based forums (if you haven't wasted an entire evening on these, you don't know what you're missing) involves people photoshopping pictures of holes onto human skin.
It's known as Trypophobia and, if you have a cursory Google, you’ll find the sorts of images that will put you off your lunch. And most lunches for the rest of the week. Actually, meals. Food. It’ll put you off food. But enough about semantics - after a quick whip round in the Debrief office, we found that editor Rebecca has a stronger revulsion than most. And that she thinks she might have Trypophobia.
But is it real? And why are people like Rebecca so afraid of what is essentially a hole? Also, why is everyone posting stuff about it on the internet? I decided to take a closer look, because I'm not that arsed about them. I'm actually eating crisps and salsa while searching for Trypophobia-inducing images because of how fine with holes I am, and I'm really not sure why that sounds so rude.
What is Trypophobia?
Trypophobia definition:
The name stems from the greek ‘trypo’ which means ‘hole’ and ‘phobos’ which means ‘arse’. Obviously joking. ‘Phobos’ means ‘fear’, meaning that trypophobia is as simple as it sounds: a fear of holes. Clusters of small holes or bumps that often appear in awful, diseased wounds when maggots or worms have a go at them (yep) qualify as Trypophobia-provoking, but so do tube-like industrial photos. And holes in leaves or soil.
To further explain, feast your eyes on these trypophobia pictures of holes.
Trypophobia images:
A person with Trypophobia will have a typically strong reaction to pretty much all of these hole pictures. ‘[I feel] really shivery and a bit sick,’ says Rebecca. While shivering and looking like she might be a bit sick. ’Even thinking about it now is making me feel a bit grossed out – I can’t really explain or rationalise it, it’s a very physical, instinctive thing – if I glance at a picture with lots of holes in it, then I’ll react to it physically before I’ve even really processed what it actually is…'
For anyone wanting an update as to my own level of Trypophobia, I've stopped eating chips and dip and am now eating ice cream.
Trypophobia score: -5.
Legend score: 250,000.
Is Trypophobia real?
The term was actually coined in an online forum in 2005, rather than by a physician, due to an influx if people coming into the surgery crying about holes. Which sort of gives you an idea as to how the medical world views it. ‘Never heard of this,’ said a spokesperson for the British Psychological Society, who typically have reams of doctors on their books specialising in a variety of phobias. ‘I can give you the names of people who know about phobias in general?’
Trypophobia also isn’t recognised in the DSM-V, the big ole manual of known psychiatric disorders. But this doesn’t mean Rebecca, and people who find these hole pictures totally repulsive, are lying.
Thing is, you can find something repulsive without it actually being a phobia. A phobia is an irrational fear of something, with the operative word here being ‘irrational’. Think of it as the difference between this guy I met at a party saying he’s scared of milk and my boyfriend who is scared of being eaten by a shark if he goes in the sea. When I was told the milk thing, I was like ‘What? Like, in a carton?’ and he got really defensive ‘ at my tone’ - but I couldn’t help being fascinated, because it’s totally irrational. When my boyfriend explained he is frightened of being eaten by a shark, it was fairly easy to see where he was coming from. He doesn’t have a phobia of sharks. He has evolved to avoid things that might kill him.
This is known as biological revulsion, and is crucial to what Trypophobia actually is.
If it’s not an actual phobia, why am I repulsed by holes?
As Rebecca, our resident hole-fearing woman says: 'In a weird way I find the plant ones really gross because it reminds me of something rotting/going off. In terms of skin etc, anything that looks like it might be fungal or, again, rotting is the worst. And it doesn’t matter that I know it isn’t, or it’s been photoshopped.’
This is because Rebecca has a strong biological revulsion reflex. Back in 2013, Arnold Wilkins and George Cole from the University of Essex found that 16 percent of 286 people surveyed were upset by images the scientists had identified as inducing trypophobia.
They believed that the fear came from a programming within us to avoid things that could harm us. Just like how some people can’t deal with gore, the majority of the population prefer to avoid playing about in dog shit, we're evolutionarily programmed to not mess about with stuff like could give us a virus (dog shit) or hurt us (blood and gore makes us wince because it’s empathetic, and we want to avoid this happening to us at all costs). It induces a fight-or-flight reaction within us; but the interesting part comes as to why some people are more susceptible to it than others.
It’s interesting, because nobody knows exactly why. Similar to why some people faint at the sight of blood, and others don’t; experts agree that it’s down to an evolutionary response to protect us (If you are unconscious, you won’t bleed as quickly. Clever right?) but they’re not in agreement as to why some are more susceptible to others. It could be down to hormones, genetics, or environmental factors.
Your fear of holes may be linked to your fear of people
Imagine standing alone on stage in front of a huge gazing audience. Feeling uneasy? Anxious? Nauseous? All of the above? There are many debated theories surrounding the causes of Trypophobia but one recent study suggests that your distaste of holes actually correlated to social anxiety. Essentially, our minds associate the irregular circular clusters with a group of gazing and judgemental eyes. Therefore, the discomfort you’d feel on stage is the same feeling when you look at images of holes. So in some weird way, those harmless images of honeycomb or lotus flower seeds have the power to make us feel ogled and anxious.
To summarise…
Trypophobia isn’t a recognised phobia, because it’s not completely irrational. Although we aren’t quite so sure where it comes from it could be anything from an evolutionary need to avoid things that could harm us (i.e. disease, maggots, you get the idea) or a fight or flight response stemming from social anxiety and fear of judgement. There is a wide spectrum of sensitivity and some people are more susceptible to it than others. Finally, if someone at a party says they’re scared of milk, don’t have an edge in your voice when you reply because they’ll get really pissed off with you.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.