Hello. My name is Claire, and I am an arachnophobe. I have lived with this condition all my life but it has never interefered with or hampered my day-to-day actions.
Until now.
You see, there's a huge spider in the bathroom and I really need to pee.
As Father Dougal once said: "Ted! Ted! I'm in tremendous pain, Ted!" (If you're not Irish or British then you won't have gotten that one - too bad!)
For as long as I can remember I've been afraid of spiders. And not just spiders, but all sorts of creepy crawlies and stuff. And whilst not necessarily afraid of winged bugs, I'm not a huge fan either and will do my utmost to avoid them.
My skin is crawling at the thought of the huge spider currently residing in the bathroom at work. A mere 20 feet away, I might add. This spider is so big that he could probably scuttle across here to my office in two seconds flat.
That's one of the problems I have with spiders - the fact that they scuttle everywhere. One minute they're there, sitting in the bathtub, waving up at you, and the next minute they're gone. Where did they go? Who knows?
When I see spiders, I don't tend to scream (unless they're enormous or about to jump on my face). Rather, I tend to freeze to the spot. Which is pretty fucking stupid because instead of running away to my happy place with rainbows and flowers and puppies, I'm rooted to the spot staring at the big hairy spider, unable to breathe, whilst my mind screams like a lunatic.
For people who don't have this fear of spiders, it's really difficult to comprehend how horrible it is. I know it's irrational, I know it's abnormal and I know it's probably more scared of me than I am of it. But, all the same, I'm going to have to wait until I go home to pee, 'cause I ain't going into that bathroom.
From Wikipedia (with my comments in brackets) -
Arachnophobia is a specific phobia, an abnormal fear of spiders. With an estimated half of all women, and a quarter of all men in the United States, it is among the most common of phobias. The reactions of arachnophobics often seem irrational to others (and sometimes to the sufferers themselves). People with arachnophobia tend to feel uneasy in any area they believe could harbor spiders or that has visible signs of their presence, such as webs. If they see a spider they may not enter the general vicinity until they have overcome the panic attack that is often associated with their phobia. They may feel humiliated if such episodes happen in the presence of peers or family members.
(Very true. I hate going into places that have cobwebs hanging about, and it is embarrassing asking people would they mind removing the huge spider so I can go into the room, hence my current state of misery. What's worse is that I can't even be in the room when the spider is being removed, and the remover has to show me his/her empty hands afterwards so I can be sure they got rid of it. I know, I know, I have trust issues.)
The fear of spiders can be treated by any of the general techniques suggested for specific phobias.
(See, I have a problem with this. I don't want to be cured of my fear because whenever you see people who'd been hypnotized into thinking they're no longer afraid of spiders, you always see them picking up tarantulas or something afterwards, and I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT!!!!!)
Arachnophobia is, in many cases, the result of a traumatizing encounter with spiders in one's early childhood, though the experience may not be remembered.
(I'm not aware of any trauma - as far as I know I've just always hated the little buggers.)
An evolutionary reason for the phobias, such as arachnophobia, claustrophobia, fear of snakes or mice, etc. remains unresolved. One view, especially held in evolutionary psychology, is that sufferers might gain some survival edge, by avoiding the dangers. Spiders, for instance, being relatively small, don't fit the usual criteria for a threat in the animal kingdom where size is a key factor, but most species are venomous, and some are lethal. Arachnophobes will spare no effort to make sure that their whereabouts are spider-free, hence reducing sharply the risk of being bitten.
(See? We're SMARTER than you spider-loving freaks! You'll all die Steve Irwin-type deaths, with posionous red-backs hanging from your little fingers, whilst us arachnophobes laugh from our hiding places in the next room!)
The alternative view is that the dangers, such as from spiders, are overrated and not sufficient to influence evolution. Instead, inheriting phobias would have restrictive and debilitating effects upon survival, rather than being an aid. For example, there are no deadly spiders native to central and northern Europe that could exert an evolutionary pressure, yet that is where the strongest fear for spiders began, suggesting cultural learning. In contrast, many non-European cultures generally do not fear spiders, and for some communities such as in Papua New Guinea and South America, spiders are included in traditional foods.
(Yeah, well.... shut up. Spiders = bad, ok?)
In the meantime, I remain sitting here in my office, scared rigid, checking the door every five minutes to make sure the little bastard hasn't followed me in here (can spiders smell fear?), and desperately, desperately needing to pee.
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