Help! I'm terrified of cakes

A WOMAN is appealing for help to overcome her bizarre, crippling phobia - of cakes.
Rachael Lee has a crippling phobia of cakes that stems from a gateau related childhood trauma. Picture: SWNSRachael Lee has a crippling phobia of cakes that stems from a gateau related childhood trauma. Picture: SWNS
Rachael Lee has a crippling phobia of cakes that stems from a gateau related childhood trauma. Picture: SWNS

Rachael Lee, from Featherstone in West Yorkshire, says her fear stems from a gateau related childhood trauma.

Ms Lee, 28, was sick after eating a piece of sponge cake when she was nine months old, and has been terrified ever since.

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She now can’t walk down the cake aisle at the supermarket where she works, and will run out of the room and even suffer a panic attack if someone offers her a cake.

Rachael Lee has a crippling phobia of cakes that stems from a gateau related childhood trauma. Picture: SWNSRachael Lee has a crippling phobia of cakes that stems from a gateau related childhood trauma. Picture: SWNS
Rachael Lee has a crippling phobia of cakes that stems from a gateau related childhood trauma. Picture: SWNS

She says she can’t go in bakeries, has to avoid the cake counter in restaurants and can’t watch someone eating the confectionary.

Ms Lee said: ““I can’t be in the same room as one.

“If someone walks past me with a piece of cake and they come close I start crying and shaking.

“I literally freeze on the spot if I can’t get away. I have known myself to jump over chairs to get away.

Rachael Lee has a crippling phobia of cakes that stems from a gateau related childhood trauma. Picture: SWNSRachael Lee has a crippling phobia of cakes that stems from a gateau related childhood trauma. Picture: SWNS
Rachael Lee has a crippling phobia of cakes that stems from a gateau related childhood trauma. Picture: SWNS
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“The smell of a cake cooking is enough to make me violently sick and I can’t go up to a counter in a cafe or shop to order food if there are cakes.

“I’ll ask my partner to go, and if I’m on my own I’ll ask strangers to order for me.

“I can’t go down the cake aisle in a supermarket. No way. I can’t cope with that many cakes around me.

“I’m a black belt in kickboxing and I would honestly rather fight six blokes than eat a bit of cake.

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People think you don’t come into contact with cake that much in everyday life, but you do.

“Just seeing someone eating it messily on TV is like a horror movie for me.

“I really want help but it is not a normal fear and I just don’t know where to start.”

The supermarket worker said she can “almost cope” with boxed cakes, but just being near them leaves her “agitated”.

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she says if she doesn’t conquer her fear before her upcoming wedding she is planning on having a three-tier rice crispy square for her ‘cake’.

“It might sound unusual, but it is a real fear and I’m desperate to overcome it,” she said.