SPIDERS.
I know it’s a cliché, and everyone’s first exemplar. I know
it’s predictable, and everyone will choose it.
But I am. I am
pathologically afraid of Spiders.
At least I was. I have battled in recent years to rid myself
of what I know to be an irrational, unfounded and frankly ridiculous fear- and
with moderate success, but it’s still there.
I don’t know where it came from. I do remember certain episodes
as a child: On my father’s shoulders stacking roof tiles in an overhead garage
alcove, picking up the next tile, and seeing this huge fucker squatting there
looking at me.
Not the ordinary, spindly little fucks we get in the UK, with a little raisin body and wispy little, delicate legs. This was like a jungle creature- with head, thorax and abdomen, segmented and fleshy; large, pencil-thick, hairy legs. I held it out in front of me on the tile and had some manner of panic/asthma attack. I couldn’t talk and my parents had no idea what I was so upset about until I regained my powers of speech a few minutes later.
That’s my earliest memory of spider-related panic. But I was
clearly already afraid of them, so whether something else came before or not, I
can’t say- but it’s possible. I’ve certainly been afraid ever since. Even plastic
ones and pictures really, really bothered me throughout my childhood. It was, I’d
later learn during my degree, a very clear example of a genuine developing
phobia.
The problem with phobias is, when you avoid the stimulus and
circumvent the ensuing panic, you reinforce the avoidance and accentuate the
feeling of dread. With every occasion in which you run from a spider and suffer
no ill effects, you learn to fear them more.
It grows.
Into some super-mega-spider-beast.
This is why gradual exposure and flooding are used to combat
phobias. You need to break the self-perpetuating, learned avoidance cycle.
It was during my Abnormal and Clinical Psychology tutoring
that I started to unpick the problem. Without warning, at the start of a
lecture, the guy leading flashed up a picture between slides. A massive, fuck
off tarantula.
The result? Blind panic and an inability to sit calmly for
the duration.
I remember feeling like I needed to cry for the whole hour
just to get it out, but social regulation made me sit there and not make a
fuss. As the lecture continued he basically described the same process that had
engendered and maintained the fear for my whole life.
These days I have tried to shake it off. I no longer recoil
at the sight of your every day spider. I don’t care so much because I have made
myself not care. I hate being at the mercy of irrational emotions and a victim
of a brain following a defective thought process that just doesn’t need to run.
I can now often rescue, deport or squash visiting spiders without much anxiety
too, which is good.
And big, scary, proper spiders? Still hate ‘em but I can see
a picture or footage of one without full blown recoil or panic *IF* I know it’s
coming. But when they are unexpectedly
spliced into TV footage without warning, or they pop up unexpectedly as a
twitpic or something? Those take me ages to climb down from. I can’t get my
brain back to normal for ages sometimes.
So I’m far better than I was, but expectation is the key.
The longstanding, primal fear is still there- and even when I know it’s coming
I’m still rattled, but the surprise appearances are the ones that shake
me. And only for the ‘right’ kind of
spider.
But even in finding this little gem, I still had to look
through Google Images squinting with my
head to one side, in case the ‘right’ kind of spider popped up.
I don’t think I’ll ever rationalise it completely, however
well I understand the process.
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