To not understand why people are scared of spiders.

[alistron1]

They are smaller than us, they can't kill us (well here in the uk they can't )and they are rather cute IMHO.

I don't have tarantula's or owt. but in my life where ever I go I am chief spider catcher and the histrionics over them bewilder me.

Why are so many people reduced to gibbering wrecks by them?!

Now wasps...that's a different matter

Since moving to the land of the killer deadly spiders, I've reassessed my fear of them and save it now for the ones that it is sensible to run screaming from (and huntsmen, because they are just TOO big)

1. They scuttle
2. They are hairy
3. They bite (yes, been bitten TWICE in the UK)
4. They defy gravity so you're not safe anywhere
5. They hide to get you

Ok, there's a possibility I might be taking it personally on the last issue?

i am so scared of spiders, not just a little frightened, but full blown panic attacks where i cant breathe etc, dont know what it is about them that sends me like that, my phobia is so bad that when my ex P moved out the first thought i had was 'whos going to catch the spiders now'. I bought a cat.

Eralc we were in Australia on our honeymoon and came back to our room to find a huntsman that was literally the size of my hand stationed directly next to our doorknob. Even though we know they aren't poisonous (though apparently they can bite and it does hurt) it took all our courage just to open the bloody door!

vixy I hope you didn't read that. You sound like my mum.

I love spiders. I am very pro- spider. I have a life sized decal of a red kneed tarantula on my living room wall up by the curtain rail. :)
I once saw a wasp snatch a peacock butterfly from the air, bite its wings off mid-air, then land on a bush and start eating while the severed wings still twirled lazily to the ground.

I am ITCHING reading this thread !

I dread September when they're out in full force to breed. They're getting bigger and hairier each year.

Wasps don't bother me though. A friend of mine taught me how to overcome the fear and now I let them bob around me, land on me etc. If you don't move or react they just fly off. Simples!

Ceasnake is right - it's an ancient memory thing to fear spiders/snakes etc. Because some of them are poisonous. So it makes sense to fear them.

I hate them too - they follow you and some of them jump. Then they run away laughing and hide so that you don't know where they are.

Bastards.

i am petrifiedm of spiders and could cry when i see one. :(

when i was about 14 i swapped bedrooms with my sister and it was known for getting more spiders in it. i woke one morning to a something in my throat, when i got some tissue to spit it out it looked like a spiders leg, im not kidding!! i was boaking all day :(

YABVU

Everyone is afraid of something. Heights don't bother me, my Mum is petrified. I don't get frustrated with her or misunderstand her, it the way she is and we all have an irrational fear.

By definition phobias aren't rational!

Having said that, I am living proof that you can get over them. I arrived in Oz four years ago totally arachnaphobic (couldn't enter a room with a spider the size of a thumbnail in the corner). I live in an area of Sydney where funnebwebs (deadly) and redbacks abound and now I can barely be arsed to put shoes on when I go into the garden and I leave huntsmen - the big ones - alone because they eat the mozzies. You can only scream so many times.

I don't mind spiders. It's earwigs that I hate. DS, otoh, turns into a gibbering wreck when faced with any spider.

I have always been nervous of big spiders...but a little while ago a small one crawled over my hand whilst I was unfolding the pushchair. It got trapped in between my little finger and ring finger and BIT me. Nothing drastic but now I am really quite nervous of all spiders again now! This one was not much larger than a money spider!!

Horrid, horrid, horrid things! Always give me the heebie jeebies...always take me by surprise and give me a fright.

Going to stay in an old house in the italian countryside for a holiday this coming summer with the in-laws.

Am more than a little concerned about the spider situation but fortunately hubs is not afraid..

They make me shudder!

I'm seriously thinking about getting a plug i repeller, but from the reviews some of them are phony. If anyone has one that works I'd love to know!