Spiders. My Wife (to be) Hates Them.

How can I help her overcome this phobia?

To put things into perspective, she isn't just a little afraid of spiders, oh no. It's so bad she won't open the windows in the house for fear of a spider crawling in. I've tried to explain to her that upstairs windows aren't exactly a spider's first choice for gaining access to our house, but she still won't listen. Plus, it's getting quite hot in this bedroom. :/

Whenever she sees spiders, she runs away screaming hysterically. It's quite embarrassing, but I try to be sympathetic. After all, I do love her ... but I'm starting to get a little worried as these "totally freaking out at a tiny spider" episodes are happening a little too often. The phobia seems to be taking over, and I don't want that to happen.

So, do you have any advice?

Also, please share your spider experiences, and tell us whether you love them or hate them and why. Thanks.

I sympathize with her. I almost didn't open this thread for fear of someone being dumb and posting spider pictures. :p Actually I probably won't be coming back into this thread after I post xD Byebye.

Spiders suck and are the scariest things ever. Well they tie with centipedes and such things.

Love em! Ultimate predator!

Try making her hold one in her hand

From my experience you just have to accept it and vow to protect her from spiders at all costs. At least you don't see as many spiders as you do birds.

I forgot to mention I have a pet tarantula and it's a big sucker with huge fangs.

Spiders can sense fear, so if your holding one and your afraid of it of course the spider will bite.

So forget the advice I just mentioned earlier.

I tamed my tarantula to stay put on my shoulder, but I rarely take my spider with me in public.

Electroshock therapy.

Throw spiders at her.

being afarid of spiders is really common fear when i was younger i use to fear them i got over it by learning more about them same with everything else ive had fear with. so now i ahve no fera with holding them or with any other animal for that matter.

I just spoke to her and mentioned the thread. She didn't like it one bit. In fact, just reading some of the replies to her (specifically Luther's and Roto's), made her freak out a little.

There's no hope.

Del: Birds are the heroes of our time, because they eat spiders. Oh crap...I just realised why you kept asking me about the bird population here.

Celadon: KILL ALL SPIDERS. ALL OF THEM.

Centipedes tried invading my house last week, but I think I drove them off sufficiently. Now to continue repairs to the eastern wall.

Trap her in a room with a bunch of spiders. It'll either cure her of her fear forever or turn her into a basket case.

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Originally Posted by Roto13

Trap her in a room with a bunch of spiders. It'll either cure her of her fear forever or turn her into a basket case.

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That's a risk I simply can't take.

I'm not an expert at this or anything but try to persuade her (in any ways possible) that nothing will happen if you left the windows open. Do something of that nature. Then probably after a week (hopefully no spiders will come in trough the window JK ;P) then she might actually go with your idea.

Just point out to her that people swallow spiders in their sleep all the time, and yet life goes on. Then she will realize it is all in her head, often the mouth part of her head.

I guess not everybody appreciates kewl creepy crawly spiders like I do :/

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Originally Posted by eestlinc

Just point out to her that people swallow spiders in their sleep all the time, and yet life goes on. Then she will realize it is all in her head, often the mouth part of her head.

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Urban Legends Reference Pages: Spiders Swallowed Per Year

Why not just seal up your home so they stay outside where they can eat bugs like they're supposed to?

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Originally Posted by Roto13

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Originally Posted by eestlinc

Just point out to her that people swallow spiders in their sleep all the time, and yet life goes on. Then she will realize it is all in her head, often the mouth part of her head.

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Urban Legends Reference Pages: Spiders Swallowed Per Year

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Of course it's an urban legend. But it's funny.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

From my experience you just have to accept it and vow to protect her from spiders at all costs. At least you don't see as many spiders as you do birds.

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:love: :love: :love: :love: :love: :love:

From my experience, phobias tend to grow if you don't keep them in check. I was disgusted by birds at first, and then that disgust turned to fear. And that fear turned to paranoia. I know that I'm pretty bad with my phobia, but it could be worse. The only way I keep it in check is to constantly remind myself that the chances of a bird actually attacking me are pretty slim.

Plus, having a loving and protective boyfriend helps a ton. :)

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Originally Posted by Miriel

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

From my experience you just have to accept it and vow to protect her from spiders at all costs. At least you don't see as many spiders as you do birds.

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:love: :love: :love: :love: :love: :love:

From my experience, phobias tend to grow if you don't keep them in check. I was disgusted by birds at first, and then that disgust turned to fear. And that fear turned to paranoia. I know that I'm pretty bad with my phobia, but it could be worse. The only way I keep it in check is to constantly remind myself that the chances of a bird actually attacking me are pretty slim.

Plus, having a loving and protective boyfriend helps a ton. :)

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Awwww! Cuteeee!

PS: Sorry if any pictures of my bird on LJ scared you in the past years. xD I've tried to keep them all in cuts if I ever post them now to be considerate.

how can you be afraid of birds? at least spiders crawl on people and bite.

birds poop on you

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Originally Posted by eestlinc

how can you be afraid of birds? at least spiders crawl on people and bite.

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I never understood it either, so I just attributed it to hysteria.

trees might fall down on me, but I am not afraid of trees

women...

Phobias aren't rational. That's why they're phobias, and not sensibly fears like "Fire hot, dun stick yer intimate parts into it".

Spiders a mad. They keep bugs out of and around the house, make good pets and are just cool.

I've never seen how someone can be afraid of spiders, or snakes, or lizards.

Damn myths.

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Originally Posted by I'm my own MILF

Phobias aren't rational. That's why they're phobias, and not sensibly fears like "Fire hot, dun stick yer intimate parts into it".

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Exactly.

I would recomend at least considering professional help. Phobias are difficult to "get over", and it sounds like hers is really having a bad effect on her life.

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Also, please share your spider experiences, and tell us whether you love them or hate them and why. Thanks.

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I'm fine with spiders, so long as they aren't on me. Mostly I just ignore them. (though the movie Aracnophobia still freaks me out.)

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Originally Posted by eestlinc

how can you be afraid of birds? at least spiders crawl on people and bite.

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What part of irrational fear do you not understand?

I've actually noticed myself developing a phobia to spiders in the last few years. It's weird, I used to love them. Now when I see them I can feel my stomach flop and my pulse quicken and I have to resist the urge to flail. If I have to smash I spider I'll start shaking and vomit.

The only way I know how to deal with it is to make myself deal with spiders. Like big juicy ones I wont deal with but Daddy Longlegs I'll go as far as to hold. When I was a kid I used to love to play with them anyway.

EDIT: You think that's bad, eest? You don't watch enough daytime TV. There was a chick running and screaming away from tin foil.

Dress up as spider man and give her some lovin, then when she thinks of spiders, she'll think of you

That could be good or bad i dont know

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Originally Posted by DarkLadyNyara

I would recomend at least considering professional help. Phobias are difficult to "get over", and it sounds like hers is really having a bad effect on her life.

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Seconded. When phobias start to affect a person's life the way arachnophobia seems to be affecting hers (and yours) is when it's really time to get therapy. I've watched videos in psychology classes where people are so scared of spiders and other things that they do things like stay inside their houses all day and always wear gloves, and not wanting to open windows sounds like a milder version of that :erm: (not that I'm at expert at these things, of course)

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Also, please share your spider experiences, and tell us whether you love them or hate them and why.

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My parents and I think I got a spider bite once when I was six...I got a huge, nasty blister, and had to stay in the hospital for a few days while it healed :exdee:. But I'm not that scared of normal house spiders.

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EDIT: You think that's bad, eest? You don't watch enough daytime TV. There was a chick running and screaming away from tin foil.

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Did they ever say why she went nuts over it? Sometimes phobias can develop over bizarre things. Like in another video I watched in a psych class, a woman was afraid of closed spaces, like elevators, because she got stuck in a coffin as a child :Oo:. If it was soap opera, it's a different story.

If you are aware that your phobia is irrational, then you must have a rational awareness of the fear. If you know your fear doesn't make sense, then surely you can find a way to stop being so afraid.

edit: I don't watch tv, especially not daytime tv.

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Originally Posted by eestlinc

If you are aware that your phobia is irrational, then you must have a rational awareness of the fear. If you know your fear doesn't make sense, then surely you can find a way to stop being so afraid.

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Uh no. That's not how it works.

thank you for the psychology lesson.

I'm not sure you grasp the concept of what a phobia is.

Being afraid of something is not a phobia. A phobia is beyond that. If you are afraid of something you really shouldn't be afraid of, to the point where it is disrupting your daily life, that's a phobia. It is uncontrollable and irrational. There are ways to cure phobias but it takes a lot of effort and treatment and therapy to really get to the point where it doesn't scare you any more.

If you are dealing with something that doesn't make sense, that you KNOW is irrational and yet you simply cannot help that overwhelming feeling of fear and panic, you can't just rationalize that away.

Do you think that a bird flies at me and I go, "hmm, that ugly looking creature just might peck my eyes out, I'm in danger!" Hell no. A bird flies at me and my immediate response is to RUN. I don't think about it, I don't plan it, I just get the hell out of there. And then it's after that I think to myself, "I am so ridiculous, why did I do that?" Those feelings of panic and fear just sweeps over you and doesn't give you time to calmly think things through.

Clearly there are people who are incapacitated by their clinical phobia and they need professional help, whether they are aware of the silliness of their phobia or not. But there is a difference between what you are calling a phobia and the general way the term phobia is used. Maybe the clinical extreme version of a phobia is the only really correct version, and everything else is just a fear, but I think there is a lot more of a grey area between just being afraid of something and having incapacitating fear. I am just suggesting that most people who say they have a phobia don't really have what you are calling a phobia.

Anyway, if the answer to the question "why are you afraid of X?" is some sort of traumatic experience that has scarred your subconscious, then that's not exactly an irrational cause. The fear itself might be irrational, but at least there is a sensible reason why you have developed the fear.

Contrast that with someone who is afraid of pigs because pigs smell bad. In that case, not only is the fear itself irrational, the cause of the fear is also irrational. That is what doesn't make sense to me. That type of fear is psychosomatic, rather than based on actual trauma.

edit: surely there are ways to proactively confront one's fears, either through therapy or some other means. There are ways to gird oneself and confront such a fear to get the fear out of your instinctive reactions.

Expecting the subconscious to act rationally is like expecting the Pope to decry Our Lady of Fatima.

People aren't usually aware of what causes their trauma, though. The unconscious mind is a pretty powerful thing. Something may have happened very early in their child that they associate with the thing that they fear, but in reality has nothing to actually do with it. For example, someone might have a phobia of heights because when they were little and sitting on their father's shoulders, his/her parents started to fight, and he/she associates that unpleasantness and fear with heights.

Check out the Little Albert experiment too, it's pretty neat. The way that people can be conditioned to fear things that they were previously unafraid of just by association is pretty wild.

The subconscious doesn't just become the way it is by magic. conscious behavior and outside stimuli can alter our subconscious impulses. Just because you have a subconscious fear doesn't mean you can't do anything consciously to change it.

My God, there are a lot of pointless insensitive bull:skull::skull::skull::skull: replies in this thread.

Getting over a phobia is a tough task. While arachnophobia is an irrational fear, it's not enough to simply prove that spiders are harmless. The fact that many spiders can cause pain or injury to humans means that there is at least some rational basis for an aversion to spiders.

I'm not a trained psychologist, though I've talked about phobias with several psychology student friends. Overcoming a phobia usually involves a slow, careful process which gradually increases a person's exposure to the thing that they fear. This is generally done in a controlled, safe environment, to help reduce the person's fear. For severe arachnophobia, it might begin with showing the person photographs of spiders for a certain amount of time. Once they can cope with that, without severe anxiety, they might move onto model spiders they can hold in their hand, or watching videos of spiders in the wild. This process continues incrementally, over quite a long period of time, until the person can finally tolerate being around actual, live spiders.
It's definitely something that should only be attempted with the help and advice of a trained professional, though. My description here is brief, imprecise and undoubtedly lacks a lot of crucial details.

Personally, I'm nyctophobic. Darkness and nighttime can, under the right circumstancs, terrify me. I'm just lucky it's a mild phobia. I very rarely get panicked, though sometimes I'll avoid going outside or into an unfamiliar building at night in order to avoid the fear. One time I had to get a friend to walk me to my car at a campsite, even though it was only a couple of hundred feet through some trees, and I'd been there and back numerous times during the day.

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Originally Posted by eestlinc

The subconscious doesn't just become the way it is by magic. conscious behavior and outside stimuli can alter our subconscious impulses. Just because you have a subconscious fear doesn't mean you can't do anything consciously to change it.

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This presumes a level of understanding of both psychology and the brain itself which we frankly do not possess.

Psychology itself tries to modify the subconscious through conscious stimuli. Even if we don't know what we're doing or how it works, we can still try, and we do have some success.

My husband to be (lol I wish) is afraid of spiders. Whether it be the innocent jumping spider, daddy long legs, tarantula etc, he's totally afraid of it. It's not a phobia, but it really the only thing he's afraid of. The only thing good you can do is to protect him from spiders (which means having to meet his quota of killing at least 80,000 spiders / day xD ) and not making fun of him being scared :skull::skull::skull::skull:less even if he looks so funny when he jumps in surprise.
I just whack spiders any chance I get. It's all to protect him!
/knightinshiningarmor

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Originally Posted by Disco Potato

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EDIT: You think that's bad, eest? You don't watch enough daytime TV. There was a chick running and screaming away from tin foil.

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Did they ever say why she went nuts over it? Sometimes phobias can develop over bizarre things. Like in another video I watched in a psych class, a woman was afraid of closed spaces, like elevators, because she got stuck in a coffin as a child :Oo:. If it was soap opera, it's a different story.

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I saw a talk show where this woman was afraid of hair. The producer had really long hair and she flicked it and the fat scared lady screamed and she was like "BITCH I MAY HAVE A PHOBIA BUT I STILL KICK YOUR ASS!!!" and the producer flicked her hair at her and she ran away.

It... was awesome.

It wasn't really a phobia though, cause at the end of the show she was touching it. Stupid drama queen.

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Originally Posted by Big D

My God, there are a lot of pointless insensitive bull:skull::skull::skull::skull: replies in this thread.

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I don't mind a few sarcastic replies now and again. If all the replies to this thread were straightforward, it would be somewhat boring to read.

I was excited to read this thread at first. So much for that. Anyway, my wife hates, hates, hates spiders of any kind. I hate hate hate snakes. So it works like this, we're moving to South America in a few years where you basically have the most dangereous snakes and spiders in the world. We therefore made an agreement. She kills the snakes and I got the spiders.

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Originally Posted by Zeus

I was excited to read this thread at first. So much for that. Anyway, my wife hates, hates, hates spiders of any kind. I hate hate hate snakes. So it works like this, we're moving to South America in a few years where you basically have the most dangereous snakes and spiders in the world. We therefore made an agreement. She kills the snakes and I got the spiders.

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Australia has the deadliest snakes in the world, though South America does have the deadliest spider (Brazilian Wandering Spider)

Go me for being a nut about that stuff :D

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Originally Posted by Professor Plum

EDIT: You think that's bad, eest? You don't watch enough daytime TV. There was a chick running and screaming away from tin foil.

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YouTube - Maury Show - Women SCARED to death of Balloons

I said they basically have the most dangereous snakes and spiders.

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Originally Posted by Zeus

I said they basically have the most dangereous snakes and spiders.

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I'm sorry for being a nut about it.

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Originally Posted by Big D

Personally, I'm nyctophobic. Darkness and nighttime can, under the right circumstancs, terrify me. I'm just lucky it's a mild phobia. I very rarely get panicked, though sometimes I'll avoid going outside or into an unfamiliar building at night in order to avoid the fear. One time I had to get a friend to walk me to my car at a campsite, even though it was only a couple of hundred feet through some trees, and I'd been there and back numerous times during the day.

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I'm the same. I have a very overactive imagination when it gets dark, and unless I have something takes my mind off of it, I can get really freaked out.

I don't know that there's really a way to cure a phobia without major work with a psychiatrist. Short of some kind of placebo effect (placing anti-spider wave emitting devices at the windows... which may or may not just be black boxes with an LED in them) you might be stuck just having to live with it.

Hey, I have a phobia of flies. It is so bad, that whenever one is in the room, I run away hysterically like you fiancee.

At least spiders don't fly and aren't super dirty like flies.

Wear a spider costume when making love.

I'm petrified of spiders. I can't be in the same room as one.

Buy a snake! It'll eat your spiders. :jess:

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Originally Posted by Harle-Quin

Wear a spider costume when making love.

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That one made me giggle like a little girl. Thanks.

Point out that spiders are more petrified of her than she is of them. I can't really say anything, though, I cry like a little girl and scream the house down when a Crane fly is anywhere near me.