The Leen

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Okay, this is going to make me sound crazy. You already know that I’m a little strange, so this shouldn’t come as too much of a shock, but in all actuality, I’m serious about this.

On Sunday night, Elanor was asleep and I was sitting next to her messing around online, reading different blogs, etc. It’s hard for me to turn the light off and go to sleep when Brett’s away so I was procrastinating doing that by reading a lot of blogs that I hadn’t read for a while.

One was Post Secret, where people send a postcard with a secret written on it to a guy in Maryland or somewhere and he posts them on this website. It’s mildly interesting, normally, but not a site a visit regularly.

Anyway, I came upon one of the secrets that had a picture that completely and utterly FREAKED ME OUT. I seriously can’t convey to you the depth of my freaking out-ness. I felt totally squicked after seeing it, just disgusting, creepy crawly all over, sick to my stomach, just sick.

I’ll describe it but I’m not linking to it or posting a picture of it because EW EW EW. It’s a picture of a breast (you can’t really tell it’s one, though) with, like, the pods of a lotus seed flower thingy photoshopped over it. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Totally fake, right, so what’s the big deal? Well, I know, I know. I KNOW. It’s fake, I shouldn’t be so freaked out, etc.

But I have been haunted by the image ever since I saw it. I cannot get it out of my mind even now but it was particularly bad right after I saw it. I was terrified that I was going to have nightmares about it, especially because Brett was gone. I prayed and asked God to please help me not to have nightmares about it, and thankfully, that prayer was answered.

Still, it’s stayed in my mind since then and I think of it and get creeped out every time I nurse Elanor. Not an association I want to have, thankyouverymuch.

I’ve read some about the history of the image online since I saw it and apparently the image was sent around with an email forward (which was disproved on Snopes, by the way) a couple of years ago, claiming that it was (warning: seriously sick) a woman’s breast that was diseased.  She had been to Africa, gotten a rash, and then it got worse and she took off the bandage one day to discover maggots crawling around in her breast.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. *Kathleen runs screaming from the room*

I was reading some more on the Post Secret forums, actually, and people were saying that it creeped them out, too. But what they were saying was that it wasn’t the idea that it was maggots that freaked them out, it was the clusters of holes. And I realized that was totally true for me, too. It freaked me out before I went to Snopes and read the story of the rash and the whole maggot thing. My initial reaction, before I knew anything about it, was one of utter horror and disgust, in an almost visceral way.

Again, from my reading, I learned that there’s an actual phobia of clustered holes/bumps, especially in organic material or in material that’s supposed to be smooth — like the skin of a woman’s breast. It’s called trypophobia.

Now, I don’t think I have the actual phobia (mine’s not that severe), but in reading the descriptions of what the phobia entails, I think I at least have some of the mild symptoms, especially a fear of small holes in organic matter, small holes or clusters of holes on something that would otherwise be smooth, and small holes that aren’t exactly round — things like honeycombs can be problematic, for example, or holes in wood, or especially lotus flower pods. But, say, the holes in the metal washing machine basket? Those don’t bother me at all. Weird, I know. Another complication that’s definitely true for me is the idea that there is or could be or appears to be something IN the holes that doesn’t belong there. (Maybe this explains why I cannot ever leave a zit unpopped?)

I am trying to think of what could have caused this, and I’ve come up with a few conclusions.

1. I vividly, vividly remember a dream I had when I was maybe 9 that seriously freaked me the heck out. Like I thought about it for months and it really disturbed me. In it, a kid I knew kept vomiting this blue honey-comb-like stuff. It just flowed out of his mouth every time he opened it. I was seriously disturbed by that dream at the time and even still feel mildly squicked when I think about it.
2. When I was little, maybe 7, I was playing on the church playground and I put my hand around a wood post, only to feel that the other side was infested with a teeming mass of small, round-ish bugs that had burrowed into the wood and were just clustered there on the back of the post. It scared me so bad I ran through the church hallways screaming, trying to get to my mom, who was in a church meeting in the parish hall.
3. Having shingles when I was 14. The clusters of blisters…oh, ew ew shudder ew. Nothing more needs to be said.

Yeah, so I don’t know. There’s really no point to this, other than the fact that I was majorly weirded out by the picture. Weirded out doesn’t even describe it right. Disturbed, maybe. Twitchy. Ughughughughblahbleckewyuck. Something.

Thankfully, I’m feeling better about it today. It’s not so very disturbing although the compulsion is still there for me to go back and look at the image over and over and over again. I am trying to make myself look at it so I can confront what freaks me out about it but at the same time I don’t want to obsess any more about it so I’m not really sure if looking at it is healthy or not. Probably not.

Ok, I’m done. I’m going to go upstairs and get cozy with Elanor and try really hard to not think about this.

Does anyone else have this problem? Do you have a different fear that is totally irrational but makes you all twitchy regardless of the fact that you know in your head it’s irrational? Do you have any ways you cope with fears/reactions like this? Please, help me feel like less of a freak and tell me what squicks you out.