Has anyone successfully cured themselves of a spider phobia?

[PuppyMonkey]

Hypnotherapy? Cognitive therapy? Something else?

I really want to cure mine, but I just know the cure will involve looking at spiders or holding them or some such outrage. Or am I wrong?

[molepom]

I dont know to be honest. I cured mine in preperation for moving to a country where they can kill you.

In my head I thought it was just pointless to be scared of something I can squash under my foot, so that's when I gave myself a mental kick up the rear and started with the glass and card technique of getting rid of them, now I'm slowly moving on to catching them by hand - can do the small ones and the ones with the tiny bodies and long legs, but the larger or meatier ones are the most difficult for me to get close to with bare hands at the moment.

Just take it one spider at a time. Try hoovering them up first, then move on to swatting them with newspaper, then the glass and card and remove them outside, then picking them up with your hands.

[PuppyMonkey]

Moleporn, the idea of a cup and paper horrifies me, I can't even be in the same room as one. I have Dysoned one or two up ( with my eyes closed and standing as far away as poss.)Then I had to abandon Dyson and hide upstairs for half a day till DP came home.

It sounds silly, but I worry about spiders all the time in summer/autumn.

Definitely interested in hypnotherapy, if it could just make me not as worried when I see one, that would do me.

[molepom]

I wondered how long it would be until someone called me Moleporn.

If you keep hoovering them up you will get used to it, I promise. Start with the small ones, leave the biggers one to someone else for now.

Just one small spider at a time, I promise you will get over this on your own, just dont buil yourself up into a state before hand. See one, get hoover, suck it up, turn hoover off, then go upstairs for 1/2 hour, come down, put hoover away.

Just one small step at a time.

[TheOriginalFAB]

I am terrified of them and have done ridiculous things in my quest to deal with them.

[OldLadyKnowsNothing]

I pretended not to be scared of them, so that I wouldn't pass on my fear to DS1 when he was a baby. Now I can happily share space with them, but I can't actually touch the buggers, and any glass/cardboard activities are strictly for DH.

[purplearmadillo]

I moved from city to country and there are loads in our house. I've just had to deal with it - I don't think I could ever pick one up but I can do card and glass now, when I was scared to be in the same room before.

[PuppyMonkey]

Oh sorry about the porn mole I'm on the app and the type face is very small.

[Lunabelly]

Was absolutely terrified of spiders, at one point would pass out in terror when some shitbiscuit threw one at me if confronted with one.

Then, through unrelated reasons, I had a nervous breakdown type thing all over our bedroom floor, and ended up on anti-depressants. Now, these pills are also used to treat OCD, PTSD etc, so I would presume phobias are maybe in the same part of the brain or something, I don't know, but one day, there was a reasonably size of a fecking dinnerplate sized spider on the wall above my bed, and instead of freaking out, I just said "Oh bog off you bastard" and went to sleep.

Then I found myself picking them off the walls and putting them outside (much to dad's horror), and so, one day, to see if I really was cured , I got someone with a pet tarantula to come round, and yes, I managed to hold him/her/it. Admittedly I was wearing elbow-length velvet gloves but A) Rome wasn't built in a day, and B) I would not have even thought about doing that a year or so previously.

I have since come off the (CR)happy pills, as the side effects got worse than the original illness, BUT, I am still able to function around eight-legged creatures. NLP also helped - imagine the spider is dressed as a clown, complete with eight little clown shoes - and then just laugh at them and their knobbish ways... :o

[Lunabelly]

Update.

It's big spider season. I'm scared. :(

[hester]

Me too. I'm considering doing the course at London Zoo. I've moved to the spidery suburbs and honestly don't know how I'll get through the autumn.

[Rhubarbgarden]

I did the London Zoo course years ago. It didn't cure me but it did help. At the session itself I held a massive hairy bird eating monster in my hands, and eventually was coaxed into touching standard big black house spiders (harder than the tarantula, strangely). It was no walk in the park but definitely worth it because I could do the glass trick and share a room with small to medium sized ones afterwards. I have to say though, as the years have passed the fear has crept back, and I was reduced to a gibbering wreck just now by a gigantic one sitting on the doormat. Maybe I need a refresher.

[GetOrfMoiSamsungFridgeFreezer]

I am terrified of them and I can't even think of any kind of therapy, as I imagine it would mean holding one of the scuttling bastards, or (just as bad) looking at a picture of one staring at me with its 8 evil eyes from the pages of a book.

Stupid I know, but they terrify me.

I have 4 cats who are my protectors, as they eat the spiders, however seeing one of the kittens with spider legs wriggling out of its mouth made me shudder.

I can hoover them up however the last time I did that I threw the dyson out the back door, and then made DP empty it outside and blow down the hoover pipes yodel stylee before I let the dyson back in the house.

Thankfully, dd hasn't inherited the screaming fear, she picks them up calmly in her bare hands and puts them in the garden (what have I given birth to? )

[hester]

I've booked onto the London Zoo course - it's next week!

I shall report back as a new, fearless woman.

[moondog]

I'm not scared of spiders but this morning I put my sweatshirt on I left on the stairs and as I did, felt something odd by my neckline. It was a huge spider that had obviously nestled in the sweatshirt.