I THOUGHT I WAS GETTING BETTER
I've been working on it, I really have! I've made myself face my greatest fear, reading about it, looking at pictures, insisting I was getting better. In case you haven't figured it out, I'm terrified of spiders. That's right, my name is Colleen and I'm an aracnaphobic.
I knew I needed to do something about it when I let my one year old and three year old kill a big wolf spider for me with butter knives, chopping the thing to mush in the corner back about 1976. What if it had been a black widow (not in Indiana) or a brown recluse? Here I was cowering in the corner letting my CHILDREN protect me. I'm ashamed to admit it. So I started working on it. But no amount of information made a spider anything other than a bloodsucking horror. Still, I've been able to kill them (small ones) and thought I was making progress.
Then I was faced with a test tonight. Did I rush to protect my darling husband of 35 years (our anniversary is the 30th) with weapons raised and guns blasting?
Um no. One of those fuzzy black horrors with the red dot on its back (the kind that plopped onto by bed when I was a teenager and LEAPED at me if you're reading this, Mother) was on Dave's shirt. I screamed, cowered back, barely able to utter, "There's a spider on your shirt!" Dave slapped at it with his hand and knocked it to the floor. Dead, I was relieved to see.
If I could have gotten out of the car while it was moving at 60 miles an hour, I would have. If it had been on me, I would have wrecked the van for sure.
So no, my belief that I've gotten over my phobia is all a sham. I've deceived myself. It's a shocking turn of events. I'm going to have to work on it harder.
But if you hear a scream, you'll know I expired in the working out of this problem. And no, Brandilyn, I haven't read Web of Lies yet. My heart might not be able to take it. But it might be good therapy, hmm?
Colleen
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21 Comments:
You are not alone in your fear! I'm terrified of spiders! I had two fuzzy friends hanging around the other night, and of course they were right in the places I wanted to be. Needless to say, I sat in all the oddball corners of the house until my husband came home (quite late, I might add) to kill them.
I too hate spiders, especially those crazy wolf ones. ICK! One year when my DH was a youth pastor there was one running around the house and I looked out the window just in time to see a boy from the youth group walking down the street, I called him in and had him kill the spider for me.
Then several years later (another house, another town) we used to get them in the basement and being the clever girl that I am I would take a big jar (or pot) and put it over the spider with a brick on top and let it wait until my hubby came home and I'd tell him that there was a surprise waiting for him in the basement, he'd then go down and kill the beast.
Oh how I hate bugs.
There's some tricky politics in our home when it comes to spiders. My husband Tim loves them and loaths the idea of teaching our kids to kill them. In the house we lived in when we first got married, he actually kept a few as "pets", allowing them to live in a nook behind a curtain. Ick.
In the house we live in now, there is a brand of spider that I hadn't seen till we moved here. We're surrounded by fields; I think they must be some sort of spider that lives in the ground. They are huge. Thankfully, since the weather has gotten colder, I haven't seen any. I'm grateful for that for now, but I suspect that if we're still here next summer we may have more co-tenants than we bargained for.
I recently blogged about my furry housemates:
http://reesevergori.blogspot.com/2006/10/of-monsters-and-menacing-presence.html
Reese
REESE!! You almost gave me a heart attack. I went to look at your blog and YOU'VE GOT A PICTURE OF A SPIDER ON IT. What were you thinking? I'd be moving out of that house pronto!
Suzanne, I crazked up at the surprises. Georgiand, I'm there with you. There was one in our house when Dave was at school one night. A BIG wolf spider. I barracaded myself in the bedroom until he got hom and vanquished the monster.
June bugs. They buzz around, bump into walls, their bodies cracking against the drywall. Gives me shivers. One chased me to bed one night and I never forgot it. Okay, it was last year, but still. It forever traumatized me.
Spiders? Don't get me started.
I don't like spiders either. And I don't like roaches--especially when they ATTACK me! Like Reese, I blogged about my recent, UNUSUAL experience:
http://christianlovestories.blogspot.com/2006/08/marriage-and-cockroach-caper-part-1.html
The story of letting your kids kill the spider for me rings true for me...as a camp counselor for 2nd-4th grade girls, I cowered on my bunk while they ran about the cabin taking care of all our eight-legged friends. The kids got a huge kick out of "protecting" me :)
Drat, Colleen, if I'd known you're so afraid of spiders, I'd have dedicated Web of Lies to you instead of two certain members of the Big Honkin' Chickens' Club who are too scared to read ANYTHING I write.
You should read Web of Lies. Really. Nightmares can be a good thing...
I'm going to read it, B. Really. I'll consider it therapy just like I did when I "watched" Arachnophobia. I use the term watched loosely since I spent most of the movie with my hands in front of my eyes. LOL
I don't like spiders much, but it's snakes that hold REAL terror for me. Once, though, about 15 years ago, I had to hold a boa constrictor on my shoulders for about 10 minutes while a herpetologist (snake expert) lectured my students. Oh, man! That was horrible. I didn't faint, but it didn't take away my snake-fear AT ALL. I still don't want to be within a mile of any snakes, and I absolutely REFUSE to go into the snake house at the zoo! If I have to walk past a snake in a pet shop, I close my eyes. Pretty pitiful, isn't it?!
I'm with you, Colleen. But in our house, we have a huge problem. My dh is as bad as I am about them.
Shiver.
If I scream, "I see a sprider!", he tells me to kill it. I tried reminding him of the honor and protect part of our marraige vows, but he swears "protect" wasn't in there.
Anyone got a copy of the marriage vows? I really need 'em.
I hate spiders. Kill them all. DIE! I had a spider in the shower with me a month or two ago - that was evil incarnated. We have these millipede things that are in our house with a thousand legs. I wanted to get an exterminator until I read online that they are "spider assasins" and prey on spiders. These millipedes are now as sacred as a Hindu cow in our house. I have two - I named them Marvin and Millie
LOL...we have a rule at my house...I kill the spiders (hubby was bit by a brown recluse when he was young and hasn't gotten over it) and he kills the snakes (I'm terrified of them--NO IDEAS, Brandilyn! LOL)
spiders..nuthin' try being afraid of SHARKS. I can't go swimming or go into Shed's Aquarium or the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo Australian Reef experience because of the panick attacks about sharks...
hehee i'm not really a spider fan. fortunately my kitten likes to hunt them down and kill them for me (but i wish she'd go for the cockroaches that we just can't get rid of).
Web of Lies was a good book, but yeah, the spiders were a little creepy. i only read it a few weeks ago (saw it on sale so picked it up and i think i'll read more of brandilyn's (you know, in case she reads this hahaha)).
oh and btw colleen i FINALLY got the 3rd aloha reef book today, woohoo! so i shall start it tomorrow.
and diann - i finally saw one of your books here in aussieland - rv there yet was in the christian bookstore today, but i dind't get it coz, well, coz i wasn't gonna buy ANY books, but i just... well i had to didn't i! (just one this time, last time it was 14 hahaha).
ps sorry for the rambling, the neighbours have been burning in their gardens and i'm all smoked out (it's feral).
Allen, my son wants to swim with the sharks. He's just a little crazy. LOL
Katherine, I'd cower too. KIds are fearless so let them feel brave!
Katy, that's just sad being afraid of a cricket. Didn't you ever watch Pinochio? I loved little Jiminy Cricket. They're so cute. And I love the sound they make.
Jaime, we have those centipedes too! I had no idea they were spider assasins. Maybe that's why we seldom have any in the house. Hmm, interesting.
Kristin, I don't actually KILL people! LOL Only in my imagination.
Bethanie, let me know how you like Dangerous Depths!
Colleen, I'm with ya, girl! I have an absolute terror of spiders; refuse to even step on them or swat at them to kill them (Though I have been known to hairspray them to death...the squirting provides the distance I need to feel safe). I don't think this is a fear that will ever go away.
Kim, I used to not be able to kill them. I would shriekd at the sight of a TINY one. But I reminded myself that God has given us a spirit of power not of fear and made myself look at pictures and read about them. I gradually began to be able to kill them. Except when they're right in the car and on my husband. LOL
colleen i;m up to chapter 3 so far and i'm liking it. i think i'll get off the puter now and have a read. hehehe
Glad to hear it, Bethanie!
I Had A Roach in the bathroom. He had been living in there for sometime. (week's) We tryed Hairspraying Him. But I think He must Said "Thank's for the shower!" Did't, do A thing to him.And could never find he's hidding spot..Tll Last Night he came out, I Need to think fast,Yse, A Flyswater is my beat bet. I don't like the Fumes of Raid,Somehow I know, I be the one to die of fumes and he keep doing his Roach thing.That would just be my luck. Always, He was coming at me and One swat and he was out! I swat at him again to make sure or maybe it just out of triumph!..Just had to tell, I Felt good about mysalf.Ha,Ha...Love Ya,A Sister in Texas! Anna
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