It’s not an understatement to say I’m afraid of nearly everything. This can include physical things such as spiders and birds, as well as internal fears such as failing. It doesn’t take much to make me jump, and during scary movies it’s an accomplishment if I don’t cover my eyes in cowardice. These are a few examples of what can cause me a sense of anxiety.
This makes it only fitting that something as simple as holes, is one of my greatest fears.
It’s important to note that it isn’t just holes that scare me but a bunch of holes clustered together that gets my heart racing. This is referred to as trypophobia: the fear of clusters of small holes, bumps, or patterns. Things that may fit this description include sunflowers, seedy fruits, skin punctured with holes, and… bumpy pumpkins.
One clear memory I can correlate my fear of holes to is in elementary school and it involves the ugliest pumpkin I’ve ever seen.
My mom is a primary teacher and every year around fall they go over a unit on pumpkins. Naturally, she brought one to show the students in her class. Pumpkins are associated with smoothness and are orange. To my surprise, she picked out the complete opposite. It’s not an exaggeration when I say it was the ugliest, bumpiest pumpkin that she could have picked out. Some might be intrigued and want to inspect it, but not me. When I looked at the monstrosity of a ‘pumpkin’ my chest tightened and I could not bear to look at it. The textured circles on the bumps made my dramatic self want to gag whenever I saw it. This I believe was the start to my trypophobia.
Fortunately for me it’s not often I run into these small clusters. However, when I do I am unable to maintain staring at the objects. Physically my chest will get tight and my stomach in knots. The picture will get plastered into my brain and in order for me to move on it’s essential for me to complain to those around me of the disturbing tiny holes.
Maybe one day I will be able to overcome my trypophobia, but for now I’m cursed with bumpy pumpkins haunting my dreams.
