When You're Paralysingly Scared of Feet

This article originally appeared on VICE France.

Feet are a uniquely polarising body part. Some people love them so much they’re willing to shell out hundreds of pounds for pics of manicured tootsies, others would do anything to avoid seeing toes squished in between Birkenstock straps. In extreme cases, this aversion can become a fully-fledged phobia – podophobia, to be exact. 

Alicia Badaoui, a 32-year-old from Paris, cannot stand feet. The smell, the look, everything about them disgusts her to her core. All her life, she’s been avoiding looking at them, or, worse, touching them. “I can’t remember how far back it goes, but basically I’ve always been afraid of feet,” she says. “My parents can’t explain it either. I’m not afraid of my own feet, but I can’t look at other people’s.”

It’s hard for Alicia to be taken seriously when she shares her fear with people. “They laugh at first, and when they see I’m not laughing, they tell me I must be exaggerating, that there’s nothing to be afraid of,” she says. “It’s like telling someone with arachnophobia that the spiders won’t eat them.”

Summer, of course, is a big source of stress for podophobes. Feet are on full display everywhere pretty much, and Alicia has no choice but to keep calm and carry on with her head held high – so as not to catch an accidental glimpse of toes. Those weird appendices at the end of our feet are really the worst part for her, that’s why she never wears open-toed shoes and always keeps her socks on.

Alicia quickly gets heated when talking about the subject, although she knows it’s not a rational way of thinking. Her parents have encouraged her to go to therapy to break away from these thoughts, and offered to pay for it, too.

“From childhood on, we always hear jokes about feet; we learn to think of them as disgusting,” says Rodolphe Oppenheimer, a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst based in the city of Clichy, France. “But we have to be careful to distinguish between something we find unpleasant and an actual phobia. As a reminder, phobias are irrational fears.”

Just like all phobias, fear of feet usually differs from one person to another. Romain Roux, 27, from Nice, has also experienced this phobia since childhood. Simply looking at feet can make him nauseous. “When we were kids, my big brother would put his feet in my face for fun,” he says. “I think it’s all linked.” 

Oppenheimer confirmed this phobia usually originates in childhood. “Maybe, when they were kids, feet came to symbolise time marching along,” he says. “Or anxiety about life somehow turned into fear of feet.” Since each story is different, the origins of this phobia are impossible to generalise. And yet its effects are very real – just like most other phobias, in severe cases symptoms can include palpitations, shaking, panic attacks and fear of imminent death.

Podophobia can also wreak havoc on romantic relationships. More than one of Romain’s partners didn’t take his phobia seriously, and became hell-bent on “changing his mind”. He recalls one ex “who insisted I make an exception for her feet – as if that would change anything,” he says. “Her feet freaked me out as much as anyone else’s.” The relationship did not last.

To cope with his phobia, Romain avoids pools and places where he might see naked feet. When he goes on holiday, he favours less popular spots like small lakes, or goes to the beach off-season. “My fear really ruins my life sometimes; I even plan my holidays around it,” he says. “But I also like the small towns in the middle of nowhere where there’s nobody around.”

Unfortunately, podophobia can become more severe over time. Some people affected by it can end up shutting themselves away to avoid any chance of seeing naked feet. But Oppenheimer believes unsightly encounters are exactly what they need to overcome this phobia.

“Cognitive-behavioural therapy suggests it’s important to expose yourself to the feared object slowly, at your own pace, in the best conditions possible,” he says. “That might mean looking at pictures of feet, looking at feet on TV, or working on the phobia through virtual reality therapy.” 

In short, you should face this issue one step at a time.