I am absolutely, helplessly and completely terrified of spiders. How many of you feel the same?

Question

What physical symptoms do you experience when you see a spider and what strategies do you have for dealing with them? I just go to pieces. My fear just gets worse as the years pass.

Answer 1

Hey
I understand exactly what you mean. I dont know whether it was my up bringing that made me scared of spiders or if I am just too scared full stop.
When I was younger I just didnt like them very much but I used to act all confident if my sister was scared of one coz I was older than her I used to catch it and squesh it fr her but it just used to make me feel bad coz I realised that it wudnt have hurt her.
So one day I caught the biggest one I could find and put it in a big glass jar and started to put all sorts of stuff in to 'feed' it , I used to take it too school in my rucksack and keep it in my draw-it was a pet in other words. This helped a little when I was younger.
But as I grew older it seemed to get worse-when i see small ones am nt too bad -if they are near me or somewhere where I want to get something from eg on the kitchen counter I just give em a smack. I feel very very uncomfortable knowing that they are invading my private space.
But if I was to be sitting in a cafe I would just brush it away with a napkin and think of something else.
WHAT I ABSOLOUTLEY HATE ARE THE BIG MUTHER F***KERS YOU SEE ON TV or on your porch if you live somewhere where they are round all the time.
I hate watching the TV and looking at close ups of them running round. I mean when they are small and running fast i think thats fine coz they going about doing their daily life. But I could be watching a nice film, one could come on for literally three seconds and I just start feeling queezy and all tingly and I have to get up and shake my self off.
ANYWAY
Like someone suggested hypnosis is very good, acupuncture may also help or some sort of counsilling if it really is that bad?!
Why dont you try looking on the net or in the library and see if there are any books/articles/sites that could help you.
Someone said I have an over active imagination which made it worse. But also noticed that I am a vrery private person and I dont like knowing that something could hurt me, so putting the spider in the jar helped as I know it was dependant on me for food, thus I was controlling and it wasnt controlling me.
Please dont think am mad but when I used have this spider in the jar when ever I used to see other spiders I used think to my self 'HAHAHA I gt yr brother or sister HAHAHAHA do u miss em?' and I used to revel in it when I was younger I dont now coz I matured a bit BUT you might find this might work for you.
I think it is definately gonna get wrose if you dont do anything about it, so do please try and seek some sort of help. If I didnt do the spider in the jar thing I think I probably would have been really really bad with handling spiders but right now am nt half as bad.
ANYWAY sorry that was long winded!
I hope you manage to sort it out and get over it so you dont feel so useless.
Heres some sites I found while I was looking!
http://www.jaysanimalencounters.co.uk/id17.html
This is the actual search I put in on ask.co.uk so you can actually see what web pages I came up with and look at em at your own leisure!
http://uk.ask.com/web?q=How+can+I+overcome+my+spider+phobia%3F&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir&dm=all
Hugs
Fizzy
PS Dont feel embarrassed its actually a very natural human response (its from cave man days when most spiders were poisonous and we had to be scared of em to protect oursleves-ie runaway)
Also maybe learning more about them looking at diagrams may help.

Answer 2

I used to be the same. And it got worse by the day. Until one night.. I entered my bedroom and there on the wall VERY CLOSE to my pillow a big spider, bigger than the palm of my hand, stood waiting for me. Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night and the next day I was extremely tired and useless. So I made the conscious decision to overcome my fear. I started with the least scary ones (not necessarily the smallest ones) and I would chat to them as if they are my friends. (No I'm not crazy)
The only ones I am still scared of are button spiders as they are really dangerous and the only poisonous ones where I live.

PS. The other day when I was with friends I told a small spider that was running around on my leg to 'stand still!', so my friends started to laugh and I asked them 'what?' and followed with 'I don't know if this is an ant or a spider, it's running too fast, I can't count it's legs!', needless to say, that was the joke of the day.

Answer 3

I am the same, I panic, get a dry mouth and become totally obsessed. I once stayed in a room for 2 hours because I knew there was one next to the door and i didnt want to walk past it to get out the door. I am scared of them, but worse than seeing one, is seeing one and not knowing where it has gone, then there is a terrible fear it will appear in your face or something. I spent some time in Australia, seen some massive spiders, and freaked out accordingly, but thought that might help me deal with the smaller ones at home, but it hasn't. All that facing your fear stuff is a nonsense. Buy a strong bug spray, get a big bowl or basin you can cover it with and get someone to kill it for you! I can't ever see me being able to deal with them.

Answer 4

Oh my god. Even seeing the word written down gives me the creeps. I'm better than I used to be, though. now I can tolerate one in the room as long as it dosen't move..and it's not in the bedroom. I used to be so bad that I made my husband search the bedroom every night before I would get into bed, in case one had crept in; I would not open windows in case one crept in.
A feeling of horror come over me when I see one, and I simply panic if it's a big one..
I run.
My sister is even worse; get this-
She paints every surface in her home white so she can see the tiniest speck of what might be even a very small one; there is no clutter in her home; her children's clothes are folded up and put into locked drawers every night;
She vacuums the whole house four times a day.
When they are planning to go on holiday abroad; she will first of all read all about what spiders live in the area she is going to; then she will insist on seeing what kind of flooring is in the hotel they are staying in; if it has speckled flooring, she will not book it, because she thinks you can't see insects on speckled flooring!!It has to be a plain colour!! Then the travel agent is interrogated as to how high up their room will be, and if a high enough room can't be negotiated....you got it; she won't travel.
She figures the higher up she is, the less likely it is that a spider will get in......

Answer 5

I to hate spiders, I have to encounter them often, especially in the summer. I grow plants for a living and alot of them are grow in gallon pots in a huge field, well they have to be weeded from time to time and black widows love to hide under the pots. One day I picked up a cement block and carried it a number of feet before I realized a mama black widow was hitching a ride. It freaked me out, the one spider I fear the most though is the brown recluse, I have night mares about them, because their bite causes the skin to rot, most people have to have skin grafts after a bite, they live in cool damp places. Be careful!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 6

Used to scream and cry when i saw a spider but have learned to take control. I need them to be dead before i feel ok again so i can manage to kill them myself by squinting so i cant see the creepy legs moving so much and then hit it hard and squash it whilst i am shivering and making strange noises, but, the victory of getting rid of it is worth it.Harder to do if they are above eye level cos you worry about it landing on you! Beware!!

Answer 7

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Answer 8

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As we progressed from one-celled creatures to the complex human form, we were all eaten by a spider at least once. I think that is the only reason for the irrational fear so many of us experience—I mean, they're tiny little creatures that we can step on!

Here where I live in Massachusetts, U.S., there are no poisonous spiders, and yet most people are terrified of them!
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Answer 9

I would get a bit flustered if their was one in the shower, bit now I've overcome it, held a pet one on my hand that had the span of a tea plate! Hypnotherapy best for overcoming the fear.

Answer 10

What's long, green and smells like pork? Kermit's finger. Now that said, your fear is irrational in that Muppets require human operators to ambulate or cause bodily harm.