🔗 Share this article

I maintain the conviction that it is forever an option to change. My view is you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the old dog is willing and ready for growth. As long as the person is ready to confess when it was wrong, and endeavor to transform into a better dog.

Alright, I confess, the metaphor applies to me. And the lesson I am attempting to master, despite the fact that I am decrepit? It is an significant challenge, a feat I have grappled with, frequently, for my whole existence. I have been trying … to become less scared of huntsman spiders. Apologies to all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be grounded about my possible growth as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is imposing, commanding, and the one I run into regularly. This includes on three separate occasions in the last week. Inside my home. I'm not visible to you, but a shudder runs through me and grimacing as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I’ve been working on at least attaining a standard level of composure about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders from my earliest years (in contrast to other children who adore them). In my formative years, I had ample brothers around to guarantee I never had to confront any myself, but I still panicked if one was clearly in the general area as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and trying to deal with a spider that had crawled on to the family room partition. I “dealt” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, practically in the adjoining space (lest it chased me), and emptying half a bottle of pesticide toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it managed to annoy and annoy everyone in my house.

With the passage of time, whoever I was dating or cohabiting with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore in charge of managing the intruder, while I made whimpers of distress and ran away. When finding myself alone, my strategy was simply to leave the room, douse the illumination and try to erase the memory of its being before I had to re-enter.

Not long ago, I stayed at a companion's home where there was a notably big huntsman who resided within the sill, mostly just hanging out. To be less scared of it, I envisioned the spider as a female entity, a girlie, in our circle, just relaxing in the sun and eavesdropping on us gab. This may seem extremely dumb, but it was effective (a little bit). Put another way, the deliberate resolution to become less phobic proved successful.

Be that as it may, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I reflect upon all the rational arguments not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I recognize they eat things like buzzing nuisances (my mortal enemies). I am cognizant they are one of the planet's marvelous, benign creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and borderline immoral way possible. The vision of their multiple limbs transporting them at that frightening pace causes my caveman brain to go into high alert. They are said to only have a standard octet of limbs, but I believe that multiplies when they get going.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. I’ve found that employing the techniques of making an effort to avoid have a visceral panic reaction and flee when I see one, working to keep composed and breathing steadily, and deliberately thinking about their beneficial attributes, has begun to yield results.

Just because they are furry beings that move hastily extremely quickly in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, is no reason for they deserve my hatred, or my high-pitched vocalizations. I can admit when my reactions have been misguided and motivated by irrational anxiety. I’m not sure I’ll ever make it to the “scooping one into plasticware and escorting it to the garden” level, but miracles happen. Some life is left for this veteran of life yet.