Spiders

[JakeR]

I know this has been covered to a certain extent but i had to share an experience i had the other night that was frightening in two respects...

1. The spiders
2. My reaction

I had a bad experience when i was about 13 in a place called Vermaklaakate (South Africa). I was swimming in this tidal river and i made the crucial error of leaving my towel in the floor . I got out of the river and felt a little tickling on my leg. Thinking it was just the towel i ignored it. It felt too big to be an insect too. I then felt this sensation moving up my leg and i looked and saw an enourmous spider wrapped round my knee. Covering my whole knee cap (with its body) and legs hooked around the back of my leg. Needless to say i freaked out, and ever since i have been phobic of spiders. This is a picture of the critter i found on my leg, still gives be the shivvers:

http://www.reptilepark.com.au/animals.asp?catID=18&ID=140

So anyway, back to the story...

I went up to my room (loft) and was getting undressed for bed, i was knackered and slightly drunk, which didn't help. I always leave my wallet, keys and phone on my desk at night and as i put them down i noticed a spider in my old tea mug (it had been there for a long time and i'd grown used to the fact that im never gonna be bothered to actually take it downstairs ). I jumped back and froze (it was one of those scary house-jobbies). I was in the middle of my room and knew i had to cover the mug to stop it eating me in the night ( ). A picked up a book and covered it, only to my horror spotted another one on my wall!

Ok here's the part that freaked me out the most. I always knew i was scared of spiders. I have been since 13. But the next few minutes were bad. I couldn't move, i thought they must be everywhere. I couldn't jump into bed, because i thought there must be more. I grabbed another book and squashed the one on the wall, immediatly feeling terrible having done so, and i don't know why i didn't just put a glass over it, but i was panicking.

So what made me freak out like this? I phoned my dad the next morning as he used to work with phobics, he suggested exposure therapy. So i took the one in the mug and put him in a jar. Of which i am completely comfortable with holding (the jar). the next step is to hold it with the lid open etc.

Has anyone else expereinced a freak-out over something like this? Or is it just me? I know arachnaphobia is common, but borderline panic-attack? i couldn't move for about 30 mins!

It also has implications with bushcrafting, as spiders aren't rare. Which is my biggest concern; paranoid bushcrafting!

Oh well, just thought i'd share it with you...

 

[Motorbike Man]

Jake I've known other arachnophobes who had an even worse reaction than yours. Ever thought about hypno-therapy? When done by a qualified practitioner it can be very succesful.

 

[Wayne]

There was an interesting thread about panic attacks in the woods.

Panic

Not spiders but you might find it useful.

 

[Goose]

Excellent link about panic. I always remember my nephew telling me he was scared of spiders, then proceeded to pick one up he was so young he didnt actually know what they were but my sister was/is terrified of them and had passed on the fear of "spiders". I have made my kids face their fears when ever possible and find when I am in a position of authority (as a dad or a scout leader) I have no problems with getting over my silly fear of creepy crawlies! I know how silly it is but if I am on my own and there is a centipede or earwig for example I cant touch them and they give me the shivers but I suppose the fear of looking silly is worse so I just get on with it if anyone is watching!

 

[Toddy]

I hadn't read the panic thread before, thank you for bringing it up.
My phobia, no I won't say what it is; it's so ludicrously, pathetically stupid; was something I made my sons laugh at, "Mum's just being silly, there's no way these can hurt you. Look they're beautiful", kind of thing.
But the fear and panic is real, I can't even handle looking at photographs of them, the thought of keeping one near to try and break the phobia has me in a cold sweat even now. Shocks my sense of self. It's slightly reassuring to realise I'm not the only capable person reduced to the mindless, by panic.

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[JakeR]

Cheers guys...

MM I have thought of hypno-therapy but have been recomended exposure, it was also developed by a grandfather so i kinda feel like i should!

Great panic thread. Its funny all these fears we have, and how we can become completely over-run by them.

My dad started a therapy group called "walk-free" treating agoraphobics and i learnt alot from talking to him about it regarding some other things. But spiders have never become friendly! Its the way they move, it completely freaks me!

I'd rather be in a room of 1000 snakes than one or two spiders!

Is it butterflies toddy? I love butterflies, they are the only insects i can handle. But phobia's aren't always logical, or necessary.

Cheers...

 

[Martyn]

I used to be phobic of spiders Jake, I probably still am to some extent. I didn't have the experience you had, but growing up in the woods we got loads of big beefy spiders and for a long time they freaked me out totally. They all had to die instantly, prefereably by hitting them with something heavy and at least 6 foot long. I had dents in the walls of my bedroom from the level of "entheusiasm" with which I would execute them. Remorse was not a factor. Not ever. Death by obliteration was absolutely necessary.

How did I cure myself? I bought myself a pet Mexican Red Knee and cared for it for 3 years before it dies of some mysterious ailment - it didn't get squashed. I couldn't handle if that much, but your dad is right, constant daily exposure "de-sensitised" me. House spiders seem silly by comparison. Dont get me wrong, I'm still not that keen, but I could sleep with one in the same room - seems nothing to some, but that's a milestone I know you will understand as only a phobic can.

Go for it mate, get yerself a pet.

 

[match]

But phobia's aren't always logical, or necessary.

Yep - my friend's grandmother was petrified of stuffed toys, once walked into Hamley's Toyshop in Londonaround Christmas and they had a floor to ceiling display of teddy bears - she had to be carried out by security guards as she froze to the spot.

Many years later she underwent hypnotherapy to try and figure out why she had the phobia - turned out when she was very young (4 or 5) the next door neightbour had a cat she used to play with - when the cat died the owner had it stuffed and kept it in the window of the house! Hence the phobia.

I find that I'm 'situationally afraid' of things like spiders. If I'm with a lot of other people who aren't afraid I back off and let others deal with them, if I'm in a room full of screaming girls I'm quite happy to pick them up in my hands and carry them outside. But I've still been freaked out by them a few times - the last one being one on my towel that ran across my face as I was drying my hair after a shower!

Good luck with the experiements - I suspect that exposure will work well for you, since your phobia is still on the 'logical' side of fear, i.e you have specific reasons for not liking them - the way they move etc. If your phobia is more of an irrational fear, where even pictures or people talking about them causes problems, then hypnotherapy can be more effective...

 

[Paganwolf]

Jake, ive been keeping tarantulas and other creepy crawlies for 23 years now and have been over the world reserching and locating new species of Tarantulas, ive had a good success in treating people with arachnophobia, ive managed to get an arachnophobic TV presenter in a room with just under 1500 tarantulas,scorpions and other nasties i had at the time, he was sweating at first but become at ease once he saw what facinating critters they were, give me a shout before the next time we meet and ill bring some bits along and get rid of that phobia for you

 

[Toddy]

[Is it butterflies toddy? I love butterflies, they are the only insects i can handle. But phobia's aren't always logical, or necessary.

Cheers...[/QUOTE]

Told you it was stupid, moths and butterflies. I handle spiders, earwigs, beetles, slaters, cockroaches, maggots, dead mice...no fuss, a moth flies near and I'm reduced to a four year old with a squeak I get enormous ones with horns on coming into the kitchen from the trees along the burn....I really *like* the bats
Absolutely harmless, can't bite, burn, sting, poison....and I'm a basketcase with them.
I squeak and the voices echo round the house, "She's found a mo-oth", even the cat comes running.

Toddy, in need of a cuppa-- broken crown/dentist/ou-ouch/££

 

[ssj]

I'm not reporting this to show how cool or fearless I am but to maybe indicate how groundless some of our fears may be. I grew up in Western Texas, near the southeast corner of New Mexico. I remember as a child seeing a migration of thousands of tarantulas while we were in the car. Many, many were squashed by the car wheels as we drove down the highway.

Once, when I was in high school, I was leaning on one arm while watering a tree in the front yard and felt some movement on my shoulder. I looked over to see a tarantula on my shoulder. I flicked him off and got away from him. The tarantula is actually a fairly gentle, fragile creature. They can be killed by gently tapping on the back with a shoe. In West Texas, I understand that the bite is no more serious than a bee or wasp sting (which can be bad enough). That's apparently not the case in other parts of the world, where a tarantula bite can be very serious.

There were many black widows where I grew up. We learned early to identify them and stayed away.

Now if I was in a part of the world that I was unfamiliar with (for instance South Africa) and around spiders and insects that I knew nothing about, my reaction might be quite different if a hand sized spider attached itself to my knee!

Steve

 

[Moonraker]

[Is it butterflies toddy? I love butterflies, they are the only insects i can handle. But phobia's aren't always logical, or necessary.

Cheers...

Told you it was stupid, moths and butterflies. I handle spiders, earwigs, beetles, slaters, cockroaches, maggots, dead mice...no fuss, a moth flies near and I'm reduced to a four year old with a squeak I get enormous ones with horns on coming into the kitchen from the trees along the burn....I really *like* the bats
Absolutely harmless, can't bite, burn, sting, poison....and I'm a basketcase with them.
I squeak and the voices echo round the house, "She's found a mo-oth", even the cat comes running.

Toddy, in need of a cuppa-- broken crown/dentist/ou-ouch/££

Here you go Toddy... it really is not that uncommon a phobia.

http://www.ihatebutterflies.com/about.php

Sorry about the tooth. What a pain I find little whisky helps for the pain and the bill

 

[JakeR]

Cheers Guys...

Martyn thats it exactly! I can't sleep in a room where i know there is a spider. I even sometimes while half-way between sleep and awake in bed suddenly see one run onto my pillow and i jump out of bed like a shot, till i realise it was a dream . I reckon getting a pet would be good, are they easy to care for?

JP that would be great, i have a fascination with spiders, they're amazing little things. Appreciate you wanting to help mate.

Steve that was the most alarming thing about it after the initial "AARRRRR!!!!". It looked deadly enough to me, but we bought a spider book after the event, and it's reletively harmless to humans.

The funny thing about the Baboon spider is the speed that it ran. I always thought large spiders/tarantulars lolloped about, but this thing shot along the ground and into a crevice in the wall.

I was also once in the karoo with my uncle and saw what looked like an orb spider that was bright red. It was much uglier than the baboob spider and had it been on me i'd have passed out. Incredible creature but nevertheless wanted it to be at least a mile away from me.

My aunt also got bitten by a black widow when she was in her teens. But she didn't seek help. She just had a fever and a nasty bite area. I was under the conception that Black Widows were deadly...?

Oh well, thanks for the input guys, i appreciate it.

Jake

 

[Paganwolf]

I'm not reporting this to show how cool or fearless I am but to maybe indicate how groundless some of our fears may be. I grew up in Western Texas, near the southeast corner of New Mexico. I remember as a child seeing a migration of thousands of tarantulas while we were in the car. Many, many were squashed by the car wheels as we drove down the highway.

Once, when I was in high school, I was leaning on one arm while watering a tree in the front yard and felt some movement on my shoulder. I looked over to see a tarantula on my shoulder. I flicked him off and got away from him. The tarantula is actually a fairly gentle, fragile creature. They can be killed by gently tapping on the back with a shoe. In West Texas, I understand that the bite is no more serious than a bee or wasp sting (which can be bad enough). That's apparently not the case in other parts of the world, where a tarantula bite can be very serious.

There were many black widows where I grew up. We learned early to identify them and stayed away.

Now if I was in a part of the world that I was unfamiliar with (for instance South Africa) and around spiders and insects that I knew nothing about, my reaction might be quite different if a hand sized spider attached itself to my knee!

Steve

Spiders are basically a hydraulic hunter, they have no clotting agent in their blood so if injured quite simply bleed to death,The spider in your pic jake looks like a Histocrates sp (baboon spider) a very agressive spider of large build they live in tubular burrows in the ground with a chamber deep in the soil this is so they can regulate the temperature by moving up and down the burrow to varying depths , heat very quickly kills tarantulas.The largest leg spanned spider is Theraphosa blondi this beastie gets to the size of a dinner plate in leg span, not really too aggressive but kicks its urticating hairs on its abdomen quite redily, Africa holds the record of the heaviest/largest (body mass wise) spider in the world to date, this is also a Baboon spider, Histocrates Gigas i have seen no live specimen of this species (as they come from a dangerous war torn rebel infested area of Africa no one has the bottle to go to ) but a specimin resides in the vaults of the Natural history museum, and it would give you nightmares for a while if you saw it Jake think of the baboon spider in your pic then times it by 6......

 

[Toddy]

Here you go Toddy... it really is not that uncommon a phobia.

http://www.ihatebutterflies.com/about.php[QUOTE}



Wow, see the things you find out a positive mine of information, thank you.

I thought I was the only eejit with a fear like this. I don't hate them, don't want to see them hurt or damaged, I just don't want them near me.

Sorry about the tooth. What a pain I find little whisky helps for the pain and the bill

I strained out the last of the sloes from the gin last night so of course I had to check that I'd gotten the mix right That 'sterilised' it! I'm quite chuffed with this batch. This makes me sound like an alky....and I only have a drink once in a blue moon....I brew a lot though

Cheers, Toddy

 

[Scally]

of topic but the use of a little sloe gin in the bottom of a trifle, boy its good did this with dregs of my new batch

 

[Lurch]

Crikey this thread gives me the fear.
I don't want to be not scared of spiders - 'orrible things, far too many legs.
Oh and I've gone right off the idea of moving to Texas now!

 

[JakeR]

The spider was probably searching out some shelter underneath my towel.

The funny thing about spiders/tarantulas is im more scared of orb spiders as they're thinner and more gangly. Big fat guys don't move in the way the skinny ones do. They scare me nonetheless but another one i saw in the karroo would have given me a heart attack. [shudders]

 

[ssj]

Lurch-It sounds like there are people here that know a lot more about this than I do but I think that the tarantula migration incident was fairly rare. I only saw it once in the 20 or so years I lived in Western Texas. It was, however, truely amazing!
Steve

 

[qweeg500]

You are certainly not alone in this phobia. I'm not a big fan of them myself and even with house spiders I always try to use a glass and a piece of card if I can, although I can pick them up if I have to. It's funny though; in a field or in woods I don't mind them at all.
My sister in-law suffers particularly from this phobia however. She cannot bear seeing a picture of spider in a book or on television and doesn't even like the written word "spider". My children have a couple of fluffy toy spiders which we have to hide when she visits.
She realises she has a problem but prefers not to deal with it.