Many refuse to attend formal events like weddings or proms as there are other guests wearing tuxedos or coats with buttons.

Quiz: Do You Have an Anxiety Disorder? Take the Test Now There are different signs and symptoms displayed by Koumpounophobic individuals: Some are afraid of all types of buttons, while some prefer metallic buttons to plastic ones. People with this phobia are unable to stand the sight, sound or texture of buttons. Scientists believe that man has always been afraid of circular objects like holes as they resemble skin rashes or pits containing the unknown.

The phobia may be evolutionary just as the fear of all circular objects is.

Childhood abuse or neglect by someone wearing clothes with buttons might also trigger the phobia.

Some kids might have inhaled or choked on buttons leading to a lifelong fear of buttons.

Another phobic reports fearing buttons due to his inability to do them up on his own clothes as a result of which he was teased and bullied by kids in school. A British bartender, for example, remembers a bucket of buttons falling on his head at the age of two. Certain incidents or events might have triggered the phobia early in one’s childhood an event that one might not even remember.

As is the case with other irrational fears and phobias, the fear of buttons may also be related to a traumatic or negative experience in the childhood.

The lead character then develops Koumpounophobia because, eyes, which are otherwise gateways to the soul, in this case, become black, blank and soulless pools.

Neil Gaiman’s horror novel ‘Coraline’ (which was later adapted in a movie of the same name), had the lead character discover a parallel world with sinister characters resembling her own parents but having buttons instead of eyes.

There are many factors that can trigger the fear of buttons phobia. It is closely related to the fear of round or circular objects or the fear of holes (trypophobia). The word Koumpounophobia is derived from Latin Koumpouno meaning buttons and Greek phobos meaning fear.

Red button up shirt with crazy shapes