My son mentioned briefly in a blog recently that a button phobia was a silly thing. I beg to differ. Fear of buttons is a real and serious phobia. It even has a name, koumpounophobia. There are thousands of koumpounphobiacs. Steve Jobs, Apple founder, was one. On a forum (knitting) I visit daily, one woman mentioned that she had a problem with buttons and the response was amazing. Within minutes thirty or forty people had gone on detailing their problems with buttons. I have noticed that persons suffering from button phobia are generally quite intelligent. Perhaps it is this very intelligence that makes us sufferers so much more aware of the danger posed by theses seemingly harmless, supposedly inanimate objects.
I was not always onto the devious deadly button problem. As a child my mother routinely asked me to get out her button box and find a button to replace one lost from my father's shirt. It was only over time that I became aware of the problem. It started with a shudder when I saw a loose button, then a shudder and trembling if I was required to pick it up.
My husband and children learned never to ask me to sew on a loose button. If I could force myself to try, halfway through I would have to run to the bathroom and lose my lunch. Now it is painful to walk past the button aisle at Joann stores. I cannot look or I will get sick. If a button comes off my husband's shirt in the dryer I can get it out, but it involves putting on rubber gloves, a big wad of paper towels, and holding my breath until it is out, safely in the garbage can and I have made it to the bathroom where I again lose my lunch.
It is curious that I am not in any way afraid of much anything else. I pick up snakes, never met any animal that frightened me. Thunder and lightning invigorate me. Not afraid of the dark, except when entering the house after dark and in those last five steps before you make it to the door when you are most at risk of being caught by the monsters before you can get inside.
My friends waste a good deal of energy attempting to convince me that buttons are harmless. So sad that they are going through life clueless about the dangers that surround them. The buttons also apparently have the power to make my friends, otherwise nice people, into cruel hard persons. I think almost every single person who has found out about my koumpounophobia has at one time or another said, "Hey Cathy. Hold out your hand. I have something for you." Then they drop a button in my open hand and laugh hysterically when I run for the bathroom and vomit.
Perhaps I could stop the abuse with some avoidance therapy. Next time I think I won't run for the bathroom. I'll just let her rip onto their carpeting. Maybe give them a bit of emotophobia, fear of vomit. Ha!
