"Are there any arachnophobes out there who have been helped by jumping spiders?"
This got me to thinking about my own situation, and the answer is....yes.
I was as arachnophobic as it was possible to be for 30 years prior to my mission to get over it. I would freak out when ever I saw a spider sometimes I'd scream, sometimes I'd freeze, other times I would throw things. I would hallucinate spiders when awake and have nightmares when I was asleep.
- There was once a time when my sister sent me a Facebook video that included a spider coming out from under a cabinet - I threw my phone across the work lunch room, and my manager had to pick it up and cancel the video for me because it was on a loop. I couldn't face it.
- Another time I was playing World of Warcraft with my eyes shut because there was a spider in the cave up ahead which my character had to kill. I had hoped that by wildly pressing buttons I might have been able to get lucky and kill it before I had to look at it. Alas no, it killed my character and when I opened my eyes, the entire screen was taken up by this giant green monstrosity of an animated spider, and I screamed.
- I'm an avid crocheter, and one day I picked up a ball of yarn to do some crochet and I thought I saw a spider in it. I threw the yarn across the room at my then-partner, who picked it up after it rolled under his desk... It wasn't a spider, of course. It was the leafy green bit off the top of a tomato...
- One night I had spent the evening with a friend, just chatting and having fun. After he left, I went into the bathroom to drain the bathwater out from my son's bath. There, in the water sat by the plug, was a ruddy great big house spider. Bearing in mind that this spider was UNDER the water, so had most likely alrerady drowned there, I still couldn't put my hand into the bath to grab the plug. Instead, I called my friend back from his house (approximately a mile away) to come and drain the bath for me and then deal with the nasty spider lurking within. All credit to him, he did come back to save me, but I can imagine that he wasn't impressed as it was already quite late at night...
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, arachnophobia impacted my life on a daily basis.
I'm not even sure how the jumping spiders helped me. Obviously, Winnie did a lot of the leg work. Maybe I just got lucky because I got a good spider? I'm not sure. But she was very cute - when I looked at her, I didn't see a spider. She was small and fluffy, with these big black eyes. She would often look at me with her head cocked to one side as if she were trying to work me out. I would call her my Web-puppy. On top of that, she was a very social spider. She loved to watch me as I went about my business, and she was so curious. She'd always explore if I put something new in her enclosure, and when I played music she would often come to the front of the glass and "listen". Honestly, she was a lot more like a dog or a cat than a spider, and I felt a very strong sense of loss after she passed.
Subsequent spiders haven't been as sociable, not even the jumping ones. So I can quite honestly say that Winnie had a very strong personality, despite being so small. My current ones - Fred and Wilma - are a lot less interested in me. Wilma is a shy creature, who does come out from time to time. But as soon as I come near her she bolts. Fred... hes very antisocial and I suspect that all I am to him is the provider of food... So maybe I did get lucky with my first one. But following on from Winnie, I was able to get some tarantulas. Not full grown ones - I wasn't ready for that yet - but the slings. And in raising the slings and watching them grow from molt to molt, I've been able to accustom myseld to the larger spiders. But it was Winnie who broke that barrier in the first place.
Nowadays, I'm less likely to recoil at the sight of a spider, though I'm not quite sure I'll ever get used to being pooped on by them.... Thanks Webster, for this lovely projectile spray.... Really appreciated that...not.
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