An aspiring doctor in the UK is desperate to find somebody who can help her overcome her serious phobia of belly buttons.
25-year-old Lauren Jones, of Birmingham, is currently studying to become a doctor, but suffering from omphalophobia—an extreme fear of belly buttons—won’t stop holding her back.
Jones is so disgusted by bully buttons, in fact, that the mere sight of another person’s naval actually causes her to experience severe panic attacks.
“I know it is irrational but I cannot touch them or have mine touched. I get really freaked out and it makes me feel so uncomfortable,” she said, The Daily Mail reported. “If someone touches mine, it feels like they are touching my insides and I can feel it all through me. I won't even touch my own.”
Even during a class lecture, Jones couldn’t control her obvious aversion to the sight of belly buttons.
“And when we had a lecture on abdominal examinations I had a panic attack in front of everybody,” she confessed. “I had this overwhelming feeling of anxiety then I couldn't breather or look at anybody and I felt light-headed. I felt like I couldn't escape and I can't.”
As a medical student at the University of Leicester, Jones is starting to worry that her belly button phobia might stop her from achieving her dreams of becoming a doctor.
She believes the deeply rooted phobia stems from a painful experience she had as a young child.
“I haven't liked them for as long as I can remember. As a child someone told me to touch their belly button and then smell my finger,” Jones said. “I just remember this overpowering smell of belly button and that's where it all started but day-to-day I never had to cope with it.”
The school has since recommended that Jones try attending Cognitive Behavioural Therapy sessions to overcome her belly button phobia.
“I'm going to have to expose myself to the phobia and that is a really scary thought. I am so nervous about it because I have tried to help myself before by looking at pictures of people touching belly buttons but I can't cope, I feel physically repulsed,” she said.
