>--- In b_phobia@yahoogroups.com, "twisted_blacksun"
><twisted_blacksun@y...> wrote:

> > Hi, I've just joined

Hi, great to have a new member! :-)

> > I really did think that I was alone--a freak of nature.

It is surprising quite how many of us there seem to be. I would love to know
what has caused this phobia. If there were just one or two, I would put it
down to some awful button experience in our childhood, but with so many of
us, I have to doubt that. Is it possible the phobia is somehow genetic
rather than learned? Certainly, I share this phobia with my mother (Barbara)
and she tried not to show disgust for buttons when dressing me as a child.
You mentioned you and your brother dared one another to pick up a button?
Did he share your phobia, or was he just coming up with an especially mean
dare for you to do?

> > When wearing them (which I never do), they make me feel ugly and a
> > freak to all. I also think they smell.

That's very interesting - the link to smell that we have had mentioned here
before. I'm not especially aware of it myself, but then, I have been staying
as far from buttons as possible since I was very small. They do make me
nauseous though, in the same way that a bad smell might.

Can anyone who experiences the smell tell me what the smell is like, how far
away you have to be to smell it, etc.?

> > As I am writing, I am getting strong impuslsions to go and smell
>the
> > hideous ones on my husband's trench coat, which is just behind me.
>Any
> > body else get impuslsions to touch or smell buttons?

That's disgusting! I'm absolutely horrified!!! I get a strong desire to wipe
my hand on my trousers if I even touch the cloth of a garment with a button
so I'm quite the opposite. Can you tell us anymore about these impulses -
it's really interesting that you have them for something that you find so
horrible.

> > Metal ones on jeans don't bother me and neither do wood ones all
>that
> > much. It seems to be only plastic ones.
>
>Yes, I'm the same, not at all bothered by the metal ones, or by
>poppers or toggles. My daughter however is repulsed by anything
>button-like. She even dislikes pearls because they seem somehow
>button-like to her.

Very true (I'm the daughter). Perhaps because my phobia was indulged by a
button hating mother it's been able to transfer itself to other things? I'm
also not keen on blouse or shirt style tops - even where they have popper or
hook fastenings rather than buttons because they are so linked to buttons in
my mind.

> > As a child, it branched out into snap-fasters and toggles, but I
>>am ok with wearing them now.

One of my earliest button related memories is being at my grandmother's
house and she had a duffel coat for me to wear with toggles on. I did NOT
want to wear it at all and I think I threw a bit of a tantrum. Not sure how
old I would have been (any ideas, mum?) but surely no more than about 4. Too
young to really explain why i didn't want to wear it, but I remember that as
the reason.

My other grandmother used to be a nurse and gave me her old uniform having
altered it to fit me. I thought it was great - with the upside down pin-on
watch and hat and everything, except that the main part of it buttoned from
the top to the bottom with these big round shiny plastic buttons. I tried to
refuse to try it on but my mother made me, since my grandmother had gone to
all that trouble! I think we must have cut the buttons off later and
replaced them with something else, but at the time it was horrible.

> > Of course, my mother never understood, and still dressed me in
>clothes
> > with the yucky, horrid things on, until I cried so much that she
> > finally got the message.

I'm lucky enough to have a button-phobic mother who has always made
allowances. When I was little, I could cope with buttons that didn't look
too button-like, so she would replace them with buttons in the shapes of
animals. There reached a point where even those became disgusting though. I
had a purple jumper with red heart shaped buttons and I remember finding
that quite unpleasant even when the animals were ok, and it just got worse
from there.

>Have recently been shopping with my daughter, (also a button phobe)
>she wanted new trousers. We could not find any (apart from sports
>gear) that did not fasten with a button. Even if there was a clip on
>the outside, there was often an extra button FOR NO REASON AT ALL on
>the inside! Tried to tell daughter that I could replace that with a
>popper or velcro but she wouldn't even try such things on.

The problem is, how do you try them on without getting "contaminated"? You
can put tape over the actual button so it isn't touching your skin, but you
can still feel that it's there. However, situtation is getting serious. I am
living in Oxfordshire which is very flat so it's already FREEZING cold. I
have two pairs of decent trousers that aren't really thin and I am too lazy
to be constantly washing them. I really need to buy some new ones so I shall
have to go with the buttons I think and just pretend they aren't there while
I try them on.

> > AND WHAT IS THE NEED FOR BUTTONS JUST FOR DECORATIVE PURPOSES?
>PLEASE
> > EXPLAIN THIS TO ME...

One of my friends had a top that had decorative buttons all around the
neckline and cuffs. I found it absolutely disgusting, but tried to be ok
with it. She caught me looking at it out of the corner of my eye when it was
hanging in her room and cringing when she hugged me once too often and she
cut them all off! Which was exceptionally nice of her, but I didn't realise
that and thought she was wearing it inside out to not upset me - which upset
me more because of the thought of all those buttons touching her skin!

I really am a sad case!

Claire.