Phobias and other irrational anxieties

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

yeah, the fake cop thing was not a phobia at all - it was just a story that came out of Lotesse's funny picture.

As far as phobias, I do have a spider phobia which has improved since I had kids and had to smush spiders for them.

Positive exposure (in this case for you, not the spider ) would have helped a lot I bet.

My roommate is afraid of spiders, but I'm only slightly nervous of large spiders. She has become less afraid, however, because when we moved in there were loads of wolf spiders in the appartment since no one had lived here for a couple months.

Wolf spiders are large, grey spiders who are shy and utterly harmless to humans. You do have to remind youself of this fact when you see one of the larger ones, because they do look intimidating. My roommate is no longer afraid of small spiders.

I don't like to kill spiders. I prefer to trap them under a glass and put them outside. In the case of wolf spiders, they are beneficial to the garden too. I don't like having spiders in my hand partly because I don't want to accidentally pull off one of its legs, and partly because I don't like touching large spiders.

I don't like killing other bugs either. I actually felt guilty for a week about killing an earwig for my insect damage collection. I felt bad about this gal in particular because I killed her in a rather nasty way in order to preserve the sample. Crickets, sow bugs, and other insects go outside. Flies and mosquitos die die DIE. (But only because they annoy the heck out of me.)

I once got myself all worked up thinking I had seen a black widow (I only saw it out of the corner of my eye), but it was a harmless wolf spider (who proved nearly impossible to catch). Black widow's aren't aggressive, but I sure wouldn't want to surprise one! (This is common sense though.)

Did you know Daddy-longlegs are not technically spiders? They are insects! Cool eh?

Edit:

I read your post about staring animals Bombadillo. You would hate the squirrels on my campus! First, they're everywhere. Second, they're huge. Third, they are unafraid of humans (why should they be) and when you walk by them, they just stare at you until you're a safe distance away. They don't run away, they just stare.