Ah, a new season. Today we celebrate the first official spider sighting of the year. This is the first half of a two part holiday which opens spring (the second half is the first official spider INDOORS, which you will know by the sound of twelve-year-old girls everywhere screaming).
As irrational phobias go, spiders are pretty high on the list of usual suspects, along with snakes, heights, and general insect life. Airplanes, needles, small spaces, and social anxiety may also pad out the roster, depending on your source, and we've all seen that poor redhead on Glee who has the OCD-level germ issues. Don't lie, you've seen Glee. You LIKED Glee, even if you also wanted to throw Slurpees at all those nauseatingly talented kids for being so damn cheerful (and even if you are a man and had to immediately go eat a steak and urinate outdoors to earn back those man points).
I should also mention that there is a difference between a fear and a phobia. A fear is "I drive ten hours to visit my parents because I hate flying, but when we vacation in Europe I have a couple margaritas and a Xanax and we get there okay." A phobia is "I cannot go anywhere that can't be reasonably accessed by car/train/bus, because the mere idea of flying renders me a gelatinous mass of cold sweat and exposed nerves."
So, the spiders. Spiders have no place in a wholesome world. I know they eat mosquitoes, blah blah blah, but I would also add, I do not care. Spiders are delicate, fanged scraps of nightmare that are even now assembling their annual Committee on Being Disgusting. The one in the stairwell up to my apartment (designated Spider Zero as the first official case of the upcoming epidemic) will creep in as I sleep to digest me inside my skin, and I will wake up as a bag of human soup.
Okay, maybe I will not wake up looking like Tollund Man, but that doesn't make the heebie-jeebies go away. As crippling phobias go, arachnophobia is not really too bad, especially since I live in an area where they do not grow to the size of beagles like in Hawaii or South America. They live outdoors, I live indoors, we seldom venture into each other's territory and this is an acceptable truce. Granted, when we do encounter one another (or I see a picture, or sometimes even read the word spider), it isn't pretty, but it's certainly not as disruptive as a phobia of something more frequently encountered, like dogs (cynophobia), public speaking (glossophobia), or dirt (mysophobia). Attics, basements, and forests are tricky places but at least I don't pass out at the sight of a podium and or have to wash my hands sixty times a day (OK, I do, but that's because I work in a hospital).
Theoretically you can be phobic of literally anything, although fortunately most people are not. My two personal favorites are defecaloesiophobia, which is fear of bowel movements and must be a really, really uncomfortable affliction, and arachibutyrophobia - Greek roots, anyone? That's right, the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. God love the shrink who had to come up with that one.
Maybe you have a similar Achilles heel - your child can't enter a darkened room, or your mom can barely go up a flight of stairs without feeling queasy, or your brother faints when he gets a shot. Maybe the very word SNAKE on this page makes those funny little fingers of hot ice run up your spine.
I'm going to go wash my hands.
As irrational phobias go, spiders are pretty high on the list of usual suspects, along with snakes, heights, and general insect life. Airplanes, needles, small spaces, and social anxiety may also pad out the roster, depending on your source, and we've all seen that poor redhead on Glee who has the OCD-level germ issues. Don't lie, you've seen Glee. You LIKED Glee, even if you also wanted to throw Slurpees at all those nauseatingly talented kids for being so damn cheerful (and even if you are a man and had to immediately go eat a steak and urinate outdoors to earn back those man points).
I should also mention that there is a difference between a fear and a phobia. A fear is "I drive ten hours to visit my parents because I hate flying, but when we vacation in Europe I have a couple margaritas and a Xanax and we get there okay." A phobia is "I cannot go anywhere that can't be reasonably accessed by car/train/bus, because the mere idea of flying renders me a gelatinous mass of cold sweat and exposed nerves."
So, the spiders. Spiders have no place in a wholesome world. I know they eat mosquitoes, blah blah blah, but I would also add, I do not care. Spiders are delicate, fanged scraps of nightmare that are even now assembling their annual Committee on Being Disgusting. The one in the stairwell up to my apartment (designated Spider Zero as the first official case of the upcoming epidemic) will creep in as I sleep to digest me inside my skin, and I will wake up as a bag of human soup.
Okay, maybe I will not wake up looking like Tollund Man, but that doesn't make the heebie-jeebies go away. As crippling phobias go, arachnophobia is not really too bad, especially since I live in an area where they do not grow to the size of beagles like in Hawaii or South America. They live outdoors, I live indoors, we seldom venture into each other's territory and this is an acceptable truce. Granted, when we do encounter one another (or I see a picture, or sometimes even read the word spider), it isn't pretty, but it's certainly not as disruptive as a phobia of something more frequently encountered, like dogs (cynophobia), public speaking (glossophobia), or dirt (mysophobia). Attics, basements, and forests are tricky places but at least I don't pass out at the sight of a podium and or have to wash my hands sixty times a day (OK, I do, but that's because I work in a hospital).
Theoretically you can be phobic of literally anything, although fortunately most people are not. My two personal favorites are defecaloesiophobia, which is fear of bowel movements and must be a really, really uncomfortable affliction, and arachibutyrophobia - Greek roots, anyone? That's right, the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. God love the shrink who had to come up with that one.
Maybe you have a similar Achilles heel - your child can't enter a darkened room, or your mom can barely go up a flight of stairs without feeling queasy, or your brother faints when he gets a shot. Maybe the very word SNAKE on this page makes those funny little fingers of hot ice run up your spine.
I'm going to go wash my hands.
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