I'm especially thinking of "trypophobia." There are others, but it's the worst. I'll start out by correcting the word, at its most basic level: these motherfuckers have trypophilia. Yeah, I fucking said it.
You know why I'm saying that? Because every one of these fuckers who claims to have the "phobia" in question CONSTANTLY SHARES IMAGES OF THINGS THAT SUPPOSEDLY TRIGGER THE PHOBIA.
That's the opposite of a phobia, you fucking nimrods. People who have a fear of dogs don't post pictures of pit bulls and dobermans, in their goddamn group chats and subreddits. People who can't get on airplanes don't go looking for graphic photos of air disasters. People with acrophobia don't flock to that glass-bottom walkway, at the fucking Grand Canyon.
But, again, these assholes who are supposedly stricken with trypophobia constantly share pics of bubbly English muffins, collanders, plant pods, etc. THAT'S A FUCKING PARAPHILIA, YOU INCONSIDERATE FUCKING FUCK-STICKS.
At the risk of repeating myself, that is the opposite of a phobia. These intolerable douche-tubes even pervert the word "trigger" into a horrific parody of its actual use. They'll slide a particularly spicy picture of a slice of Swiss cheese into a discussion, and be like "ooOOOhhhH, this triggered me so much."
For "triggered," you can substitute "gave me a twitching hard-on."
Once again: this is NOT how it works for real phobias. If you've got hemophobia and someone shows you a picture of someone bleeding, you are NOT GOING TO REACT THAT WAY.
You do NOT seek out pictures of your phobia triggers. You do NOT discuss them in a basically lewd way, like the goddamned trypophiliacs do.
If you have a REAL PHOBIA, and you actually do get that shit triggered, it's, ya know, ACTUALLY TRAUMATIC. Again: you avoid those triggers, even if it costs you job opportunities, social standing, personal relationships, etc.
People with real phobias are living with real fucking problems, as a result of them. They work and struggle and research ways to try and lessen their effects. That might involve exposure therapy, where they deliberately interact with the object of their fear, but they are NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THOSE SESSIONS, AT ALL.
They are suffering. They are suffering with real mental illness symptoms.
When you post your "oooOOHhhH, look at this seed pod, it's sooooo trigigigigigerring my trypophobia" shit, that is as close as you can get to spitting in the faces of all the people with real phobias, out there in the world.
I hasten to add that I don't have any debilitating phobias, myself. But I know people who do. And that struggle is painful to see. If you're out there faking a phobia, turning it into a paraphilia for shits & giggles, on the internet, FUCK YOU.
If you're out there doing that shit, I hope you develop a real phobia, and experience every iota of the real pain and suffering that it entails. That would be justice.
Well, that's really fascinating. My apologies for questioning the situation. I was just genuinely curious, because this is, for real, the first time I've heard of someone who verifiably had trypophobia, without any possibility that they "got it from the internet," as it were.
Someone else in this thread also talked me down from my ranting rage, too, for the most part.
It was an interesting conversation, and basically left me questioning whether I'm just being old-fashioned. Kids today may be interacting with phobias in a way that doesn't fit with my out-of-date mindset. Sharing images that trigger each other's phobias may be a way in which the younger generations are helping each other to challenge and take control over their fears.
In other words, just because they sometimes seek out their triggers, that doesn't mean I'm justified in accusing them of not really having the phobia. That simply may not be the way it works, for them.
From your language patterns, I suspect y'all are a bit older than Gen Alpha or Gen Z, and therefore I doubt your wife is going around looking at /r/trypophobia, but that doesn't mean I should make off-the-deep-end assumptions about the younger folks.
It's probably not all that new. From roller coasters to horror movies, we have always wanted to seek things that scare us, as long as the reward is better than the risk. It's like that movie "Talk to Me", where the kids use a possessed artifact to get high instead of avoiding it like the plague.