Arachnophobia — how you overcome your fear of spiders, part 1 of 3
This is an oldie but goodie. An evergreen.
Imagine it sits quietly in the corner of your living room. You are sure: it is watching you. It wants to kill you. It wants to slam its fangs into your skin and suck all your blood. It wants to lay eggs into your brain and take control over you. No, you are not watching a program of any political party on your TV in the same corner of your living room.
No, it is even worse.
IT. IS. A. SPIDER!
You are so afraid of an animal much smaller than you that you begin to sweat all over your body and are not able to enter the room?
Remember what I wrote in “9 perspectives on fear that help me to overcome my fears — General aspects of fear”?
My first and hence most important basic assumption regarding fear is: “Fear of XY decreases the quality of my life and/or hinders me in doing a certain action, and therefore I want to get rid of my fear of XY.”
In the case of arachnophobia, i.e. the fear of spiders, it is quite easy to analyze. It was programmed into you by someone. Most probably during your childhood. And you were not in the position to question whether it was appropriate or not. Children until approx. 7 years mostly function as if being under hypnosis and by observing their surroundings, mostly trusted people from their family, learn from them. It is like pressing a RECORD button. Just recording, no critical thinking involved. Well, in many cases this type of learning is efficient, especially in the case of language. However, mostly all of our beliefs (= facts) regarding our world are programmed that way into us. Knowing this empowers everyone of us to reverse this programming, or at least to weaken it.
To get rid of a fear it is useful to acknowledge the abovesaid.
Do you want to get rid of arachnophobia? Yes, of course you want, would you otherwise still be reading, wouldn’t you?
It is important to start to learn something about the object of your fears and deduce from here whether it is still reasonable to fear them.
1. Spiders are tiny compared to an adult human. In case of the biggest spider known to date, the Goliath Birdeating Spiders of the Southamerican genus Theraphosa a human of 60 kg body weight is 300 times heavier (those adult spiders may weigh up to 200 g). Weighing approx. 1,5 g the European garden spider Araneus diadematus is even smaller than you: a 60 kg person weighs 40.000 times more than this spider. Honestly, would you normally be afraid of a human that is only half your body weight? Most probably not. Why then should you fear such a tiny creature?
2. Spiders have a very restricted sensory range, especially sight. They rely mostly on vibrations of the substrate and of the air in order to localize prey items. Their range is at max. approx. 30 or 40 cm. Consequently, it is simply incorrect to think that the spider in the far corner of your room is watching you. If at all, it sees some light and dark movement of something very big that is definitely NOT within its prey size range (see. 1) and “hopes” that you won’t find and eat it. So, how is the power distributed among you and the spider?
3. Most spiders are venomous, but not all. And in those species which have venom, it is quite mild to humans. Remember, spiders are tiny and only few have sufficiently powerful fangs to bite through human skin. That means that there are only very few spider species out of the until 52.000 (see here for species statistics) recorded species, that have a venom that can cause some kind of medical issues AND be at the same time successfully injected during a normal bite. It is important to note, however, that peoples’ reactions to spider venoms may differ, same as there are some people that have no problems when being stung by a bee while others have severe pain and some may react very allergic or anaphylactic to those venoms. If you already know you are such an allergic person then you might be a little bit more careful when approaching bigger spiders.
4. Spiders are NOT dangerous for another reason, which is normally ignored by people. Spiders are simply too stupid to be really dangerous. Even those with the most potent venom and even when the person in front of them be extremely allergic to arthropod venoms. It is not enough to be in possession of a weapon, but it is crucial to use it with great efficiency. Black Widows are considered to be dangerous. But when you analyze it you will find them harmless. Those spiders construct complicated webs to catch prey. They have potent venoms and apparently their fangs are strong and long enough to come through human skin. BUT. Outside of their webs they move extremely clumsily. Thus, as long as you do not put your finger directly into a Black Widow web you are good. Even if a Black Widow tried to KILL you on purpose and “ran” toward you it simply would be ridiculous. Besides that: you are wearing shoes, which are weapons.
Additionally, to be classified as dangerous it is imperative to have a strategic plan. Only smart beings are really dangerous. The smarter, the more dangerous. Only humans are dangerous, not animals, although some animals may kill people sometimes under certain circumstances. Animals cannot, or at least do not usually, form gangs in order to attack people. They do not make plans to do so. They do not build even more deadly weapons of mass destruction.
To summarize: Spiders are comparatively tiny animals with a restricted sensory range and mostly mild venoms. Additionally, they are not mobile and not smart enough to fit into the dangerous category.
Knowing this we apply a stepwise technique to remove the fear of spiders in the next article.
Best wishes,
Wito
Dr. Witold Lapinski
