Fun fact: the film “Arachnophobia” was largely filmed about forty minutes from my current home. Not so fun facts: wolf spiders exist and they sometimes like to come into my house.
They’re like this, but terrifying.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, turns me into a hysterical, ugly-sobbing mess the way that arachnophobia does. Well, technically, any sufficiently creepy crawly insect will have a similar effect, but I don’t have any fun facts about entomophobia, and arachnids are really my main nemesis. It’s not all of them, of course. Smallish, slow-moving, harmless-seeming spiders/bugs I can usually handle. Well, unless there are lots of them. If there are lots of them, I am useless. One to five ants? No problem. More than five ants? I’ll be sleeping in my car. Unless the ants are in my car, which happened to me once in college when I accidentally parked over the remains of someone’s spilled soda. That wasn’t fun. By the way, ants are terrifying for a whole different reason. They do not care that you are there. They will march all over you, and all their little comrades will follow. Have you seen the video of the South American ants that just devour everything in their path? I would link to it, but I’m not googling that.
My arachnophobia is so severe that even thinking about common treatment options to cure it make me freeze up. You want me to touch a spider? I don’t think so. I would rather chew off my own hand and feed it to South American ants (from a distance; like, from a helicopter). I have been prevented from going to work because there was a wolf spider between me and my car. I once saw a spider run past me and escape into a gap between my bathroom floor and the floorboard. I spent the following two hours gassing the floorboards with bug spray, then applying glue to the gaps. The glue lasts about eight months. I’ve repeated this process twice since then.
Despite these facts, I am absolutely fine on most days. Other days… well, other days can be a lot like last Friday. See, the very worst is when I find a spider when I’m home alone. Last weekend, I turned around from my computer to find a medium-sized wolf spider had decided that he was just going to chill on the wall. He was high enough to be out of my reach. Not that I would have reached up to kill him. Did you miss the part about the hysterical crying and the panic? I didn’t mention the panic? Oh, well, let me tell you about the panic.
When I’m dealing with a sufficiently creepy spider on my own, I feel like I become a completely different person. Depending on the distance and amount of surprise I experienced, I may immediately become a terrified mess, or I might start looking around for weapons. When I say weapon, I mean absolutely anything that I can use to kill it while maintaining the maximum distance between us. In this instance, the spider was a good ten feet away, and didn’t seem too intent on leaving his position. I prepared my weapons: the vacuum cleaner, a can of bug spray, and a mop (covered with a paper towel sprayed with bug spray for additional homicidal efficacy). However, the real problems come from staring at the damn thing for too long. This is when the panic really sets in. The longer I look at it, the more details I notice, and the more transfixed I become. I start muttering to myself, trying to psych myself up, but I keep imagining ways my move could go wrong. Suddenly, I’m a master strategist. I can think of every possible result of my attack, except for a quick and easy kill. I plan out elaborate battles because it is inconceivable to me that I could effectively kill a monster so easily. This is what happens every time. Yes, it is exhausting.
Cut back to last Friday. I had my weapons, but it wasn’t enough. I put on a pair of heavy shoes in case he should make it close enough to require stomping. I rolled up my saggy pajama bottoms for fear that my nemesis could land on me and become somehow entangled. I considered putting on a hat, but what if he landed on my head? I would still have to take off the hat, and what if he landed on my back after that? I moved my dogs’ food and water bowls. I wouldn’t want them to accidentally get any bug spray in them, and I was convinced there would be plenty of bug spray everywhere.
These are examples of the odd, half-rational, half-batshit-insane thoughts that occur to me at my most desperately arachnophobic. They are also stalling tactics. I run through similar steps almost every time I have to confront my fears. I try to go into battle as well-armed and protected as possible, but I never safe. Sadly, the longer I stall, the more I look at the spider, and the bigger and more menacing he looks. Is that red on his back? Is it actually a black widow? (Spoilers: it wasn’t.) How am I supposed to ever sleep in this house again? How dangerous would it really be if I lift a lit match into the bug spray I intend to aim at this menace? Would insurance cover a burned-down kitchen? It seems like the easiest solution, but, with my luck, I’d set myself on fire, startle the spider, and he’d land on me as I attempt to stop, drop, and roll. While all of these thoughts go through my head, I assure you that I know perfectly well that I am being completely irrational. I know it, but I can’t stop it. It is a nearly paralyzing fear. It’s as though I can feel portions of my brain shutting down.
For ten minutes, I followed the same pattern as always. My distress grew, feeding on itself like a spidery ororobor0s. In less than ten minutes, all semblance of confident grown-up disappeared. I was a sobbing child, and there was a spider, and I was utterly terrified. Unable to will myself to kill it, but knowing I couldn’t move from that room unless it died, I called my father. I needed a pep talk more than I needed to breathe. I know this, because I was half-hyperventilating. My wonderful father convinced me to try a frontal assault, and he promised to stay on the line until my disgustingly furry foe was dead.
With my poison mop in one hand and my can of bug spray in the other, I climbed on top of a bar stool. This allowed me to be more on level with the demon and also as far as possible from the floor onto which he was sure to fall. The closer I moved toward him, the more intense my fear became. My hands shook. I cried huge, shuddering sobs, and my vision blurred with tears. I was less certain than ever of a quick kill. I stood atop the stool and cried pathetically as the time ticked by. My phone was several feet away, but I’m sure my father could hear me, and that awareness was humiliating. It still is. In the end, it was that embarrassment that prompted me to make an attempt. I started to aim the mop, but I had no faith in my strength and my weapon. I began to doubt my plan of crushing him with the poison mop. I decided to test the bug spray. The can said I should be twelve inches from the target, but I wondered if it could reach at twenty-four inches.
I released a test spray. The spider squirmed as the faintest spray hit him. I screamed and forced myself to lean closer. He dropped, but not to the floor. He landed on the small corner of the kitchen counter beneath him, and I can only sob and rain poison down upon him with desperate abandon. I drowned him in poison. Finally, a river of Raid carried him off the counter and onto the floor. He landed on his back, and his legs curled above him. He was finally dead, but I was still hysterical. My thoughts raced. What if there are more? I felt surrounded. A few stray hairs escaped from my ponytail, and I was suddenly aware of the creepy way they tickled the back of my neck. I didn’t want to go near the tiny corpse. Later, I had to vacuum it up with an extension hose, but that was later.
I returned to my phone and confirmed that my enemy was dead. My father asks for a description, and informed me that it was not a black widow after all. It might have some kind of design on it’s back, but it wasn’t a black widow. The legs and the color were wrong. I could google it, but I’d like to get to sleep eventually.
It didn’t take too long for me to calm down. My reason returned slowly, and the fear was replaced by complete embarrassment. I repeatedly thanked and apologized to my father. I felt so stupid. He shouldn’t have to give me a pep talk just so I can kill a stupid spider. We made a few jokes before saying good night, but I still had the creeps. I wouldn’t feel better until morning. A night’s sleep provides the necessary separation, but falling asleep that night was difficult. I kept thinking of new niches in which they could hide, repeatedly turning on my bedside light to look. I couldn’t not look. I slept with a can of bug spray by the bed.
This is the truth about arachnophobia. It’s pathetic. It’s embarrassing. It’s overwhelming, and it tricks me into thinking I’m okay when there aren’t any spiders around. If you asked me right now how I could become such a gibbering idiot in the face of a creature that is 1/1000 of my size, I could not answer you. I don’t understand it. I barely remember it. All I know is that I’ve been working on it for years, and this is what it’s like after I’ve improved. I’m not holding out hope for great improvement in the future. I’ll just keep sleeping with some bug spray next to the bed.
What Are Cows? 