Spiders - normal ?

bazster

heartbreak_star wrote: »

But...they're just spiders. *shrug*

I believe certain zoos run "anti-phobia" courses. They give positive reinforcement about spiders and show you them in tanks and things. The aim is to work up to holding a tarantula. Apparently they're very successful!

HBS x

Tarantulas are gorgeous. Make great pets, apparently.

tea_lover

thehappybutterfly wrote: »

Kill Them! Kill Them All!!!!

I think you may be my soulmate .

They've given me panic attacks, made me faint, made me pack a bag and go and stay with my parents (who thought I'd been attacked when I turned up at 11pm crying my eyes out)... just a spider my arse, they are evil.

bazster

tea_lover wrote: »

I think you may be my soulmate .

They've given me panic attacks, made me faint, made me pack a bag and go and stay with my parents (who thought I'd been attacked when I turned up at 11pm crying my eyes out)... just a spider my arse, they are evil.

You need help...

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

The only way I've seen conkers and soap work on spiders is if you throw them at the offending arachnid.


The tiny spiders here get left to get on with pest control. The next ones do this and provide tasty protein like snacks for the cats. The big ones rarely come indoors and if they do, they get put back outside sharpish.

The huge ones are usually garden orb weavers, so have no interest in being in here. Or the large black one living behind the windowbox. That one is left to her own devices as she will get most of the Mosquitos on their way in the window.

And the giant shed guardian, well, she gets to keep the shed clear.



There are couple of spiders that could give you a nip. A Woodlouse eating spider - but you really wouldn't be anywhere near that and it's hard to miss as they're bright red and rather big. They don't come in the house unless you have a damp problem anyway. Or a rabbit hutch spider. You can guess the sort of places they are found. Rather beautiful shiny ball like bodies, conker colour. But again, you'd have to be picking them up and scaring them to get a nip. If it does happen, take antihistamines.


Spiders are great. They protect us from so many pests.



But then again, I don't have a problem with many animals. Confined spaces, yes, but moths and butterflies and dragonflies and worms? No.


And snails are cool. Oh, I got a big slug on my hand when I was gardening last week. I could feel him rasping away trying to see if I was edible! It tickled. And I lived.

heartbreak_star

They're not evil...you may as well say a ladybird or a woodlouse is evil.

I think you really do need some help for that, tea lover, I think my parents would have (quite rightly) told me to bog off back to my own house and not be so daft!

One of my friends decided she had to seek help for her phobia when she saw a spider, ran out of the house and left her preschool kids in there with the cooker on...thankfully all were okay, her four-year old daughter shouted to her that it had gone but she never quite got over what could have happened.

HBS x

bazster

Jojo, you remind me of my OH! She passionately refuses to kill anything (OK, I don't kill things either, but I'm not quite so evangelical about it!)

When people say to her "well what if you have a great big bluebottle in the house?" she replies "I just open the doors and windows and ask it to leave!" And she does.

tea_lover

bazster wrote: »

You need help...

Absolutely cannot argue with that! I can't begin to explain the terror I feel when I see one, I really do feel like I'm going to die. I know it's completely ridiculous, but knowing that doesn't stop the awful panic. There is literally nothing more scary in the world to me than a spider.

I have looked into getting help but I never get anywhere with it as I'm too scared of the treatments tbh.

heartbreak_star

I'm definately going to try and handle a slug soon, the retching is getting annoying. Bizarrely I have no issues with snails!

There's a kind of big bug show that comes around the tourist attraction I used to work in, it's where I got fascinated by bugs. I once had an inch-long cockroach up my sleeve, that was amusing! And foot-long millipedes that feel like walking toothbrushes

Aww tea lover, have a *hug*. Have you spoken to the doc about some talking therapy first?

HBS x

bazster

Yep, tea lover, I'd say that's gone beyond the creeps and is fully-fledged pathological!

somegem

Bazster - really ?! OMG - Australia is on my list of places I want to visit (one day!) but after your post I think I'm going to have to re-think this.