🔗 Share this article

I am someone who believes that it is never too late to evolve. My view is you truly can train a seasoned creature, on the condition that the experienced individual is open-minded and willing to learn. So long as the old dog is ready to confess when it was mistaken, and strive to be a more enlightened self.

Alright, I confess, I am that seasoned creature. And the trick I am attempting to master, although I am set in my ways? It is an major undertaking, an issue I have battled against, repeatedly, for my entire life. My ongoing effort … to grow less fearful of the common huntsman. My regrets to all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my capacity for development as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is large, in charge, and the one I encounter most often. Including a trio of instances in the previous seven days. Inside my home. I'm not visible to you, but a shudder runs through me with discomfort as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but my project has been at least achieving Normal about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders dating back to my youth (unlike other children who are fascinated by them). In my formative years, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to guarantee I never had to handle any myself, but I still freaked out if one was visibly in the immediate vicinity as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and trying to deal with a spider that had made its way onto the living room surface. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, almost into the next room (in case it ran after me), and emptying a generous amount of pesticide toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it did reach and disturb everyone in my house.

With the passage of time, whomever I was in a relationship with or cohabiting with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore in charge of dealing with it, while I produced low keening sounds and beat a hasty retreat. If I was on my own, my tactic was simply to leave the room, douse the illumination and try to ignore its being before I had to return.

Recently, I visited a companion's home where there was a notably big huntsman who resided within the sill, mostly just stationary. To be less scared of it, I envisioned the spider as a female entity, a gal, one of us, just relaxing in the sun and overhearing us yap. It sounds quite foolish, but it had an impact (to some degree). Or, making a conscious choice to become less phobic did the trick.

Regardless, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I think about all the logical reasons not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they prey upon things like flies and mosquitoes (creatures I despise). I know they are one of nature’s beautiful, harmless-to-humans creatures.

Alas, they do continue to move like that. They move in the deeply alarming and borderline immoral way imaginable. The sight of their many legs carrying them at that terrible speed causes my ancient psyche to kick into overdrive. They claim to only have eight legs, but I maintain that triples when they get going.

Yet it is no fault of their own that they have frightening appendages, and they have just as much right to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I have discovered that taking the steps of working to prevent have a visceral panic reaction and run away when I see one, working to keep still and breathing, and intentionally reflecting about their good points, has actually started to help.

Just because they are fuzzy entities that move hastily at an alarming rate in a way that invades my dreams, doesn’t mean they merit my intense dislike, or my girly screams. I can admit when fear has clouded my judgment and motivated by baseless terror. I’m not sure I’ll ever reach the “trapping one under a cup and relocating it outdoors” stage, but you never know. A bit of time remains within this veteran of life yet.