There's an Itsy-Bitsy Fear I Aim to Defeat. I Will Never Be a Fan, but Is it Possible to at the Very Least Be Normal About Spiders?

I am someone who believes that it is forever an option to change. I believe you absolutely are able to teach an old dog new tricks, provided that the experienced individual is willing and ready for growth. Provided that the person is willing to admit when it was wrong, and endeavor to transform into a improved version.

Well, admittedly, I am that seasoned creature. And the skill I am attempting to master, even though I am set in my ways? It is an significant challenge, an issue I have battled against, often, for my whole existence. I have been trying … to become less scared of the common huntsman. My regrets to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be realistic about my capacity for development as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is large, commanding, and the one I run into regularly. This includes three times in the recent past. Within my dwelling. Though unseen, but I'm grimacing with discomfort as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least achieving a baseline of normalcy about them.

I have been terrified of spiders dating back to my youth (in contrast to other children who are fascinated by them). Growing up, I had ample brothers around to guarantee I never had to handle any myself, but I still freaked out if one was obviously in the immediate vicinity as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had ascended the living room surface. I “dealt” with it by standing incredibly far away, nearly crossing the threshold (lest it pursued me), and emptying half a bottle of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it did reach and irritate everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whomever I was in a relationship with or sharing a home with was, by default, the bravest of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore in charge of dealing with it, while I emitted frightened noises and ran away. In moments of solitude, my method was simply to exit the space, plunge the room into darkness and try to erase the memory of its being before I had to re-enter.

Not long ago, I was a guest at a companion's home where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who lived in the sill, mostly just hanging out. To be less scared of it, I conceptualized the spider as a 'girlie', a girlie, part of the group, just chilling in the sun and listening to us chat. Admittedly, it appears extremely dumb, but it worked (a little bit). Put another way, the deliberate resolution to become less phobic proved successful.

Whatever the case, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I think about all the logical reasons not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they consume things like insect pests (the bane of my existence). I know they are one of the world's exquisite, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the most terrifying and somehow offensive way conceivable. The sight of their many legs carrying them at that terrible speed induces my caveman brain to kick into overdrive. They are said to only have eight legs, but I maintain that increases exponentially when they get going.

However it cannot be blamed on them that they have unnerving limbs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – if not more. I’ve found that taking the steps of making an effort to avoid have a visceral panic reaction and flee when I see one, trying to remain still and breathing, and deliberately thinking about their good points, has actually started to help.

Simply due to the reality that they are furry beings that scuttle about at an alarming rate in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, does not justify they deserve my hatred, or my shrieks of terror. I can admit when my reactions have been misguided and motivated by unfounded fear. It is uncertain I’ll ever reach the “scooping one into plasticware and taking it outside” phase, but miracles happen. Some life is left left in this veteran of life yet.