His Excellency Aethien wrote:
Why?
What is it about spiders that make people all panicky and irrational?
Those with arachnophobia probably can't tell you exactly what it is, since the fear is irrational. I couldn't tell you why I get all panicky when I see one, I just do.
My arachnophobia has always been there, but to a lesser degree. It accelerated due to some incidents when I was younger, though. Woke up one night with a tingling sensation on my face, it was in the middle of the night so I just sleepily smacked a hand to my face to brush away what I thought was a strand of hair caught in my mouth. It was hairy and moved when I hit it, so I brushed it off and turned on the bed light, only to see a giant spider run down my bedsheets and another sitting right next to the bed lamp.
Later on I moved down into my parents' basement and it got worse (basement is partially below ground level). Came in one night and wanted to turn on the light so I instinctively put my hand on the wall to find the switch. Instead I got a good hold of a giant mother of those things. My arachnophobia had already kicked in something fierce by then, so this only made it worse.
Those are the two defining moments for me where I remember my fear of them growing. I've generally had bad luck running into the eight-legged buggers (take my loot luck and apply it to real life). I've run into spiderwebs with big spiders in them. I've accidentally hatched baby spiders all over myself. Once saw a spider move a cardboard box around and I've heard one scream at me.
Adding all of that to the various nightmares I've had including waking up in a bed full of spiders, having spiders hatch within me like some sick horror movie, etc., it's a miracle I'm not locked away somewhere.
When you live every day afraid of something, when you finally meet it, you tend to get a little panicky. It's not like I walk around and fear spiders constantly, but if I enter a dark room, the fear is there, tingling in the back of my mind. If I enter a room where I've encountered spiders before, my senses are on high alert. You should see me get the lawnmower from the shed (shallow and full of spiderwebs). Last time it took me 18 minutes to get it and I only need to take two steps in there and back out. Most of the time was spent convincing myself that I was perfectly fine and that I, for god's sake, shouldn't look up - which of course caused my fantasy to go ********
My mom's pretty supportive of it as she doesn't like spiders either (nor does my sister), but my dad thinks I'm a sissy. Mostly, though, I think he's annoyed because whenever a spider found its way inside, he was the one left to deal with it. And my mom's superstitious so she won't let him harm them (killing a spider means bad luck).
Me, I kill them without consideration. It's like the same reflex that gives you superhuman strength when you're trapped somewhere. I just grab whatever and smack the **** out of them. Assuming they're not too big and moving, in which case I depart from the room and avoid going in there ever again.