Here's an Itsy-Bitsy Fear I Aim to Defeat. Fandom is Out of Reach, but Is it Possible to at Least Be Calm Concerning Spiders?

I am someone who believes that it is never too late to evolve. My view is you can in fact instruct a veteran learner, on the condition that the old dog is open-minded and willing to learn. Provided that the person is ready to confess when it was wrong, and endeavor to transform into a better dog.

Alright, I confess, I am the old dog. And the trick I am trying to learn, even though I am a creature of habit? It is an significant challenge, a feat I have grappled with, frequently, for my entire life. My ongoing effort … to develop a calmer response toward those large arachnids. Apologies to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my possible growth as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is imposing, dominant, and the one I encounter most often. Encompassing on three separate occasions in the recent past. Within my dwelling. Though unseen, but I'm grimacing with discomfort as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but my project has been at least becoming a standard level of composure about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders dating back to my youth (unlike other children who adore them). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to make sure I never had to engage with any directly, but I still freaked out if one was clearly in the same room as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and attempting to manage a spider that had ascended the family room partition. I “handled” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, nearly crossing the threshold (in case it pursued me), and discharging half a bottle of bug repellent toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it did reach and annoy everyone in my house.

As I got older, whomever I was in a relationship with or living with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders in our pairing, and therefore tasked with managing the intruder, while I emitted low keening sounds and fled the scene. When finding myself alone, my strategy was simply to exit the space, turn off the light and try to ignore its being before I had to re-enter.

Recently, I was a guest at a friend’s house where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who lived in the casement, primarily hanging out. To be more comfortable with its presence, I imagined the spider as a her, a gal, in our circle, just lounging in the sun and overhearing us yap. It sounds quite foolish, but it worked (to some degree). Alternatively, making a conscious choice to become more fearless proved successful.

Whatever the case, I’ve tried to keep it up. I contemplate all the logical reasons not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I recognize they consume things like insect pests (my mortal enemies). I am cognizant they are one of the world's exquisite, non-threatening to people creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to walk like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and somehow offensive way possible. The vision of their numerous appendages transporting them at that frightening pace induces my caveman brain to enter panic mode. They are said to only have eight legs, but I believe that multiplies when they move.

Yet it cannot be blamed on them that they have unnerving limbs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – if not more. I’ve found that employing the techniques of making an effort to avoid immediately exit my own skin and retreat when I see one, working to keep still and breathing, and intentionally reflecting about their good points, has begun to yield results.

Simply due to the reality that they are fuzzy entities that move hastily extremely quickly in a way that invades my dreams, does not justify they warrant my loathing, or my shrieks of terror. I can admit when my reactions have been misguided and driven by baseless terror. I’m not sure I’ll ever make it to the “scooping one into plasticware and taking it outside” stage, but one can't be sure. There’s a few years left in this veteran of life yet.