People Are Sharing Their Unexpected Trypophobia Moments, And Here Are 30 Pics That Creeped Them Out

Nuno Albuquerque, the Head of Treatment at the UK Addiction Treatment Group, was kind enough to go in-depth about phobias with Bored Panda.

“Phobias are among the most common anxiety disorders and are often developed following a negative or traumatic experience or in some cases, from learned or copied behavior from parents or those close to them,” Nuno said in an email interview.

“If parents or people of influence have anxiety about dogs, for example, then it is more than likely a child growing up with them will also develop the same irrational reaction around dogs,” Nuno noted that we can ‘inherit’ our social circles’ phobias as we’re growing up.

"Unfortunately genetics and learned behavior can trickle into the development of other behaviors and disorders, such as substance misuse, eating disorders, or unhealthy relationships with food, as well as gaming and gambling,” Nuno, from the UKAT Group said.

Overcoming phobias can be incredibly challenging. However, with the right approach, support, and help, everything is possible.

"Regardless of how a phobia originates, overcoming them can be difficult but is possible. It's important to recognize if more than one person is suffering and encourage all to participate. Gradual desensitization or self-exposure to the cause is encouraged,” Nuno detailed to Bored Panda.

“A more complex and long-term phobia may need similar treatment given to someone with an anxiety disorder or mental health illness; counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy or psychotherapy are all good options to explore." For help and support with anxiety disorders, you can visit this link right here.

Meanwhile, the founder of the r/trypophobia subreddit and one of its moderators, redditor It_roll, went into detail with Bored Panda about the phobia. “It’s still not understood correctly,” they said.

“Some scientists say it has an evolutionary basis to stay away from poisonous or dangerous animals, some even speculate that the patterns are very similar to infectious diseases like smallpox which resulted in developing fear to stay away from them,” they speculated about the possible causes of the phobia.

According to the founder, they created the subreddit as a way to unite those redditors who have the phobia, once they became aware of the scope of the fear.

“I always found the hole patterns associated with trypophobia very creepy. Earlier, I didn't even know this fear had a name but soon on Reddit, I found many other users sharing the same fear like I had and came to know it was very common. So, I decided to create a sub where all of us users with the same fear can talk about it,” they told me about the origins of their community.

Redditor It_roll noted that they personally remain skeptical about some approaches like exposure therapy helping one conquer one’s trypophobia. “Though I have heard exposure therapy works on some phobias like some anxiety disorders, I have doubts if it can be helpful in trypophobia, considering thousands of users see trypophobic content every day in this sub, yet neither I nor anyone else has ever said that our trypophobia was gone.”