I embarrassed myself the other day

[GingerBiscuit]

I am an arachnophobe (to the point of panic attacks on occaision). It is a totally unreasonable reaction, but they terrify me, and while I was serving a customer the other day a largish spider (one of the horrible black brown angular ones with thick spiky legs urrrrrgh) ran across the floor in front of me.

Piercing shriek, me other side of the store stammering
'spiderspiderspidermakeitgoawaymakethespidergoaway takethespideraway!'

Not very professional. Some rescu rememdy and spider going away later I was fine. Luckily the customer had a phobia too so she understood. The other customers were staring at me though.

[Kiwi]

One of the main reasons I left the craft store was when a cockroach fell out of a box of binding onto a customers hand and scuttled off the edge of the counter and underneath. I LEAPT onto the opposite counter and stood there SCREAMING my lungs out (so was the customer) until my DM and SM come tearing down the asile to see whats wrong. My DM took me into the breakroom and calmed me down while the SM gave the customer a giftcard and apologuised profusley (about the cockroach falling on her, not me screaming) and the customer was more concerned that I was ok and gave the SM a huge telling off and demanded HQ's complaints number.

not my most proud moment...

however it did finally set in motion a store renovation that was 5 years overdue that the SM kept putting off because she was worried it would drop the sales for a few weeks and she wouldnt recieve her quarterly bonus

[GingerBiscuit]

one of my recurring nightmares is having to crawl through a tunnel full of spiders and spiders webs. Wake up in panicked tears from that one.

My phobia gets worse every year. I'm starting to consider seeing if I can get some form of therapy (I've already had cognitive behavioural therapy for other issues, and twas fantastic, but did nothing for my phobia) because if it keeps going like this eventually I'll be too scared to leave the house in case there is a spider.

[BusBus]

*shivers*

I also have a bit of a fear of spiders. Luckily, we don't get the really big kind here. I will keep my eyes closed in a pet shop in case I happen upon the tarantula display.

Last week, a small spider actually fell from a ceiling and down my shirt and into my bra. Fun times for all there.

[myswtghst]

The last time I lived with roomies (in a townhouse in college, with 3 other people) I was the only one who would kill spiders or bugs. Thankfully, my cats look at that as sport, and eat any bug/spider they can reach. Granted, I used to keep spiders as pets when I was little, and I've always thought they were cool, so it's not like I minded.

[Becks]

I'm not a big fan of spiders and other creepy crawlies. :shudder:

Last week, a small spider actually fell from a ceiling and down my shirt and into my bra. Fun times for all there.

Holy biscuit. I'd still be having the heebie jeebies if that happened to me.

[powerboy]

I am afraid of Spiders. If one is around, I will not move.

[JustADude]

I'm pretty afraid of spiders myself, and I've found the trick to getting over it is to force the 'fight or flight' option into the other setting. I've gotten to the point where instead of going "AAAAAHSPIDERGETAWAYACKRUN!" I take the adrenaline and go *HULK SMASH* all over the bug with the biggest thing I can find. I have, literally, used a 15 pound sledge-hammer to squash a tarantula before.

Gets me just as many, if not more, weird looks, but I feel better about myself.

[GingerBiscuit]

See, here's my problem. I find it almost physically impossible to deliberately kill another living creature, even one thats making me frightened. It once took my five go's to stamp on a bee that had lost it's stinger and was dying slowly so I could put it out of it's misery.

I'm sure I could do it if my survival depended on it, but I cna't when it's just that I'm scared.

[Broomjockey]

See, here's my problem. I find it almost physically impossible to deliberately kill another living creature, even one thats making me frightened.

I'm scared stupid of spiders too, and twice while in the truck with my dad, one's lowered itself from the roof, and he's squished it towards me. And last month, as I was walking down a stairwell, a spider dropped right in front of my face. I froze, walked backwards up the stairs to the next floor, and didn't go back in that stairwell for 3 weeks. I still keep a constant vigil just in case it comes back.

And I won't kill anything either, I walk around bugs, earthworms, etc. Don't swat mosquitos or bees or wasps, etc. But I made a deal with nature. It leaves me alone, I leave it alone. If we intersect, we don't hassle each other. This actually works fairly well, except with spiders. Those arrogant bastards do their damnedest to interfere with me, so I feel no complusion to NOT kill them when I get the chance. And I'll use whatever's to hand. I've used a dirty sock, my shoe, random paper, magazines, bug spray, whatever. Unless they're hanging. Then I can't even bring myself to get withing a meter of them. *shudder*

[morgana]

My arachnophobia's finally getting better. Not cured, but better. Like JustADude, I can actually put the adrenaline to use now, and not just scream and cry and shake.

I still scream and cry and shake, but now I scream, whack the spider half a dozen times, start to cry, shake for several minutes, and get on with life.

And my philosphy's similar to Broomjockey's: They leave me alone, I leave them alone. They get in my space, Morgana smash.

But I comfort myself that I never was as bad as the friend who put a shotgun blast through his basement wall to kill a spider . . .

[Becks]

I knew a guy who would habitually make a blow torch with bug spray and a lighter to kill gnats. He had issues.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm ok with spiders so long as they're not black and shiny. Those ones are eeeevil.

I do spider rescue here at work, when the odd confused orb spinner shows up inside.

I do bee rescue, too.

Mosquitos, moths, and ants get no mercy, however.

^-.-^

[Buglady]

one of my recurring nightmares is having to crawl through a tunnel full of spiders and spiders webs. Wake up in panicked tears from that one.

My phobia gets worse every year. I'm starting to consider seeing if I can get some form of therapy (I've already had cognitive behavioural therapy for other issues, and twas fantastic, but did nothing for my phobia) because if it keeps going like this eventually I'll be too scared to leave the house in case there is a spider.

Cognitive Behaviouaral Therapy is EXCELLENT for phobias. Desensitization therapy works well too - there's two forms of that, one related to CBT where you are asked to imagine the feared situation and monitor your own reactions, the other where you are very gradually exposed to images of the feared thing/situation and "work your way up" to the real thing. I did the second form (literally starting with cartoon images of spiders) and within 4 months was able to actually hold a (very very tame and completely non-venomous) tarantula.

Unscheduled spiders still merit a little squeak and a dance, but I'm no longer at the point of being unable to enter a room for a week because I thought I might have seen a spider in there...

[Bagga]

A friend of mine went to a therapist and was advised to fight his phobia by learning about spiders. He started by reading WORDS about spiders, then progressed to books with pictures.

When he left the job we were workmates at, he requested that we buy him the best field guide to spiders that we could find, as a leaving present. He had learned to find them fascinating, and they became almost a hobby of his.

A great idea in my opinion, especially as a normally geekish kind of interest is imbued with bravery.

The same thing happened with another friend of mine. She was frightened of heights, so she learned to fly and got her pilot's licence.