Fear of Spiders

[Kiro]

My girlfriend is scared shitless of spiders. Loads of fun for me, obviously.

[kisada]

when the dinner plate spider was brought up, i immediately thought about this one picture i saw with the massive spider under the clock...

guess i didn't have to find the picture lol

spiders creep me the fuck out, as i used to have massive ones build webs outside my front and backdoor at night. makes me wanna hide just thinking about it.

i think i'm just freaked out by them though, cause my roommate is 100 times more scared than i am, so if it's just two i'll try to push him towards it so i can hear him cry.

if you are having major anxiety/panic attacks though, i'd suggest just starting slow. try to observe spiders in ways where almost all contact is difficult or impossible (find a picture of a tiny one on the internet and stand across the room or something). limited exposure that leads to more exposure should help.

personally i have a fear of heights, not serious but when i look over the edge of something i get dizzy and i get this horrible feeling that the ground underneath me will melt into liquid and i'll fall. of course that can't happen so little by little i'd walk closer and closer to rail edges and things like that, and when i was brave enough i'd just walk the entire way of a bridge standing at the rail. my gradual exposure helped me a lot.

you could also try just extreme exposure. strangely enough though, forcing myself onto rollercoasters only made me unafraid of rollercoasters. i still have some jitters when i look over the edge of a bridge.

[kisada]

btw, be glad you don't have this phobia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSCotdOh5WY

[Kiro]

btw, be glad you don't have this phobia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSCotdOh5WY

That's just wholesome comedy right there.

[Fallso]

btw, be glad you don't have this phobia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSCotdOh5WY

That's just wholesome comedy right there.

DEAR GOD NO NOT THE PICKLES.

[Avé]

Just reading about these spiders is giving me the chills. It's so goddamn ridiculous, everything I've learned in life goes right out the window when I'm dealing with spiders, or bugs of any kind really. I just run away screaming, I can't even bring myself to kill any of them because that means I would have to look at it.

A few years back, my mom almost broke her neck one morning when she was washing her face. She would have smothered spider all over her face if she hadn't glanced at the towel as she was bringing it up to dry her face. I can't even imagine what I would have done in that situation.

[gandorf]

I'm afraid of all bug I seen a cockroach yesterday and screamed like a girl.

I was told spiders are attracted to dust, so maybe clean your room? There is also this stuff you can buy in a big white can you spray spider once it dies in about 10min.

Normal poisons like what exterminators use don't kill em they immune to it i guess. We moved into a new house a few months ago a truly nolem guy told me this stuff, We had spiders everywhere because we by woods.

As for getting over your fear do what everyone else said and play with one. Just avoid poison ones, My grandpa got bitten by one and had to goto hospital and he was there for almost week.

[Slayzer]

Ughhh fuck the clock spider. Spiders never bugged me before *shudder*

[Vertabreaker]

I'm not afraid of spiders. I do however have a huge hatred of them.

One put me in a hospital about 9 years go I got bit on my left hand and had a red trail going up my arm towards my heart. Doctor said another day or so and I would've died. I had to have an IV put in my arm and stay in the hospital for 2 days.

Ever since then I kill every spider I see.

[Saga]

I'm afraid of all bug I seen a cockroach yesterday and screamed like a girl.

I was told spiders are attracted to dust, so maybe clean your room? There is also this stuff you can buy in a big white can you spray spider once it dies in about 10min.

Normal poisons like what exterminators use don't kill em they immune to it i guess. We moved into a new house a few months ago a truly nolem guy told me this stuff, We had spiders everywhere because we by woods.

As for getting over your fear do what everyone else said and play with one. Just avoid poison ones, My grandpa got bitten by one and had to goto hospital and he was there for almost week.

there are these things i heard of in the english language called "articles" and "plural nouns." but i'm pretty sure they're just a myth. continue.

[Gafgarionn]

I'm not morbidly afraid of spiders, just afraid enough that I don't like dealing with them. A few years back when I went to Taiwan, I stayed at a small church in the countryside for a couple of nights. One morning when I woke up to go to the bathroom, there was a giant spider on the front of the only stall door that must have been 10 inches in diameter. Fucking sick. There were also green spiders that were only slightly less small that liked to set their webs on paths. Yep, I walked right into one of those. After those experiences spiders in the U.S. are a joke.

[Misterjingles]

Eh, I ain't afraid of bugs, prolly because when I went to the Philippines I saw a coacroach that was the size of a cat, and ants that are big as my thumb, giant ass wasps... every bug was big there! Another reason why I don't fear bugs is because we kill them with our chinellas (slippers), hence why you didn't see any Flipinos in Starship Troopers, otherwise all the bugs would be dead with our giant chinellas D:

To the Flipinos: I know I prolly butchered the Flipino language but don't hate! You know I'm a coconut... Screw you Haru D:

[Po]

I'm also afraid of spiders, but it doesn't really bother me all that much. Not like I want to get rid of the fear. I just don't fuck with them really. No real reason to.

[Jefe]

Chicken... The only way you can overcome the fear of spiders is if they lock your ass inside a crystal-like coffin and fill it up with all sorts of spiders ala Fear Factor. From the feared black widow, to the majestic giant amazonian tarantula.

Good luck!

[Huggo]

There is one good way of getting over phobias and things of that nature. Psychologists will call it "Flooding" where you just take the thing that the patient is afraid of and expose them to it. A LOT. Like the story of the lady Lbelle was talking about. If you are around spiders more often you'll get more comfortable with them.

This is the same type of thing that can help with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. You can take a person who has it, (the clean obsession) and lock them in a dirty room and not allow them to clean it.

[Dustybrown]

(Sorry in advance if this reads like a wikipedia article).

Most psychologists agree that phobias come about through conditioning experience - in this case the feared object (spiders) is associated with the feeling of fear/anxiety. Perhaps you had a bad experience with spiders as a child? (I myself have a terrible fear of spiders which I believe came about when I was laid in bed one night as a child and a spider crawled over my covers and up towards my face). As said above many times, behavourial therapies have the greatest success rate in allowing people to deal and overcome phobias.

There are 3 accepted ways to best deal with overcoming phobias - none of which I think you will like.

The first is drug therapy, which is really only used to treat things like flying phobias for those who need to fly for their job or whatever. You can't med yourself up every time you see a spider.

Psychoanalytical treatment - you go see a psychoanalyst and they try to uncover the deep seated reason behind why you are afraid of spiders, or to see what the unconscious believes the spider represents. The treatment, as you can imagine, hasn't had the most success....

Behavioural treatment - as many have mentioned above, this has had the most success in overcoming phobias in the past. It is mainly based around exposure treatment; gradual desensitization to the object in question. This might involve seeing pictures of spiders, then standing in the doorway to a room that contains a spider, then being in the same room, then sitting close to a spider in a jar and eventually being able to hold the spider itself. You're basically trying to break the association of fear with the spider. This isn't being thrown into a room full of spiders and hoping you can cope, it's a very slow process to help you gradually cope. You also focus on what aspects of spiders actually make you afraid (for example, I dislike how spiders scuttle).

There is a more extreme method known as "flooding", which is frequent exposure to the feared object which provokes a high fear response. You have to be very committed to this kind of therapy though. If you don't follow it through your phobia may actually get worse :/

If you really do want to get over the fear, it might be a good idea to have a chat with a local psychologist. I can completely understand why the idea of flooding or desensitization might not appeal at first, but they can really advise you on a slow course of treatment if you so wish it.

Hope this helps some :/ And apologies for sounding like a text book XD

[Devek]

Why does it bother you that you are afraid of spiders?

It is a totally natural thing to be afraid of something that could hurt you. Rather than try to change that you could simply accept the fact you are scared and it won't paralyze you so much.

Spiders totally terrify me but I still kill them like any other intruder in my home :D

[Elcura]

I'm scared of spiders, but unlike when I was a kid running away I just mark the spider for death, and I will do anything and everything in my power to kill it. That aspect isn't the scary thing, it's the fact that spiders always, ALWAYS catch me (surely not just me) by surprise, the most hated thing about spiders is that they will just appear. You walk some where and suddenly BAM there's a huge fucking spider and it scares the shit outta me all the time.

After the initial shock though, that spider is dead though unless it can get away, but that makes me feel uncomfortable. Knowing it's possibly still around bugs the crap outta me so if I kill it I can rest easy.

I guess the phobia started when I was little, my mum used to scream like crazy when a spider was around, that always used to scare me, but not so much until I went abroad one time. It was uhh, Vianna or somewhere close. Went to a friends house for dinner one time and I got bored so I started playing in the back garden with a football, I kicked it through these two tress I used as a makeshift goal post and when I retrieved the ball beyond the trees all I heard was *screeeerch* and it felt like hair all over my body, sticky and stringy. It only occured to me I'd walked through a fucking giant spider web when I looked up and saw some huge spider hanging over my head. I completely lost it and literally hosed myself down and didn't go outside again that vacation lol

there's always a reason people hate something...

[Hellfury]

Move to Norway, problem solved ^^;

not too many of them here, none are poisonous or even remotely dangerous. and most of the years the bugs are hiding from the cold anyway ^^;

[Exoduso]

PICKLES SCARE ME, THE MOST I HATE ABOUT THEM IS THE SHAPE..UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.

LOL.