A woman in the UK has had her life turned upside down by an irrational fear of stickers — so severe that she’s banned them from her house.
“It’s the nasty, sticky stuff that you get on the back that makes me feel ill,” Anna Smith Higgs, 44, told Caters News Agency while describing her adhesive-compulsive disorder.
As a result, the Harlow, Essex native can’t eat fruit and other foods with stickers and often finds herself trembling when encountering them in public
While this phobia might sound made up, it’s apparently a real condition called Pittakionophobia, defined as — you guessed it — “the irrational fear of sticky notes and labels.”
Medical scholarship on the subject is scarce, but there are apparently many sufferers of this peculiar fear: The hashtag #Pittakionophobia boasts over 7.9 million views on TikTok with legions of the adhesive averse detailing their experience with the alleged ailment on camera.
Higgs said her pittakionophobia began as a child after her parents got divorced and she moved into a new bedroom with two wardrobes that were festooned with stickers.
“I inherited the wardrobes and I had to try and get the stickers off,” recalled the petrified Brit, who said that she tried everything from soap to lighter fluid but to no avail as there were still “sneaky bits of it left.”
The fear sort of stuck, making her life a post-it-covered purgatory.
Higgs, who works as a disability campaigner and burlesque dancer, recalled how she would feel ill when her son “Henry started coming home with stickers from nursery — on him and on bits of paper.”
“He wanted to come indoors with them, but I couldn’t let him have stickers indoors because they make me feel sick,” she lamented.
In fact, Higgs has essentially bubble-wrapped her life (presumably sans tape) to keep her pittakionophobia at bay.
“I don’t eat bananas. I don’t eat anything with stickers on it,” declared the parent. “My sisters have young children, and they know that they’re not allowed to give me stickers or stick them on me because it makes me shudder. “
She added, “So there’s no stickers around when I see any of them.”
No word as to whether the mother slathers herself in Goo Gone like sunscreen before leaving the house.
Interestingly, Higgs’ fear doesn’t extend to tattoos, which she’s a big fan of as they don’t have that “nasty stickiness.”
Unfortunately, hasn’t found much sympathy from the public, most of whom have never heard of her sticker-induced affliction.
“When I tell people I’m scared of stickers, they say things like, ‘What do you mean you don’t like stickers? How can you not like them?’” Higgs recalled.
The professional booty-shaker recalled one “really scary” incident where she visited her son’s school and a teacher tried to put a sticker on her.
“I shouted at him that ‘I don’t like stickers, please remove it!” Higgs recalled. “He just looked at me strangely.”
In fact, she hasn’t sought any treatment to Teflon her mind against the fear, as she herself didn’t realize that pittakionophobia was a real thing until fairly recently.
“I couldn’t believe it when I found out that it’s a real phobia,” she said. “I’ve just kind of just got on with it.”
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