A 25-year-old medical student is really passionate about becoming a doctor but she has an unusual phobia for belly buttons.
Lauren Jones, a student at University of Leicester, detests belly buttons to an extent that she feels faint and nauseated each time she gets close to any.
She hates to have her belly button touched just the same way she loathes to touch those of others.
Jones’ phobia is a rare medical condition known as Omphalophobia,.
She said: “I know it is irrational, but I can’t touch them or have mine touched.
“If someone touches [my belly button], it feels like they are touching my insides and I can feel it all through me. I won’t even touch my own.
“Watching Britain’s Got Talent once an act put their finger in their belly button and I was physically sick because of it.
“And when we had a lecture on abdominal examinations I had a panic attack in front of everybody. This is something I have to overcome, something I have to be able to do to study medicine.
“I can’t see a future where I will be okay with it, not at all, because I can’t control it,’ she said.
“But I have exams coming up where I’ll need to do this so I’ve got to, I’ve got to be able to cope.”
Luckily, her school understands her fears and phobia although it still has made little or no impact to make her overcome it.
Check out some of her photos below. (Click on any image to enlarge).
