Meet the woman who is scared of knees

Dec 13 2008 By Roz Laws

A CHRISTMAS knees-up is out of the question for Sue Williams from Dudley – because she’s scared stiff of KNEES.

Until she had therapy for her unusual phobia, known as Genuphobia, she hadn’t touched her own knees for 16 years let alone felt anyone else’s.

Just hearing the word ‘kneecap’ made her physically sick.

Sue, 37, is partially cured after going on a TV programme and seeing a phobia expert – but she still can’t stand anyone touching her knees.

Britain’s Weirdest Phobias, screened later this month, features people with irrational fears of everything from peas and cobwebs to barns and tea bags.

Sue, a housing benefits assessor, explains her phobia: “It’s everything to do with knees.

“I don’t like my own or anyone else’s and I don’t like anyone touching my knees. I can’t understand why anyone would want to touch their knees.

“It makes me uncomfortable when I see people sitting with their hands on their knees, and I have to look away from other swimmers when I go to the pool. I know it’s strange and weird. I understand why people tease me about it, although it’s not a joke to me.”

Sue’s fear of someone touching her knees stems from her childhood, when her knees would lock.

“It was painful to pull my legs back into position,” she remembers. “I used to shuffle around the living room screaming, I didn’t want my dad to do it because I knew it was going to hurt.”