A woman has turned to hypnotherapy to overcome her rare phobia of wrists as her fear has worsened with age.
Victoria Tretis, 41, says she can't even bear to look at her wrists or she will flinch if someone touches them, including her own family.
As a teen, she would make sure to cover her wrists with sleeves and now in her forties, she finds it is stopping her from doing more family activities such as Jui-Jitsu - which is her partner Adam's passion.
The mum-of-one has also noticed her daughter Freya, nine, is having to apologise to compensate for her phobia - known as Carpophobia.
The little girl will also cheekily bribe her mother to get her to do things to avoid her wrists being touched.
"I know it's completely irrational behaviour and that it doesn't make any sense to many people," Victoria, who is a coach and mentor for online businesses, says.
"It has definitely gotten worse.
"I do remember in my teenage years at school pulling down my sleeves and more recently, I've started feeling bad because I flinch if my other half or daughter accidentally touches my wrists.
"I don't want to pass this onto my daughter."
Victoria, from Nottingham, believes her extraordinary fear stems from an operation she had on her wrist at the age of four.
A ganglion - a benign cyst - had formed which made it hard for her to hold her pen as a child, so doctors wanted to remove it.
"The operation itself was absolutely fine, I do remember that," Victoria recalls.
"The thing that really makes me feel squeamish was when I went back to have the stitches pulled out.
"They were thick wiry surgical stitches - I just remember a lot of tugging and having to look out the window to try and distract myself."
Aside from flinching if someone touches her wrists, she also has to adapt certain activities to avoid looking at them.
In her yoga class on Wednesday night during 'corpse pose', her instructor told her to face her palms upwards, but Victoria couldn't face it.
She can also be freaked out during meditation doing the same act, while she can no longer give blood - which she feels guilty about.
When she's told to place the palm of her hand upwards, she naturally finds herself turning her hand over to hide her wrist, which affects blood flow.
"The problem is that when I do start thinking about it, it becomes a bigger problem than it actually is," Victoria explains.
"So then, if I start thinking about it too much, while I'm at my desk talking to somebody, for example, I will start crossing my arms, which affects my body language."
To stop herself from freaking out, Victoria has to hold her wrist close against her body.
Having had the phobia almost all of her life, Victoria is now worried she's creating a complex for her daughter to have to worry about.
"She'll say things like 'I'm really sorry I touched your wrist,'" Victoria adds.
"Or she will say things like 'can I have this?' or 'if you don't make me a drink I will touch your wrist,' which makes me laugh.
"But I don't want her to see me being weird about it."
Freya referencing her mum's phobia and making accommodations led to Victoria getting in touch with a hypnotherapist.
Expert Dipti Tait will be working with her over three different sessions, starting from today.
These include a 'relax' session to begin with, in order to bring her mind into a calm state. Secondly, a 'rewind' session, where they will focus on the memory of her operation, and finally, a 'reframe' session, where Dipti will aim to refill the original memory into the rational part of Victoria's mind.
It is hoped her phobia can be eradicated so the mum can step out of her comfort zone and feel more 'normal'.
"I would like it to be like any other part of my body where it's completely neutral, where I don't have negative feelings, it's just another part of my body - I think that will be really refreshing," Victoria says, who can wear a watch but feels uncomfortable when closing the fastening clasp.
"My other half does Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and we'd like our daughter to start doing classes as well.
"I think it could be a nice family activity to do as well but it involves being held by your cuff, and I don't think I could do that currently.
"But what if I actually really enjoy it?"
"It could be another thing where we're all spending time together and creating memories."
Dipti Tait, who uses her own system of 'Free Flow Transformation Therapy™' - a therapeutic combination of hypnosis, NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), deep relaxation techniques and CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) explains: "Irrational fear is an emotional stress in the system that has been sitting unresolved in Victoria's system because, at some point in her childhood life, her brain decided that an event linked to her wrists was dangerous.
"This ‘danger’ gets logged into the brain as a fear.
"So, when we get older, if the brain has not adapted this event as safe, whenever the fear is triggered (in this case seeing her or anyone else's wrists) this raises her brain's alarm bell to warn the brain it is in danger and this results in anxiety and panic."
She continues: "Of course, intellectually, we know wrists are not really dangerous, but her brain doesn’t know that - think of it like some of her mind files have been mistakenly put in the wrong place.
"So, the way the hypnotherapy will work will be a reassurance to her adult mind to be able to re-file and re-organise her thoughts about wrists into a rational place."
Do you have a weird phobia? Get in touch at webfeatures@reachplc.com
