Mums and Phobias!

I'm already a constant bundle of nerves, and I close the front door with mom. So, now for a moment at least, we're locked between a door and a gate. Then she takes this millipede off the wall. I don't know what she's gonna do with it, but I'm panicking. She kicks it out the gate like a football. I'm screaming my head off. I said afterwards, don't do that to me in an enclosed space - I'm scared I might punch you. So here I am, this big "army guy" screaming my head off at an insect. But hey, if you got a phobia, you got a phobia.

She's like, "It's an infestation"; going into "mombot" cleaning mode. I can block them out when they're on the wall and doing not much. Just don't pull them off and make them move. And what does she do? She pulls it off the wall, and they're wrapping round her finger like a snake, and she kicks it out the gate.

Funny though, you either have a phobia or not.
Got no problems with spiders.
But that #, Oh My Goodness ... but I know, some people are the same with spiders.

Kudos, to mum though. You pulled it off the wall with your fingers, and still kicked it with your high-heels so that it went flying.
That is some #.
Thank God it didn't rebound.

I said it though, don't do that to me in an enclosed space.
I might punch you by accident.
You might as well be in a shark-cage, and somebody let the the shark in.

She's like, "Oh, you're being silly".

Maybe, but a phobia is a phobia.

OMG, that cracked me up! Ahahaha! I almost spit my water out! Thanks for the laugh! Oh and yeah...those things are creepy as hell and so are spiders!

I used to have a "thing" about spiders. Not a full on phobia, but I know how it started.

When I was a small kid, I found an apple on the ground. It looked good, I wiped it off and took a bite. Something felt a little funny as I was chewing. I spit it out and there was a spider that had been crawling on my tongue. That gave me a bit of the heebie jeebies.

A few years later I had a pet turtle. It got lost and I was looking for it outside. I thought I saw it in some fall leaves and I went to pick it up. It jumped; it was a tarantula. Now I had a thing about spiders.

Several years later, I was sitting at a table and I saw a spider crawling towards me. I semi-froze. But as I stared at it, I came to a realization. This thing was tiny. I made a fist and smashed it. Then, I felt like a total ass. I had just killed a living creature because of an irrational fear.

Since then, I have never intentionally killed another spider. I have found several black widows on my property, I just capture them and relocate them to some nearby woods. This year, I've had about two dozen of those black and yellow garden spiders. I'm down to two living ones now, with several egg sacks that will hatch next year. I have a friend who has arachnophobia. One time we were doing something with some glue and a spider got caught in it. I got an Xacto knife and cut the spider out of the glue and let it go outside. It impressed her, but I felt bad because the spider lost a leg in the process. I did the best I could.

Since I smashed that spider with my hand, I've never been afraid of anything smaller than I am. I know that's kind of stupid, because a lot of things smaller than me can mess me up pretty bad, if not outright kill me. But I feel like anything smaller than me is probably more afraid of me than I am of it. Just give it a wide berth and it will go away.

I think if my friend would just kill a spider with her bare hands, she would overcome her arachnophobia. Knowing her, though, she would have that same lifetime of guilt that I feel over killing that one spider. Maybe you could find a better solution, Old Man.

So that's how flying leeches were made ... interesting.

My worst nightmare was starting to watch James and the Giant Peach!

I can't stand bugs doing braodway.

a reply to: VictorVonDoom
I have thousands of spiders around my property, every size and colour. I live near trees, that's maybe why. The thick ones , the size of a silver dollar scare me. Those tend to come up the drains. Suddenly there's one in the sink or bathtub.

Your story about the Apple reminded me of when my step mother decided to grow her own iceberg lettuce. She brought one in, washed it, made a salad. I was eating the salad when this big green (same colour as the lettuce) spider 🕷 crawled off my plate! I freaked out, screaming I could have eaten that! It didn't put me off spiders but put me off lettuce for years.

I'm not scared of spiders. I just don't want them in my bedroom. I have so many, every time I go in my garage I'm going through webs. I have great big ones on my deck. The ones with the big fat bodies, thick legs.

Here's some "nope" for the spider lovers.

I can sympathize with how a phobia just takes over, but my phobia is heights. It's bad enough just seeing someone you care about at height will trigger it.

Was once listening to the radio, and people phoned in with phobias.

This Prof. hypnotized some of them, and it turns out, as a kid, they stuck one of them in their mouths and ate it!

Tasted all bitter.

Thus the phobia?

Thanks Professor - good thinking about that!

Professor Freud: "Ach - three weeks of starvation in a prison camp and they start to look like chocolates!"

See, grandpa knew the cure!

Week two in the camp - your bro looks like your girlfriend.

Week three - your bro looks like a cheeseburger with fries.