Cats are vile, cold, and selfish creatures.

Just kidding. Cats are amazing! While Upvoted doesn’t hold these controversial views (we’d be persecuted by the Internet if we made that statement in earnest), some people are actually deathly afraid of cats, imagining them as monstrous beasts.

Animal phobias are not unusual. Many are terrified of snakes and spiders, for instance. But a fear of cats (called ailurophobia or felinophobia) is much rarer. It’s so uncommon that scientists cannot even tell you how many people suffer from it.

Reddit user panicbreakfast allegedly lives with ailurophobia, describing what it is like in a Reddit AMA session. Her fear is so crippling, in fact, that she says she isn’t able to stay in the same room as a cat without suffering from panic attacks.

There are a bunch of different reasons why she may have developed this fear. The user might have had a bad experience when she was younger (like getting scratched by a cat that appeared docile).

Or she might have learned the fear if her parents warned her to stay away from “dangerous” cats, for example. Some humans could even be genetically predisposed to fear cats, originating from a time when our early ancestors had to live with big wild cats, according to Dr. Irena Milosevic’s Phobias: The Psychology of Irrational Fear.

The redditor describes her history with cats:

People with this fear are usually scared of being bitten or scratched by a cat, which is understandable. But they also hold irrational beliefs about domestic cats, viewing them as “predatory or evil creatures,” according to Milosevic.

Some people are so fearful they can’t even watch cat videos without panicking. The user’s phobia isn’t that extreme:

Conversely, some people are actually dangerously addicted to cats—hoarders, for example, who own excessive amounts of cats that they couldn’t possibly take care of properly. This extreme addiction may be due to a parasite contracted from felines called Toxoplasma gondii.

The interesting thing about this microbe is that it can reproduce sexually—but only inside cat intestines. It’s advantageous for the parasite to return to a cat host as soon as possible for this reason.

Whenever an infected human smells cat urine, dopamine is released, giving that person a feeling of pleasure whenever they are near cats. This ensures the parasite returns to its cat host. There are even reports of some infected people craving the smell of cat urine, according to Sam Kean’s The Violinists Thumb.

Clearly, redditor panicbreakfast isn’t infected by this particular parasite—but her fear isn’t set in stone either. Milosevic says that gradual exposure to cats can cure her phobia, so it looks like she may be able to enjoy the Internet… eventually.