I used to be phobic of spiders to a similar degree to your description when I lived in England. Then I moved to New Zealand... 2 weeks after I arrived, I was bitten by a white-tail spider IN MY BED, requiring a trip to the emergency doctor to get the poison lanced out! A few years later I wound up living in a suburb that's famous for housing the enormous spiders featured in the movie Arachnophobia (which I've never watched!) All the close-contact seems to have worked its magic and over the years my phobia has faded. Now, like you, I try not to kill spiders, gently remove them with a glass and have even been heard talking to them softly and calling them 'darling' 😂 Exposure therapy really does work!! Looking forward to part 2 of your story
OMG!! That sounds horrendous. Yes the spiders that scared me were nothing compared to that!! I remember waking up once with puncture marks on my leg and seeing an enormous (for the UK 🤣) beastie on my wall 😱. Funnily enough my next week post is about exposure - about confronting fears in a different way and building resilience. Can we actually train our rational brain to overcome our lizard brain..? X
I still have the biggest phobia of spiders - there is no way in the world I could even imagine doing the course 😳
It’s honestly life changing! I was exactly the same, but now I’m really ok with them. It’s very odd 😊
I used to be phobic of spiders to a similar degree to your description when I lived in England. Then I moved to New Zealand... 2 weeks after I arrived, I was bitten by a white-tail spider IN MY BED, requiring a trip to the emergency doctor to get the poison lanced out! A few years later I wound up living in a suburb that's famous for housing the enormous spiders featured in the movie Arachnophobia (which I've never watched!) All the close-contact seems to have worked its magic and over the years my phobia has faded. Now, like you, I try not to kill spiders, gently remove them with a glass and have even been heard talking to them softly and calling them 'darling' 😂 Exposure therapy really does work!! Looking forward to part 2 of your story
OMG!! That sounds horrendous. Yes the spiders that scared me were nothing compared to that!! I remember waking up once with puncture marks on my leg and seeing an enormous (for the UK 🤣) beastie on my wall 😱. Funnily enough my next week post is about exposure - about confronting fears in a different way and building resilience. Can we actually train our rational brain to overcome our lizard brain..? X
Great, look forward to reading and enjoy your hols in the meantime 😊
Loved this piece Em - made me giggle!
🤣❤️
A buoy???
Well I’ll be writing about that next week…you’re not scared of them are you?!
Luckily no!