Do you think this belly button is a bit scary?

There are many strange phobias in the world, such as the common ones like acrophobia, gigantophobia (when I was writing about Bayuquan, many people were overwhelmed by the Bayu Princess), noise phobia, and deep-sea phobia.

Less common ones include cat phobia, whale phobia, etc. One of them sounds very funny, called belly button phobia.

hhh What kind of weird phobia is this? Is it because I’ve heard too many old people say “Don’t touch your belly button”?

Image from Wikipedia

People with "belly button phobia" are afraid of touching other people's belly buttons. They are also very afraid of having their own belly buttons touched by others. They even feel uncomfortable or nauseous just by seeing or thinking about their "belly buttons" .

Some psychologists believe that this condition may be caused by the psychological connection between the belly button, the umbilical cord, and the mother's womb.

But unlike other phobias, patients with this phobia actually had a mysterious obsession with belly buttons when they were children.

It is not like gigantic fear or thalassophobia, where people will subconsciously avoid the source of stimulation. People with "belly button phobia" may hurt themselves due to frequent "poking" and cause belly button infection.

This sounds a bit like "cleanliness obsession". People always claim to see something dark or dirty in their belly buttons. This thing makes them feel very dirty and filthy, and makes them feel disgusted every time they see or think about their belly buttons, so they will try to use very sharp objects to remove these things.

Image source: Zhihu screenshot

So, does this fear affect life? What causes it?

01

Is it also about the smell?

Lauren Jones, a medical student from the University of Leicester in the UK, feels an inexplicable fear and nausea when she sees her belly button.

As a medical student, she would inevitably have to perform abdominal examinations on a regular basis. However, this made it difficult for her because she had to overcome the feeling of nausea about her belly button in order to continue studying the course, which had a great impact on her studies.

According to her recollection, she had a very bad impression of belly buttons since she was a child. When she was a child, she poked her friend's belly button and smelled the smell. She felt that she would never forget it in her life, so maybe that fear arose at that moment.

As she herself said, "I know this may sound ridiculous, but I literally cannot touch my belly button, or let anyone touch my belly button."

02

Why does fear exist?

**There are several main reasons for phobias.** The first is the lack of understanding of things . Generally speaking, people will not be afraid of things that they are very familiar with. Many studies have confirmed that people's fears largely come from not understanding things. If you can fully understand a thing, you can easily judge whether it will cause harm to yourself.

The second point is the conditioned reflex after the traumatic memory . Just like the British medical student Lauren Jones mentioned above, she developed a fear of belly buttons due to something that happened in her childhood. This emotion often produces a symptom of traumatic re-experience when encountering similar situations and stimuli again.

Hairless cat belly button

Image source: cat-world

The third point is superstition or false media propaganda , but this may no longer apply to belly button phobia.

The reason for this kind of fear is that in some horror movies, novels or myths, many puzzling or controversial phenomena are packaged to be more gloomy and terrifying, and some even associate them with ghosts and gods, which makes us wary of similar stimuli. Just like after watching "Midnight Ring", many people are afraid to hear the ringing of the phone for a long time.

03

“Fear” is not necessarily a “phobia”

In most cases, what we think of as feelings of panic and fear do not reach the level of phobias, but are just "emotional fears", because when a real phobia occurs, it is not that simple.

A true phobia will cause obvious and persistent emotional fluctuations. Even if you know that you will not be hurt by it, you will still be unable to control these emotions.

The onset of a phobia is not normal and will cause obvious subjective pain to the individual. It may also be accompanied by chest pain, diarrhea, dizziness, panic, nausea , etc. Therefore, "emotional fear" is not a "phobia".

Dog's belly button

However, for "belly button phobia", most of it is emotional fear, and it will not reach the level of phobia. Only when the feeling of fear exceeds the tolerable range, the emotion originally used to protect us will become a disease and reach the level of the medical student Lauren Jones.

04

Ways to overcome fear

Yang Jieli, a well-known American doctor, once mentioned in his speech that the only way to overcome fear is: "Living without fear is the only way to keep yourself away from fear." If you want to overcome fear, you must eliminate psychological cues and increase relevant knowledge.

At the same time, fear desensitization can also be carried out through systematic desensitization therapy, such as forcing yourself to gradually come into contact with the object you are afraid of, eliminating the connection with past intimidation-style guidance, and changing conditioned reflexes into non-reflexes.

You can also tell yourself at any time that you are a materialist. These fears are all to stimulate your own awareness of protection. After a period of understanding and contact, you will naturally overcome the fear.

Have you ever been scared by a belly button? I still think that a protruding belly button is more terrifying.

END

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Review expert: Taozi Psychological Counselor

Tadpole Musical Notation original article, please indicate the source when reprinting

Editor/Xiao Xitushuo