Arachnophobia: A Creepy, Crawly Post!

[rabid1st]

I don't know that I have ever shared my arachnophobia with the rest of you. It stems, I believe, from an incident in my childhood. My parents were unusually thoughtless and in addition to making me sleep on the sun porch, rather in the house, they also made me sleep in footie pajamas. One night I awoke to an odd tickle on my calf. I reached down to scratch it and grabbed a struggling body in my hand. Unfortunately, the body (with all eight of its frantically scrambling legs) was INSIDE my footie pajamas. There I was, innocent child, clutching a huge spider in my hand, trying to hold it away from me while struggling to be free of bedding and full body footie pajamas. It is with me to this day, that sense of panic, the snaps and rough cotton, and the really icky squirming.

So, last night, when my sweetheart suddenly started up from the sofa during our TV hour and rushed to get a flash light, my first thought was "Not a spider! Not a spider!" Sadly, the SO immediately confirmed my third worst fear. It was a spider. And I was needed to hold the flashlight on it. Approaching the task on rubbery legs, I found my SECOND worst fear realized. It was a HUGE spider, easily the size of my palm. It also had silver glowing eyes in the torch light. The eyes were pretty much my undoing. I don't know if you have a phobia or not, but one of the signs of it is that you can't really LOOK at or consider the object of your fear. I have come a long way with my phobia, since the days when my teacher foolishly suggested I read Charlotte's Web. I can look at pictures of spiders for a few seconds. I can read illustration free articles about them. I can even tolerate small ones (like smaller than a dime) without screaming or running. But this one...was far too much for me. I told my SO I couldn't hold on any longer against the fear and I ran to hide. So did the spider.

Happy to be free of the flashlight stare, it zipped away...vanishing into our TV console/bookcase arrangement. Okay, now we are closing in on my NUMBER ONE WORST FEAR. There was a large spider freely roaming my home. I figured I would have to move in with my sister until this whole thing was resolved. I would require proof of death, before I would be able to return to my own bed. Sensing this, Jan was not giving up on his hunt for the spider. After a lot of swishing around behind the TV and bookcases, he flushed the monster into sight. I screamed that he should kill it. KILL...IT! And he did.

I am not proud of this immediate blood lust. I know spiders are helpful creatures. But they really shouldn't be that large. Or in my house. Not if they expect to live a long and prosperous life. But I was feeling pretty bad about my Karma after the fact, thinking that all this poor innocent spider did was scamper across my wall. Until, that is, I started getting ill, muscle aches, chills, fever. And what do we find on my leg? A huge blister with radiating red lines around it. Spider bite. Tracing back what happened, I remember a flutter of something I assumed was my robe's belt tickling my leg as I walked along the hall. I stopped to swish the robe around angrily, very near the spot where the spider turned up later. I had pulled on the robe as I hopped out of the shower and headed to the couch for our TV viewing hour. The robe hadn't been used in about two weeks (it has been hot here) and was just hanging around on a hook.

Which brings me to my absolute worst level of FEAR...spider in my robe. Spider touching me. Near me. OMG! HUGE SPIDER...ON...MY...PERSON!! :gah: :faint:

The bite is so secondary to the proximity issue.

Like Jan said, when we found the bite, "Boy, it is a good thing you didn't notice him." I think he means good for his ears (some neighbor would surely have called the police) and my heart, but the spider also got a few more precious minutes of life out of that, too. And suddenly, I don't feel so bad about his demise.

Comments

[auntiesuze.livejournal.com]

When I was about...oh...12 maybe?...I had two incidents that forever scarred me. The first was that I received a spider bite (never seeing the spider) that actually got rather infected/necrotic. God only knows what type of spider it was, but it took forever to heal and was just generally nasty. The second was waking from a deep sleep by the feeling of *something* crawling up my bare arm. I flung out my arm and it went flying. I was too freaked out to get up and turn on the overhead light and spent the rest of the night shivering in disgust and fear. In the morning, I discovered the dead body of a HUUUUUUUUUGE cockroach (I was living in MS at the time - so, palmetto bug) that I'd actually managed to kill by flinging it at such high velocity into the wall (I'm lucky my arm didn't make contact, I probably would have broken it!). Anyway, ever since these two incidents, I've been intensely insect & spider phobic. Stepping on a wasp and stinging the bottom of my foot when I was in college didn't help matters any. ;)

I definitely wouldn't feel too terrible about the spider's demise. He invaded your space. Maybe it's a bit NRA of me, but if you come onto my turf, expect to get shot squashed.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I definitely wouldn't feel too terrible about the spider's demise. He invaded your space. Maybe it's a bit NRA of me, but if you come onto my turf, expect to get shot squashed.

Exactly, in a world where you are allowed to shoot burglars, you should definitely be allowed to squash monstrous spiders.

I am sorry to hear about your scary encounters, too. :SHUDDER SQUARED:

[sal101010.livejournal.com]

Ew, ew, ew ew ew ew ewwwww eeeeeewwwwwww!!!!!!!!!

I hate spiders. Yours deserved what it got. I have never been bitten by a spider (I don't know if we have bitey ones over here) but I do get Andrew to remove them. We also don't have so many large ones thankfully. I have taught myself to be able to look at little spiders - and occasionally chuck them out, but only if there is a suitable container so that I don't have to touch them.... excuse me while I freak out a little more....

[monkeybatz.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD!

I just shuddered thinking about your situation. I am such a baby when it comes to certain little crawlies. Centipedes and spiders are my weakpoints. I can totally be brought to my knees in tear filled eyes if I see either going around my house (small spiders I freak out but I have learned not to cry).

Eww the idea of that big thing on your person..in your robe...I almost want to go into a frenzy. Were you ok after your bite? Was an ER visit needed?

[auntiesuze.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAHHHH!!!!!! Yep, that'd freak me right out, too. I forgot to mention that my mom liked to dry our clothes outside rather than use the dryer, but after an...incident...we had to remember to carefully check and shake out each item to make sure there weren't any hitchhikers. {{{SHUDDER}}}

[keswindhover.livejournal.com]

I disapprove on general grounds of squishing things, but if it bites and is in your house I see your point.

I hope the bite goes away nice and fast, and your fever and your trauma fades.

*pet, pet, pet*

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

Dude, if I didn't have arachnophobia before, I do NOW.

Poor thing.

I hope you have recovered from your bite/traumatic experience.

{{{{hugs}}}}}

[karie22.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have trouble sleeping tonight after reading this. *Shudders*

I have been known to empty an entire can of spider poison on a nickle-sized spider. And then hurl the empty can at it hard enough to dent the wall, just to be sure.

They are not helpful creatures. They are the spawns of Satan himself and they deserve to be sent painfully and irrevocably back into the depths of hell from whence they crawled.

And I still can't stand to look at pictures of them. Especially if the pictures show their eyes or fangs, or if any of their legs are held upward.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Why did you mention the upwardly held attack legs?? WHY? Ewww! This one's glittery silver eyes are burned into my memory.

Sorry to have disturbed your sleep. But I keep checking all of my bedding and clothes, now. As if I think he might have come back from the dead...or had a friend over or something equally vile. SHEESH!

Rae
who hates also that spiders are always sneaking up on people.

[karie22.livejournal.com]

Ha, I was gonna call them "attack legs", too, but I thought it would sound weird!

When I see one spider, I always worry that it left 1,000,000 eggs somewhere that are just waiting to hatch.

Probably shouldn't have told you that...

Invest in a few bottles of the spray!!!

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

Hey, depending on the kind of spider you might need antibiotics and steroids, stat. Check on that. ::bitten by brown recluses twice and still no scars!:: ... ::which is an odd but valid boast::

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

My sister got a brown recluse bite on the nose. It did leave a scar. This one was way too big to be a recluse of any type. I suspected a banana spider for a bit but if it was then I had a dry bite.

I applied topical antibiotics to the bite and it seems to be healing. There is less redness and pain now and the blister has broken. I might have used some steroids during the night when I had so much pain, but I'm not really sure that the pain wasn't a flare in my fibro brought on by my sore throat infection. So...I can only really blame the spider for the bite, which is sore and ugly looking. As I said, I am more worried about his proximity to me in retrospect. :hee:

Rae

[phdelicious.livejournal.com]

OMG! EW! EW! EWEWEWEWEWEWEWEW!!! I hate spiders! That would've been up there amoung my worst fears EVER too!

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I do wonder why so many people are mortally afraid of spiders. It makes no logical sense. They are mostly quite helpful critters and generally no threat to our survival. Yet, there is something about them that gives lots of otherwise brave people the wiggins.

I mean, several types of snakes can be deadly. Rats and mice carry vermin and plague. But only a few spiders are even remotely dangerous to people. And, yet, many of us can't abide them. I wonder if maybe there were more poisonous spiders in the past, or if (as I fear) our alien overlords are arachniods.

HEE!

Rae

I feel your panic...

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

When I returned to Florida a few years back, I rediscovered my horror of the large, flying cockroach. Jan endeared himself to me early in our relationship by rushing to my rescue when one of them crawled over my foot. I DID scream loud enough to wake the dead that time. And he chuckled over that for a very long time afterward. But the point is, he did his manly part and saved me.

I am a wuss when it comes to many legged animals.

I don't even like lobsters.

Rae

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I have come a long way, as I said, with my spider phobia. I still keep jumping every few minutes today though. And I find it hard to walk past where he was without shivering. But, I can talk and write about the incident and I didn't have nightmares and I did hold that flashlight for a bit, before my nerves broke. So, I'm much better than say...the day when I jumped out of the driver's seat of my car in the middle of the street, leaving the car running and in gear, to escape a spider the size of my thumb.

People saw that one and couldn't believe it. I was just happy that the car was moving so slowly that I wasn't seriously injured or killed. Because I didn't stop to think about anything, I just bailed. And my car went driving on without me.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

It would certainly help me relax if we lived in a world without spiders. But I do believe they help out with the bug situation. I don't think we need those bird killing ones though. Or the poisonous kind.

And I feel your icon expresses my reaction nicely.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I handle the snakes and rodents in the house. Jan doesn't like snakes, but I'm relatively brave about them. But spiders are just too much for me.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I keep reliving the trauma when I walk past our bookcases. I suspect they are now a haven for spiders. But, yes, I do feel that it is wrong to squish things, generally speaking.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I should be careful with these graphic stories. My little niece is fearless about things and I want to avoid telling her that anything is scary. But I hope she never sees me react to a sizable spider. :grin:

[maniacalshen.livejournal.com]

I am so glad I didn't read this before bed last night. I much prefer my mafia/alien adventure dream to whatever this would have spawned in my mind.

[z3nyatta.livejournal.com]

I could only skim this entry it freaked me out so much...

[susanb03.livejournal.com]

Oh EWWWWW I hope I can sleep tonight! I HATE spiders too!!!! Was looking for THE DOCTORS WIFE review and found this!