Here's an Tiny Anxiety I Want to Defeat. Fandom is Out of Reach, but Can I at Least Be Reasonable Concerning Spiders?

I am someone who believes that it is never too late to change. I think you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the mature being is open-minded and willing to learn. As long as the old dog is ready to confess when it was wrong, and strive to be a more enlightened self.

OK yes, I am that seasoned creature. And the lesson I am working to acquire, although I am a creature of habit? It is an major undertaking, something I have grappled with, often, for my whole existence. The quest I'm on … to grow less fearful of those large arachnids. Pardon me, all the other spiders that exist; I have to be grounded about my capacity for development as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is sizeable, in charge, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. This includes three times in the previous seven days. Inside my home. I'm not visible to you, but I’m shaking my head at the very thought as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but I’ve been working on at least becoming a baseline of normalcy about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders from my earliest years (unlike other children who are fascinated by them). During my childhood, I had ample brothers around to guarantee I never had to confront any directly, but I still freaked out if one was visibly in the general area as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and attempting to manage a spider that had crawled on to the family room partition. I “managed” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, nearly crossing the threshold (lest it ran after me), and emptying a significant portion of bug repellent toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it did reach and irritate everyone in my house.

As I got older, my romantic partner at the time or cohabiting with was, by default, the bravest of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore in charge of dealing with it, while I made low keening sounds and beat a hasty retreat. When finding myself alone, my tactic was simply to exit the space, douse the illumination and try to ignore its presence before I had to re-enter.

Recently, I visited a pal's residence where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the sill, for the most part hanging out. As a means to be less scared of it, I envisioned the spider as a female entity, a girlie, one of us, just chilling in the sun and overhearing us yap. It sounds extremely dumb, but it was effective (a little bit). Put another way, actively deciding to become more fearless proved successful.

Regardless, I've made an effort to continue. I think about all the sensible justifications not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they eat things like buzzing nuisances (my mortal enemies). I know they are one of the world's exquisite, benign creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to walk like that. They travel in the most terrifying and almost unjust way possible. The appearance of their numerous appendages carrying them at that frightening pace induces my ancient psyche to enter panic mode. They ostensibly only have a standard octet of limbs, but I am convinced that triples when they move.

But it is no fault of their own that they have frightening appendages, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – perhaps even more so. My experience has shown that implementing the strategy of working to prevent immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, working to keep calm and collected, and intentionally reflecting about their beneficial attributes, has proven somewhat effective.

The mere fact that they are fuzzy entities that dart around at an alarming rate in a way that invades my dreams, doesn’t mean they merit my intense dislike, or my girly screams. I can admit when I’ve been wrong and driven by irrational anxiety. It is uncertain I’ll ever attain the “catching one in a Tupperware container and escorting it to the garden” level, but you never know. A bit of time remains for this seasoned learner yet.