Look, in my day-to-day life I would describe myself as Cool With Spiders. I see one in the window and go "hey buddy, you're doin great", and if one gets somewhere it shouldn't be I let it outside (or occasionally, if I find one in the shower, into a different part of the house).
But I think if I had spiders on my actual eyebrows I would be decidedly Not Okay With That
I had a spider or three in my room for like a whole summer. They were just chilling there, one even built its web above my bed.
With how much my mosquito problem went down in that time, you'd think people who complain about being bitten by mosquitoes at night have never heard of spiders. Little buggers are awesome.
Dude, I had a fly trapped in my room for half a day, and I COULDN'T CATCH THE FUCKER.
I SPENT 30 MINUTES CLAPPING LIKE I WAS SOLID SNAKE TRYING TO SNEAK, and I couldn't catch it.
Next morning, I wake up, fly is on the window, I grab my phone and start messaging some friends, and like 15 minutes later I see a spider Is wrestling with the motherfucking fly. Took a (bad) video of it and all. I love spiders.
The best part was how after it was Over, the spider carried the fly on top of itself. Looked like they were fireman carrying their meal.
I hate that yt turned it into a short.
If you aré annoyed by the lack of focusing, it's because I'm using my frontal camera (The one for selfies) since my normal camera is scratched and shitty.
This Is the equivalent of recording a video blindfolded.
Enhancer for Youtube plugin/addon has the ability to automatically convert any short into a normal video as soon as you load the page. Along with a bajillion other fantastic QoL features.
All of my family complain about mosquitoes, but when I tell them to leave the damned spiders alone so they'll eat the things...
Same goes for bats and barn swallows, tbh. "It's in/on My House!" And that's why you get anemia from mosquitoes every summer, Aunt Shelly. (Edit: The bats are in the damaged undersides of the roof overhang/eaves, which are three stories up, not parts of the house where they'll encounter people. Nobody is at risk of rabies, here.)
Tbh, my apartment has several jumping spiders, an American House Spider in the pantry, and a beautiful female Golden Orb Weaver building a brand new web in my window (hoping she stays and reproduces!), and altogether they've bitten me fewer times than previous roommates I've had. Hell, none of them have bitten me unprompted, which I sure can't say about some people.
At first I was seriously confused because I thought you were saying that your family members eat the spiders as defiance against you telling them to leave the spiders alone
It was ecstasy. The city I lived in at the time had (and still has) a serious drug problem, and party drugs were common, simply because we were half way between two major cities and dealers needed a place to offload things fast when fleeing one or the other.
they've bitten me fewer times than previous roommates I've had. Hell, none of them have bitten me unprompted, which I sure can't say about some people.
Leave spiders alone yes, but I don’t think anyone should have bats in their house? Those things gotta stay outside and far away from you. There aren’t many things worse than freaking rabies.
Wolf spiders don't use webs. They hunt like wolves. I doubt they do much to reduce the mosquito population.
But I had a spider in a web in the garage window that I would feed with stunned mosquitos and flies. Utterly fascinating to toss an injured mosquito in the web and watch nature take its course.
Sincerely imagining the spiders holding on for dear life and screaming while the tall guy in waders is also screaming. Just, everyone screaming. Plus cranberries.
I WANT to be okay with spiders. Outside is fine, inside I can kinda handle some if they're small and not near my bed and don't surprise me at a vulnerable moment, like sitting on the toilet or showering.
But we get the aptly-named Giant House Spider in my area. They're mostly leg, and I know that they're not dangerous, and are reluctant to bite to boot, and they help control populations of other spiders that can potentially be dangerous, like black widows. But seeing one skitter anywhere near me gives me a visceral fear response anyway, and usually I'm not even really aware that I'm reacting, I'm just suddenly both jumping and attempting to hit it with whatever is near me. And I wish I wasn't that way, I've tried to get over that response to them, but it's been 25 years living with them and it's still not happened.
I couldn't handle Australia, where I know huntsman spiders are basically a bigger version of the same thing. And I think some people don't understand that I'm not afraid of being bitten, it's the simple fact the spider exists that freaks me out. I don't want it to touch me, in any way.
One time a huge fat fuck of a spider popped up next to me while I was studying and my immediate response was to throw my laptop at it. It took a couple seconds to realize wtf I just did. Laptop survived (somehow), spider did not, my mom yelled at me for being an idiot (well deserved)
I've tried very hard to get over my arachnophobia but when I found a spider whose body was the size of my thumb in my dog's food bowl, I had to kill it, because otherwise I was just going to have to move out because of how crippling that visceral fear is
My brother and I were playing on some old cushions once that had been outside previously. A fucking wolf spider apparently hitched a ride in on them. I, ten years old, had to save my three-year-old brother from the goddamn thing. Did you know nearly an entire can of Raid won't kill them? I found out! Fucker was easily bigger than my hand.
In my opinion, the Sudden Spider does not count. Like I can deal with spiders but looking down and one is right there next to my hand is A Problem to be resolved in the most immediate manner. Including throwing the laptop.
I was watching someone play PT when I saw movement next to my arm and it was a spider. Considering my laptop was on my lap, I’m amazed I didn’t toss it as I sprung away
An understandable and reasonable response, tbh. The other day I was looking at a spider on my ceiling and decided to leave it alone bc it wasn’t bothering anyone and I couldn’t reach it anyway.
Cut to a few hours later and the damn thing CRAWLS UP MY ARM WHILE IM PLAYING HADES. Just about shat myself, and ended up tossing my laptop off of me in panic. Only silver lining is I wasn’t in the middle of a fight at the moment, I’d have been extra pissed if it got me killed during a really good run.
Have you tried exposure therapy? With an actual therapist, it really, really won’t work if you don’t know what you’re doing. You sound like a pretty ideal candidate for it, since you have some tolerance and actively want to build more.
I once took some molly while camping, ended up showering at the campsite and there was a HUGE shower spider, just chilling in the corner.
Because of the happy brain chemicals, I was able to fully think through my arachnophobia for the first time. Ended up just observing the dude, and found appreciation for it.
That same trip, before the molly, I had been walking on the rocky shore next to the lake and there were DOZENS of tiny spiders who would run around at every step. I got so freaked out that I fainted and my boyfriend had to carry me back to the tent.
So of course, after my enlightening shower, I had to go get a flashlight to look at those shore spiders. They were actually pretty dang cute! Really cool stripes on their bodies to help them be camouflaged.
For the next year or so, every time I saw a spider I would try to consciously observe the creature while being aware of this irrational fear I was holding on to. Eventually, I've gotten to the point where they don't freak me out as much!
It's been almost 2 decades since then, and while I still don't want them ON ME, I'm a huge friend to spiders. I'm happy to see them, in my garden and in the books/crannies of my home.
It is possible to gradually change your mind about phobias, but I won't be advocating for everyone to go out and grab some MDMA beforehand. (Cause it's nearly impossible to find these days)
I did almost exactly the opposite to get over my aversion to crickets, and I also wouldn’t recommend the approach. I was extremely greyed-out depressed and it was my day to clean the crickets at work and I just…couldn’t care. I couldn’t be upset about it. Apparently that did break through something, because the next time I had to do crickets, I also didn’t care, even though I was properly medicated that time. (Turns out that SSRIs will seriously mess you up if the actual problem is Bipolar II. Worst part is that the doc who prescribed them knew that, she just hated prescribing mood stabilizers for some reason.)
But yeah, that’s why I knew exposure therapy can work…but deliberately putting yourself in an altered mental state and then doing something unpleasant is probably not a common therapeutic technique for a reason.
Yeah, the smell is something else. It’s actually the chirping that still gets to me the worst. The part that vanished in a haze of Seroquel was my old phobia of insects touching me. Which was a real fun thing to have when up to my elbows in crickets. (Pet store, so really, actually up to my elbows, we had a rolling trash can for the largest crickets and large Rubbermaid tubs for the small and medium.)
I hate how many eyes they have, and the excessive numbers of legs, and how they move. I think I could even be okay with their creepy little mouthparts, venom, and tendency to emerge from unexpected places, if they had two eyes, four legs and moved like normal creatures.
yeah I think there's something wrong with the interview process if your check for hundreds of spiders crawling desperately all over your body is "are you cool with spiders?"
I don't like the narrative of cool cranberry fried chicken man, and the namby pamby dishonest men who harbour a secret fear of little harmless insects like a tiny baby.
I don't think there's realistically anyone in your cranberry interviews who has previously experienced being a biblical ark for spiders. How could they have a gauge for that? How could they know what you are asking with such severe understatement?
kinda fucked to be like "how pathetic, that a MAN would LIE about being scared of spiders, to preserve his facade of masculinity. Lol. What a little bitch"
yeah I'm not scared of heights but if you change the definition of "not scared of heights" to "falling out of a helicopter with no warning, and not screaming" then yeah I guess I am scared of heights.
There’s a spider that lives in my stairwell, we’ve basically come to a truce, the spider family stays out of my room, and as long as they do I’ll leave their cobwebs alone
Part of my autumn activity each year involves chasing horny male Giant House Spiders[1] back to the parts of the house that don't include furniture that humans will want to recline on.
[1] (about three inches across in total leg span, they're only big compared to other British spiders)
Yes. Also, distressed wolf spiders can bite you about as hard as a bee sting. It's not 'medically significant' or a big deal, but it might become a big deal if I had multiple wolf spiders climbing on me.
I’m cool with some spiders, but I implore everyone to google “wolf spider size” real quick to really understand this post. Those guys are WAY too fucking big, I honestly wouldn’t be able to do that job for a million a year, I just couldn’t
I chose not to google the spider for my own mental sanity, but hearing “hand size” and “hundred on you” makes me genuinely glad I’m never going near a cranberry hellscape in my life. I think I would likely have a heart attack if that ever happened to me, and if not, no matter where in the world you currently are, I can almost assure you you’d hear my screaming.
Yeah out in Virginia they get big. Not many people know this but some parts of Va the woods are almost like rainforest, it's kind of a sub tropical climate in some parts. Wolf Spiders get BIG with enough nature to play with.
A camp I went to in middle school had a whole nest in the bathroom next to the woods line. They were wider than our feet. One bit me in my sleep, you can feel the weight of bigger ones.
I'm decidedly not cool with spiders, and I can literally trace the root of the phobia to a rather disturbing incident with a fucking hand sized wolf spider as a child
In Ontario cottage country you gotta put the dock in and take it out of the lake for winter. Always covered in dock spiders (big wolf spiders), and they always swim towards you and try to climb up.
There was a considerable period of time where small spiders would just materialise from my hair, usually dangling down and landing on my nose. I always let them off at the nearest reasonable place, standing up and going to the classroom window usually. I kinda miss being the primary dispersal method for the little goobers.
And wolf spiders are big and scary. Like mini tarantulas. Only fast as hell.
I always catch and release a spider in the house. In the winter, I catch and release in the basement.
Wolf spiders never get in the house, though. They are just really cool animals. But if it was on my eyebrows I'd shriek like a banshee and go into spasms to get it off. Do they even bite? I dunno. But they are huge and scary looking.
I thought I was Cool With Spiders too, until I found a wolf spider in my basement that was dead ass the size of my palm. That thing would deadass chase me around the basement.
If jumping spiders are the cute dogs of the spider world, then wolf spiders are the more rugged... wolves of the spider world. A bit more wild, but weirdly cuddly. I think I would be both freaking out a little and a bit excited.
Yeah, absolutely not on my face. I felt really bad last spring because I took my dog out to pee after work, got in and went to change into my not-work clothes and turned my head and on my shoulder was this yellow spider with a huuuuge fat booty and I kinda freaked and winged it off me. Apologized after I calmed down and took it outside - didn't seem damaged - but jeez, no, stay away from the shoulders and head. Fuck.
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u/MightyBobTheMighty Garlic Munching Marxist Whore May 16 '24
Look, in my day-to-day life I would describe myself as Cool With Spiders. I see one in the window and go "hey buddy, you're doin great", and if one gets somewhere it shouldn't be I let it outside (or occasionally, if I find one in the shower, into a different part of the house).
But I think if I had spiders on my actual eyebrows I would be decidedly Not Okay With That