Arachnophobia

[Chickentikka567]

I know most people are not keen on spiders. It sounds dramatic but they just make my life a misery, it's a constant anxiety. I have occasional nightmares about them, I've had several bad experiences like finding one on my pillow, finding 2 large ones in the bath at the same time, and so on.
I dread this time of year and they seem to have started early due to the poor weather.
Have been lucky to not have many in our flat, but I can't escape them completely. It puts me off going to hot countries, I feel miserable about living in a world with them. I know that sounds dramatic and there are much worse things out there that would harm or kill me.
it's just frustrating but it's part of life I suppose. There was a therapy course but it was too expensive, something like £100 per session!
has anybody managed to successfully get rid of this phobia.

We live near fields and get massive ones. I absolutely hate it!
I check all the walls before bed and shake all pillows and duvets. I then lay in the dark checking all the walls till I fall asleep.

I wish it didn't affect me so much.

Exactly!! This makes me fume.

I adore spiders and find them so graceful.

Literally saw it out the corner of my eye running from my chest to my neck, huge brown, thick legged beast. I actually ripped my necklace off in sheer panic which I'm upset about as DH bought it for my 30th in June and it has a pendant that represents me and DD who was born in May 😢 it landed on the floor and somehow I managed to chuck a T-shirt over it and stamp.

I still feel bad, I really don't like killing them but I was beside myself.

1. Men can be arachnophobic too.

1. Look up the definition of phobia - an irrational fear. Which means that - gasp - it may turn men hysterical too.

Someone shaking or sobbing due to a phobia doesn't give anyone the right to label an entire gender, some women really are quite ironically misogynistic it would appear.

I second @dadandtwokids suggestion of CBT. I am bird phobic, and it got to the point where I thought I was going to have to stop driving, because the urge to duck and cover my head every time a bird flew towards the car was becomming near impossible to resist.

I had six sessions, and while I still couldn't go into a room where a bird was flying free, I'm so much better than I was. It's really manageable now.

I really feel for people with arachnophobia, it must be awful. My house has been full of spiders this summer, I feel really lucky that they don't bother me.

I cured my phobia (and I was full blown phobia of them!) by doing the friendly spider program at London zoo

i was worry about the cost but can honestly say it has been worth every penny I have been officially cured for years now

in fact I hardly ever even see them now cos I am no looking for them all the time.
Even today a colleague brushed something off the back of my top at work, I was like what was that and she say a spider. I just did say good job I am no scared of them

10 years ago I would have barely functioned at that

I will start this by saying I'm not cured. I don't like the huge ones, they make me jump and I would not like to go to Australia. But I am much better than I was and there's a few ways that's happened. When I was pregnant I suffered horrendous anxiety. I was a few weeks gone when I saw one of the big bastards in my bedroom in our flat. It ran under the chest of drawers, it was late at night and DH couldn't be bothered chasing after it. I remember crying myself to sleep in his arms but like I said the anxiety was awful anyway. Next day I forgot about it, put my Toms on (the ones you wear with no socks). Felt a crunching, yes it was in my fucking shoe! 🙈. I screamed and ripped the shoe off then spider ran out and I battered it with the hoover (not proud of this and I realised this reaction actually made me more scared of them.
Anyway fast forward to me taking sertraline for the anxiety. I started to feel braver around them and was determined I wouldn't pass the fear on to my child. So when DD was 2 we went to a creepy Crawley Halloween event at a local museum. They had a tarantula and me being me decided this was my chance. It was a beautiful creature and I let it run up my arm. No photographic evidence unfortunately but it definitely happened. We also went to London zoo and to the spider forest thing.
When she was 3 we moved to a house with this horrible lean to which had loads of those old man creepy ones. I used to try to battle them and get rid of them and we used to get quite a few in our bedroom. The highlight was the one I discovered above my head in bed one night. DH was off to India so I'd wound myself up about it that much he got me a spider catcher. This really changed things as if I see a big one now I just get the catcher on it and evict it. I'm now chief spider catcher (except for the cat). There was one the other day on a bed sheet in the garage and it really helped that I could calmly evict it instead of getting fighty with it. I really thing that makes the whole thing so much worse as it gets the adrenaline going. Did you know if we are scared of something the human eye enlarges it? I also keep any of the spindly ones I see in the house as they kill and eat the big bastards and I had a chat with the cat the other day and told her to up her game as the same day I saw the garage one I saw two smaller ones. Sorry this is super long and I hope you make it to the end without falling asleep but honestly the spider catcher is a game changer 😊

I love this. Naming them and giving them back stories 😊 so cute

I've been and didn't see any. I did sack of going to Laos and Cambodia because of them and I feel a bit stupid about that now

Reading the first page of this thread has made me feel sick. I have this phobia too & feel I really can't put up with it any longer - can't even explain the feeling they give me but it's dreadful.

I'm going to find a good hypnotherapist and pay on a credit card. Can't afford it but it feels necessary. I'm in my 30s now and don't want to live the rest of my life with this phobia!

I don't like something....so I kill it 😑really?

Nobody wants to have a phobia. I wish I didn't start sweating and my heart didn't start racing whenever I see a huge spider, but that's just what happens, I have no control over it and it has absolutely nothing to do with needing to 'grow the fuck up' 🙄 Plus my phobia was passed on to me by my Dad...you know?...a man...who was equally as petrified of them as I am.

You can practically play bingo with all of the 'helpful' suggestions that are offered by people who think we're stupid 😭.

Therapy - such as paying money to zoo's
Logic - they can't hurt you in this country
Shame - you are ruining the eco system by killing them
More logic - just 'pick' them up with a glass / cardboard ect.
More shaming - you don't want to pass it on to your children

The shear lack of empathy is trolling at this point 😖.

I've stopped them getting in buy placing a dab of lemon eucalyptus on a cotton bud and putting it around the places they get in. Its £2 a bottle on ebay and its a lifesaver - it also wards off biting insects.

I introduce them to my hoover, then I hoover the floors to be sure they're smothered.
If anything, my floors are clean.
I keep spindlies though to help.

I did the friendly spider course too, it changed my life and now I can cope with them whereas before I'd be a wreck. I'd recommend it to anyone.

I'm on antidepressants for other concerns and I've noticed it has helped me cope. Still don't like them.

I don't buy into the peppermint round doors or conkers stuff - the speed they go I doubt they even notice!

Keeping the cellar spiders helps a lot but we've still had a few. I just keep a glass and card in every room so I can be quick to trap and remove.

Can confirm that sausage dogs also oblige with regards to spider eating.

However, they are far less agile than cats and also lazy bastards, so are therefore only good for eating spiders that drop into their open (snoring) mouths, and require no effort on their part.

Well, this thread has taught me something new, that the spindly spiders in the corners eat the enormous ones. That’s something to tell my 2 very arachnophobic DDs (14 and 11)!

I’m not at all arachnophobic myself, but I have a different phobia myself; I’m terrified of wasps and have made an idiot of myself in the past when we’ve had a couple make an appearance during a family picnic. (I’m much better at hiding my phobia now!) So I don’t mock arachnophobes.

Another phobic checking in. Right now, funnily enough, sitting on my sofa with a herniated disc KNOWING I will hurt myself jumping if the monster I saw on the curtains two nights ago reappears. I hate it, it legit makes me angry how scared I am. Alive ones, dead ones, shed skins, photos - anything. It is ridiculous.

Possibly the worse thing about it is having 'spider sense', you know full well there is a spider on show in a room without even directly seeing it. I can spot small ones dangling from the ceiling. It's like part of your brain is constantly alert for the fuckers.

If it makes you feel any better - I once had to ring my brother-in-law to rescue me from a spider I had 'hidden' from by crouching ON the kitchen table. But that meant I couldn't let BIL in. He had to climb through the living room window. He's 6ft 3.

Or the time DH came home to find me crouching on the worktop like a middle-aged pixie throwing cold chips towards a spider on the skirting board in another room to encourage my dogs to get it. Didn't work. Arsehole took a photo of me before dealing with the spider 😭.

OR ringing my mum, heavily pregnant, absolutely hysterical leading her to thinking something dire had happened...dad drove across town to rescue me from that one

How on earth is suggesting treatments trolling, or a lack of empathy? Logic suggests all of us suggesting that have been through it and therefore empathise entirely 🙄

I love spiders so never kill them. But yes to having a house full of spindly cellar spiders, I very rarely get house spiders. They somehow keep them in check even though the cellars only hang out in corners.

House spiders are ALL called Simon, according to the experts at London zoo 😄

op i'm absolutely petrified of spiders too. they reduce me to a wreck.
I live in a new estate and in the last 2 weeks have had loads inside, really big ones too. In the last week alone i've had 2 huge fuckers run across my bed, while I was in it! I honestly can't cope this time of year, Ive bought Spidex and sprayed my whole room and kept the door closed for half a day. it stinks though

Untrue. Bought my house with a massive infestation of both - it was absolutely awful to deal with.
And just watched this evening a massive house spider saunter right past between two of the spindly ones.
Indorex type spray comes out for the big feckers.