Arachnophobia

Picture this: you’re laying on the couch in your living room watching some Game of Thrones, just enjoying life until you see a spider about the size of your finger crawl out from under said couch just about half a foot away from your face. (hint: this actually happened to me) What do you do?

Some would shrug and continue on with their lives. Some would just pick up the remote and smash it to death while eating their popcorn. What did I do? I screamed. Not to mention it was 12 A.M. and half my family was asleep.

I suffer from a serious condition called arachnophobia. I’m deathly afraid of spiders, and when I say deathly, I mean it. The incident where a harmless spider crawled out of sent me into a state of extreme panic and fear. I honestly don’t know why such a tiny thing terrifies me so much, but if I could change the way I think about spiders, I would. Trust me.

When I let my fear of spiders show around most people, they respond with the phrase “it’s just a spider!” I understand that it’s just a harmless house spider and that it won’t harm me, but I’m scared of it. I can’t change that. It’s just an irrational fear, something you and everyone else, has.

It can be a little frustrating when a person makes fun of your genuine fears. Just because you as a person are not affected by a certain thing does not make you entitled to undermine another who is deeply afraid of it. I understand not everyone is afraid of spiders, and it may be silly for some to think that, but it’s a part of my own personal psyche that I have to accept.

In fact, the other night I woke up to various bites all over my legs, and thinking they were merely mosquito bites, I ignored them. The bites were redder and a lot more itchy than any mosquito bite I’ve ever experienced, which was strange. The next morning, whilst cleaning my room, I found a house spider about the size of a quarter in my bed. Coincidence? Definitely not. Days later, I’ve counted 26 spider bites covering my legs from the knees down. I’m now scared to sleep in my bed, and to begin to describe just how traumatizing this was for me would be nearly impossible.

One time in the morning, a spider flew out of my pant leg as I was putting on a pair of jeans. It scurried away just as quickly as I jumped and screamed.

My irrational fear does have some form of logic behind it, as my encounters with the little eight-legged creatures haven’t exactly been pleasant. All I can say is I am extremely afraid of spiders, who have always terrorized me through experienced people don’t usually encounter. The next time you decide to make fun of someone because of something that may seem dumb to you, take a moment to think about the other side of the story.

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E.L.