UK Woman Has Strange Phobia, A Fear Of Buttons

Twenty-two-year-old Gillian Linkins has a strange phobia -- a fear of buttons, reports UK paper The Sun.

Infact the student can't even stand to be in the same room as friends and family who wear them. Gillian says the sight of buttons sends her into panic attacks and so her 23-year-old boyfriend Nate Dorrington can only wear clothes with zippers.

She first realised her fear aged seven, when she refused to put on her school blouse: "I've had the fear as long as I remember. My mum says I freaked out when it was time to get dressed."

"I have always been fearful of buttons, especially when they are grouped together."

"For me touching a button would be like touching a cockroach. It feels dirty, nasty and wrong. When I was younger my brother used to tease me by opening my mum's button tin. I hid in my bedroom until he put them away."

"My cousin was wearing a button necklace one day and in the end she had to take it off. I could not stand being in the same room as her."

Gillian says she's even tried hypnotherapy to cure herself, without success: "Some people don�t believe me and I try to joke about it. I've tried things like self-help tapes and hypnotism but nothing has worked."

"Watching the children's TV show Button Moon is like being made to watch a horror movie. People just think I'm weird."

But she isn't the only one. The phobia, named Koumpounophobia, apparently affects one in 75,000 people.

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