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How Not to be Afraid of Spiders
Sep. 8th, 2007 07:36 pmFirst off, don't get me wrong: I don't dislike spiders. In fact, I rather like them. I wish them all the best. I just don't want to be near them. I certainly don't like seeing them in my living space. They creep me the fuck out.
I wasn't always afraid of spiders. As a kid, I was wary of them, mostly because I sensed it was expected of me. Besides, some spiders are dangerous, so it's not a good idea to get all buddy-buddy with them. Of course, the same could be said of snakes, but as long as I know it's harmless I'm perfectly happy to cuddle one. When I was about ten, my friend Dan had captured a wolf spider and was keeping it as a pet. He'd let it crawl about on his hands, and asked me if I wanted to hold it. I said yes, and he held his hand next to mine, so that the spider could crawl across onto my palm. Whereupon it immediately bit me.
Now, I'm not gonna go all psycho-analytic (yet) and claim that a fear of spiders was borne upon that pet's fangs. Because I spent a large portion of my childhood chasing and catching various small vertebrates, many of which bit me at some point, and I've yet to develop an irrational fear of any of those. I suspect that my fear of spiders actually stems from a disgust with and irrational fear of something entirely different (and considering food chains, somewhat ironic): millipedes.
Yes, millipedes. When I was a kid [here's where I get all amateur psychoanalytic; buckle your seatbelts], I spent a lot of time at school--since my mother was the director, I usually left a lot later than everyone else; I practically lived there. I spent most of my free time reading, usually sat on the floor against the wall. There is a certain type of millipede that has a habit of invading buildings and going off to die in corners and along walls. I have no idea why, but its death-musk (also the smell it produces when provoked) is the worst smell in the world. It is sickly-sweet, cloying, but also musky and almost tuna-like. It doesn't just smell bad, the way sewage or rot smells bad; it smells evil. It fills me with disgust; a disgust which turned to fear, and hatred of those little millipedes. Of all millipedes. Of all creatures with too many legs.
Centipedes have always scared me. The way they're shaped, and reading about the various sorts that can kill you with a glance, just freaked me out. But millipedes are not so different, and so in my mind they became the many-legged creatures of phobia. Spiders, too, somehow got themselves added. It's not all spiders, though, just certain body shapes. Anything with a body shape like a black widow or brown recluse scares the fuck out of me, but I maintain that this is an entirely rational fear. But really fangly spiders also scare me. And by 'fangly' I mean 'possessing very large palps'. And I know palps are not actually fangs, but they look like it, damn it! They also look a lot like extra legs, bringing the leg-count up to ten, which is just more than I can tolerate.
Also frightening, of course, are the really fucking BIG spiders. Which my house has been crawling with. It doesn't seem quite fair that Britain--mild, harmless Britain--should be the place with really fucking big spiders. In Southeastern North America, there are two species of spider that are capable of killing with their bites. But we don't have these big fangly leggy bastards menacing our walls. To be fair, we do have wolf spiders, which can get pretty fucking big (once when I was 7 I reached into my boot to check for a sock, and instead pulled out a wolf spider the size of my hand). But they are ground spiders. You know where to expect them, and that is on the ground or floor (or, as mentioned, in things you've left on the floor). They don't crawl up the fucking walls. They wouldn't sit beside your doorknob, or surprise you by scuttling in from behind the curtain. These house spiders are HUGE, and love to do these things.
The other night I was complaining to Nick about this, and he was chiding me for it. 'They're harmless', he said (I know), 'and they eat flies' (I know that, too). But his fantastical analogy was, in fact, helpful. 'Just think of them as fly prisons', he said, 'little, mobile fly prisons'. Which is such an absurd and amusing image that it actually takes away the fear of them. When the big, curtain-scuttling spider was still on the curtain (the curtain! Where it can neither be killed nor captured!) the next day, I made my peace with it. I decided to purge the word 'spider' from my vocabulary, and replace it with 'fly prison'. It works pretty well.
...Until the fly prison starts to move, and is suddenly fearsome again. But, y'know, it's a step.
I wasn't always afraid of spiders. As a kid, I was wary of them, mostly because I sensed it was expected of me. Besides, some spiders are dangerous, so it's not a good idea to get all buddy-buddy with them. Of course, the same could be said of snakes, but as long as I know it's harmless I'm perfectly happy to cuddle one. When I was about ten, my friend Dan had captured a wolf spider and was keeping it as a pet. He'd let it crawl about on his hands, and asked me if I wanted to hold it. I said yes, and he held his hand next to mine, so that the spider could crawl across onto my palm. Whereupon it immediately bit me.
Now, I'm not gonna go all psycho-analytic (yet) and claim that a fear of spiders was borne upon that pet's fangs. Because I spent a large portion of my childhood chasing and catching various small vertebrates, many of which bit me at some point, and I've yet to develop an irrational fear of any of those. I suspect that my fear of spiders actually stems from a disgust with and irrational fear of something entirely different (and considering food chains, somewhat ironic): millipedes.
Yes, millipedes. When I was a kid [here's where I get all amateur psychoanalytic; buckle your seatbelts], I spent a lot of time at school--since my mother was the director, I usually left a lot later than everyone else; I practically lived there. I spent most of my free time reading, usually sat on the floor against the wall. There is a certain type of millipede that has a habit of invading buildings and going off to die in corners and along walls. I have no idea why, but its death-musk (also the smell it produces when provoked) is the worst smell in the world. It is sickly-sweet, cloying, but also musky and almost tuna-like. It doesn't just smell bad, the way sewage or rot smells bad; it smells evil. It fills me with disgust; a disgust which turned to fear, and hatred of those little millipedes. Of all millipedes. Of all creatures with too many legs.
Centipedes have always scared me. The way they're shaped, and reading about the various sorts that can kill you with a glance, just freaked me out. But millipedes are not so different, and so in my mind they became the many-legged creatures of phobia. Spiders, too, somehow got themselves added. It's not all spiders, though, just certain body shapes. Anything with a body shape like a black widow or brown recluse scares the fuck out of me, but I maintain that this is an entirely rational fear. But really fangly spiders also scare me. And by 'fangly' I mean 'possessing very large palps'. And I know palps are not actually fangs, but they look like it, damn it! They also look a lot like extra legs, bringing the leg-count up to ten, which is just more than I can tolerate.
Also frightening, of course, are the really fucking BIG spiders. Which my house has been crawling with. It doesn't seem quite fair that Britain--mild, harmless Britain--should be the place with really fucking big spiders. In Southeastern North America, there are two species of spider that are capable of killing with their bites. But we don't have these big fangly leggy bastards menacing our walls. To be fair, we do have wolf spiders, which can get pretty fucking big (once when I was 7 I reached into my boot to check for a sock, and instead pulled out a wolf spider the size of my hand). But they are ground spiders. You know where to expect them, and that is on the ground or floor (or, as mentioned, in things you've left on the floor). They don't crawl up the fucking walls. They wouldn't sit beside your doorknob, or surprise you by scuttling in from behind the curtain. These house spiders are HUGE, and love to do these things.
The other night I was complaining to Nick about this, and he was chiding me for it. 'They're harmless', he said (I know), 'and they eat flies' (I know that, too). But his fantastical analogy was, in fact, helpful. 'Just think of them as fly prisons', he said, 'little, mobile fly prisons'. Which is such an absurd and amusing image that it actually takes away the fear of them. When the big, curtain-scuttling spider was still on the curtain (the curtain! Where it can neither be killed nor captured!) the next day, I made my peace with it. I decided to purge the word 'spider' from my vocabulary, and replace it with 'fly prison'. It works pretty well.
...Until the fly prison starts to move, and is suddenly fearsome again. But, y'know, it's a step.
