DonovanDuVal

Not sure where else to post this, I assume you could call it a mental health issue, either that or ethical philosophy, so I plumbed for this, the health forum. Anyhow the thing is this; I suffer from arachnophobia, although I have made attempts to get used to our eight legged friends and thought that I was going well in developing a mindset to deal with spiders until the other night.

As a fat bar-steward I often try and get healthy through the medium of exercise, and have a shed in which various exercise apparatus is set up, all easy and convenient to use. The down side of this is that I also share the space with lots and lots of house spiders. Funny thing is that when they are small they don’t bother me so much it’s only when they get so big that they are able to pass me the weight for the barbell that they begin to make my skin crawl. Okay I exaggerate there but you get the gist.

Well the other night I was warming up when I noticed a massive spider clinging to the wall which I duly ignored. That was until it made a dash for a way out and headed at full pelt at me which freaked me out and had me trying to kill it. God I am such a little bitch, I almost screamed. Anyway it got away and tentatively I carried on.

The next night I entered very carefully, (what I was thinking I don’t know, like it was going to be waiting to jump, it was big but not that friggin’ big) put the light on, inspected the walls and when I was satisfied that it wasn’t there began training. Then my eye was drawn to the inside of the door frame where it seemed it had been waiting for me all this time. This time I freaked and killed it straight away, it had been so close to me without me noticing which kinda makes the whole deal a lot worse.

Anyway I just wanted to know ‘what people thought about killing spiders?’ While I feel bad about killing anything the fact that they freak me out when I am using weights is what makes me justify it to myself. Those of you who indulge in self improvement will understand that, while exercising it’s not good to be looking over your shoulder at either a real or imagined fear. Actually the fear is always real it’s the spider that can be imagined. Any tips for surviving what I realise is essential my own mind fecking me over?

I had a friend who used to be afraid of spiders and he got over it by picking them up and, in fact began to enjoy the rush of his fear induced adrenaline. Can’t see that happening anytime soon and anyway the last I heard from him was he was on heroin. Not that I am say the spiders did that, although you never know, they are sneaky. I was toying with the idea of getting a tarantula as a pet, but then thought better of it.