Dec 12, 2010 - Surinam toads, which have eggs embedded in their backs, are horrific, as are ampullae of Lorenzini, these
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The improbable horror of clusters December 12, 2010
Eighty percent of you will read this and think I am insane. One in five will feel relieved that there are others out there like them. I have a phobia. Well, it's not a fear so much as this deep-seated existential disgust. When I see it, I feel nauseous and itchy. It's burned into my psyche, to be trotted out at random times and in nightmares. It is ... clusters. Specifically, irregular clusters of organically shaped holes or bumps. For example: The way a head of garlic looks if you slice it horizontally, bumpy rashes, certain coral textures, a cut open papaya and the grouping of spiders' eight eyes. This texture, like obscenity, is hard to define, but I know it when I see it. Until Wednesday, I thought my little sister, Elizabeth, and Statesman Journal photographer Kobbi Blair were the only people in the world that felt this way beside me. But it turns out this seems common, though I can't find a single bit of research or any articles about it. There are even Internet-coined terms for it: trypophobia, or repetitive pattern phobia. People parse this disgust on discussion boards and join groups about it on Facebook. Nearly everyone who posts begins by saying that they thought they were the only one with this problem, which makes sense because this is a difficult thing to explain to nonsufferers. So I did some of the least scientifically sound research imaginable: I asked around the office and Facebook. My findings: About one in five feel as I do. A great litmus test for this phobia is the lotus seed pod (see photos). The majority of people have no reaction to a picture of this abomination, but a certain group will shudder and cover the photo up with a mug or something so they can continue reading in peace. After I asked my Facebook friends about which reaction they had, I got 33 replies. Here are some of them: "Deeply shaken." "That was so disgusting!" "I suffer after looking at those pictures." "Maaaaaake iitttttt stoppppppppp!" "(I) can't really face small, irregularly or asymmetrically placed holes, they make me like, throw up in my mouth, cry a little bit, and shake all over, deeply." People who are even more sensitive to this than me report problems with sea sponges, honeycombs, English muffins and pumice stones. I'm iffy but usually OK with those things. But there are very, very bad things out there. Surinam toads, which have eggs embedded in their backs, are horrific, as are ampullae of Lorenzini, these weird jelly-filled holes that sharks have in their heads. And then, there is The Worst Picture.
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This photo has done for trypophobes what John Wayne Gacy and "It" did for clown phobia. No one in the world should look at this picture for any reason. Someone has Photoshopped the holes and bumps of the lotus seed pod onto a woman's breast. It's accompanied by a disgusting, fake story about her going to South America and getting this weird rash. This picture is the apex of horror, the high-octane nightmare fuel for cluster avoiders. I saw it in 2003 and was upset for weeks. Six years later, little sister called me on the phone, crying, and told me she had seen the worst image in the world. I knew instantly that it was the same one. On discussion boards dedicated to this topic, it's referred to as "that picture." If you do not have this phobia, and you look at that picture, it is quite possible that you will walk away a trypophobe. And this picture gets to what may be the root of trypophobia — when I see this texture, I imagine it on my skin. I want to get away from it, so I don't catch it. It makes me think of pestilence, of parasites, of something being unfixably wrong. Because you know what looks like this? Smallpox. Boils. Aggressive, full-body wart growths. All things that one does well to avoid. Anyway, I have no solution or words of advice for those who are like me out there, so I called Dr. David Kinzie, a professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University. He first said that neither he nor his colleagues had ever come across someone with this fear but that it was possible that people just weren't seeking psychiatric help for it. "The (phobias) that comes to psychiatrists cause some problem," he said, like those who cannot drive over a bridge. And it made sense to him that several people in my and Kobbi's families suffer from this. "Phobias in general run in families," he said. "There's probably some genetic predisposition." He was receptive but noncommittal on my smallpox theory but did note that 20 percent of the population has some sort of phobia. The normal treatment, he said, is gently progressing exposure. But even this sounds wretched to some trypophobes. One coworker told me he wouldn't talk to me until Monday, after the column is out, and little sister Elizabeth is terribly upset. "I wish that I didn't have to be constantly reminded of it," she said when I called her. "I don't even know how you're writing this column. I feel so ill just thinking about this." K. Williams Brown is the entertainment reporter for the Statesman Journal. She hopes that someone actually researches this ... but not around her.
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