🔗 Share this article

I am someone who believes that it is always possible to change. I think you can in fact train a seasoned creature, as long as the experienced individual is open-minded and ready for growth. Provided that the old dog is ready to confess when it was in error, and work to become a better dog.

Alright, I confess, the metaphor applies to me. And the lesson I am attempting to master, even though I am set in my ways? It is an major undertaking, something I have battled against, repeatedly, for my all my days. I have been trying … to become less scared of huntsman spiders. My regrets to all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be realistic about my potential for change as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is large, in charge, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. This includes three times in the last week. In my own living space. You can’t see me, but I'm grimacing at the very thought as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least achieving Normal about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders since I was a child (in contrast to other children who are fascinated by them). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to ensure I never had to confront any directly, but I still panicked if one was obviously in the immediate vicinity as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had crawled on to the family room partition. I “dealt” with it by retreating to a remote corner, practically in the adjoining space (in case it chased me), and discharging a significant portion of bug repellent toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it managed to annoy and disturb everyone in my house.

As I got older, whoever I was dating or sharing a home with was, automatically, the most courageous of spiders in our pairing, and therefore responsible for dealing with it, while I emitted whimpers of distress and ran away. If I was on my own, my tactic was simply to vacate the area, douse the illumination and try to forget about its presence before I had to enter again.

Recently, I stayed at a friend’s house where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who lived in the sill, for the most part lingering. As a means to be more comfortable with its presence, I imagined the spider as a her, a gal, part of the group, just lounging in the sun and eavesdropping on us chat. This may seem rather silly, but it was effective (to some degree). Put another way, the deliberate resolution to become less phobic worked.

Whatever the case, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I recognize they consume things like flies and mosquitoes (creatures I despise). I know they are one of nature’s beautiful, harmless-to-humans creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the most terrifying and borderline immoral way conceivable. The sight of their multiple limbs transporting them at that frightening pace causes my caveman brain to enter panic mode. They ostensibly only have eight legs, but I am convinced that increases exponentially when they move.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. My experience has shown that employing the techniques of trying not to immediately exit my own skin and retreat when I see one, working to keep still and breathing, and deliberately thinking about their beneficial attributes, has actually started to help.

Just because they are hairy creatures that dart around extremely quickly in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, doesn’t mean they merit my intense dislike, or my shrieks of terror. I can admit when my reactions have been misguided and motivated by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “trapping one under a cup and escorting it to the garden” phase, but one can't be sure. There’s a few years within this old dog yet.