Does anybody here have a phobia?

I have been told by my housemates that there is a huge spider in our kitchen, right by the washing machine (where my washing is). I am now deep breathing as I write this because I am only just about keeping inches away from pure terror... and it is always the same level of terror as my highest terror point when in PTSD meltdown...

Here, I don't mean on the level of something that scares you that you avoid... I mean something that terrifies you to the point that if you were trapped in a room with your phobia, you would actually willingly kill yourself in your terror. Now if I was in Australia and had had a life threatening experience with a spider, I would say I have PTSD in relation to spiders... but in England, spiders can't kill and I have no memory of any traumatic incident with any spider.... like the fear was always there, so spiders have always, by default, been a traumatic thing to me in general. But I know this is just an irrational phobia. In a way, I don't understand why I get terrified to the level that I do, I know it's silly... but it's damn real to me.

I know it is unreasonable in a way, but I am livid that my housemate who is my usual protector when it comes to this, actually saw this spider days ago and did not just get rid of it for me. Because I now cannot eat. I cannot go into that kitchen... and I am in hypervigilance mode with the whole house. I am also livid, because this housemate knows that another housemate who I don't get on with actually PUT a spider in my room last year and laughed at me... naturally, I am worried she will do the same with this spider. If that happens, she'll have done it to the wrong person because I am only just about in check with my anger towards her... but anyway...

Until I know that spider is found, and dead or put out of this house... I don't know what I am going to do. And god forbid should I see another spider...

SO to any of you who suffer a phobia or fear to such extreme, debilitating extent... how do you cope? Have you ever overcome your phobia, and how?

Needing some advice should I come face to face with this thing...

Thanks.

I am phobic of spiders too. Sleep with a flyswatter where you can reach it while you sleep. Ask your roomate to go through the kitchen and around the house and find the spider and kill it or haul it outside far away from the house. If it has been a few days, the spider is no longer in the kitchen. My home is larger than yours I'll bet ( I live in the US) and the last tiny spider I saw walked from one end to the other overnight. The spider is outside by now looking for water to drink and a meal. There are no bugs inside.

I would just love to see Australia, but then I watched this show on the animal planet station about how 3 of the top ten venomous spiders live there. And then there are the snakes...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I saw the word spider and did'nt read furthur. nor will i, sorry! no offence!!

Hello Lisa, I used to be really bad with spiders but I'm a bit better now. My Dad and brother used to tease me with them when I was younger. I dont think they realised the damage they were doing!

I once removed my whole bed, including mattress trying to find a spider in my bedroom. I am now much better with them though. My weapon of choice is the hoover! If you extend it to the max length and then aim and fire! Its not kind on the spiders but hell at least it means I can go back in the room. I have been known to then put the hoover outside just in case it could then crawl out of the hoover but so far I've never seen one do that! I also put a glass or other container over them and carefully slid a piece of paper under and then put the whole lot outside.

I think you would feel best by tackling this yourself rather than expecting your housemate to do it for you. You will feel a lot more in control if you do. I also try and think of the good things that spiders do, eg. great bird food, they eat flies, ants etc. so they do have a role to play. They are horrible but they wont hurt you and you can remove them. Just little by little, like exposure therapy in a way.

I am afraid of nothing. Literally. Not even spiders. Except for Black Widows. I am terrified of Black Widows. Any other spider doesn't phase me in the least. But Black Widows..... yikes!

Did everything turn out ok? I hope everything did and it's gone!
Take Care!

Thanks guys

2quilt... I hope to god it's gone out of the house because they always seem to turn up in my bedroom otherwise!! Usually my housemates would get rid of it but they've all said it's so big they didn't want to touch it.... uuuuugggh.... but thank you for the reassuring post, it helped a little! I know spiders roam... im just dreading their mating season... more of them!

Cypher - They think it lives under the washing machine so I've sprayed fly killer under there. I know trying to kill it is not nice, but it's trespassing in my house! Nobody's seen it since, so here's to hoping...

Claire...cheers for the advice... I am going to try to tackle spiders myself...You're right, it would help if I could tackle them myself then I wouldn't need to rely on someone being in the house who is willing to help me. But I cannot get close to them. The best I might be able to do and have done before is throw a book at it, or spray it with fly killer. But that would be a good start I suppose.

Sounds like you are similar to me! I have refrained from using a hoover before for fear of it crawling out again. But I will try that as a last resort...though the hoover may have to live in the garden after for a while!

Using a glass.... have tried that before and I managed to get the glass over it but couldn't bring myself to slide paper under... I can't look at them easily, see... and when they move I freak!

But I know I need to try to confront this phobia more, so I can at least deal with spiders as it seriously affects my life. I nearly moved out last year because we had an influx of spiders with the summer rain... I sat up from 2am waiting for the university to open at 9am on the day of an exam because I had seen a spider in the toilet and I couldn't it use with it in there...! I swore if I saw another spider, I'd move out... luckily it's been 10 months since I've seen one though so I've managed to stay here. People often laugh at my phobia's... this is the only 'common, reasonable' one I have but it's the worst... but I have some strange other phobias. I think people don't realise I'm serious...! So it doesn't help when at first people are like "oooh look I have a spider"... but they soon realise Im serious... though I am ashamed to admit such extreme reaction, I have before, when cornered with my phobia, reacted with violence...

For now, I have reloaded my defences in my room... ant killer around the skirting boards, a deterrent spray on windows, holes and door frame, an infrared 'siren' that apparently irritates them so they don't come near, a plug in 'fumigator' that lets off a chemical, a spider catcher by my bed (but the suction isn't strong enough for anything more than a money spider), and every room I enter I do a spider check before I walk in... at worst I have a small bomb thing (it's not a bomb but it's called that) and if I use that I have to stay out of my room for 12 hours and kills any insect or bug alive in the room... but it covers the room in dust so I don't use that unless it's an emergency.

So I feel a little safer now.

Cactus jack... I wish I was like you in regards to spiders... we don't get many poisenous spiders here... if any...

My phobia is closed in spaces. I would gladly go hunt down or even sit by a spider, just don't close the door on me when I am in the laundry closet!

I once stayed at a Bed & Breakfast in Vermont with a host pair who were on the edge of crazy. One tried to heal me. Laying on hands healing. I told her not to heal me because i get a federal disability check!
At breakfast on the third day, after we had all been laughing real hard, the husband brought out his "pet" surprize and asked me to hold my hand out.

No, it was not a spider.

I warned him seriously not to put a spider in my hand unless he wanted me to throw it against the wall and kill it, and sh*t my pants in the process. He promised me that his pet was not a spider.

So I held my hand out. With a mouthful of blueberry muffin and the coffee cup in my right hand, he placed the pet in my left hand, and I opened my eyes. It was a Madagascar cockroach as big as my whole hand and it weighed about half a pound! You should have heard the screams of laughter when they all saw my face. He did this at the breakfast table with everyone eating. I laughed so hard I cried.

Memorable, to say the least.

2quilt:

I'm glad you could laugh about that! I'm not sure I would have lived to tell that story....or the poor roach may not have survived that story.

I bet you are a lot of fun to travel with; you seem fun-loving.