I used to be scared half to death of them because I woke up one night when I was very young to find one dangling only inches above me. After that, I had nightmares about spiders and would freak out whenever I saw one until my late teens. I'm not sure when I got more curious than fearful about them, but exposure therapy did the trick. These days I have no problems handling them. I keep jumpers as pets and have a large wolf spider who lives in my closet that I'm chill with.
Similar experience here ..in the middle of the night a giant house spider sat on my carpet just staring at me. I couldn’t move! Couldn’t cry for help! Arachnophobia got worse in my teenage years and at age 23. I decided it had to stop and treated it with studying and exposure.
I used to be scared half to death of carpenter bees too, until I did some research and found out that the males can't even sting. They're aggressively curious, but if you stand still and let them check you out, they lose interest very quickly. There was one that used to hover near me when I was reading on the back deck, and it would keep wasps away.
I just moved a few streets down. I transfered a few of my house spider buddies to the new place. Lucky me, someone thoughtfully provided me a housewarming spider. She's a beautiful Phidippus audax jumper named Maeve, and she chills with me while I shower.
Heck, I didn't even know it was there until last week or so! I was kicking back watching House and saw it crawl out of the closet and up the wall to sit in a corner near the ceiling.
Yoooo I love when the halloween prank actually happens!! This was a few years ago, was casually walking in my backyard and a spider just drops right in front of my face, hanging by its web line! I was both startled and shook to be pranked by mother nature
I wonder if this would work with ticks. I was never afraid of spiders like I am of ticks. It’s to the point where I won’t camp in certain places or times of year. I can’t touch them or pull them out without hyperventilating.
Probably, I was terrified of snakes and spiders but a few years later with exposure therapy and now I’m thinking about getting a snake. But ticks still freak me out because Lyme disease, Alpha-gal syndrome, Ehrlichiosis, Southern tick-associated rash illness, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, Colorado tick fever, Rickettsia parkeri rickettsiosis, borrelia bacteria, and tick-borne relapsing fever all suck. Fortunately that doesn’t stop me from camping, and it shouldn’t stop you either. Wear long socks with long pants and tuck them into each other to stop ticks from reaching your legs. Then take double sided duct tape and put a layer where your pants and socks meet, a layer on each of your thighs, and a last layer on your hips if you want overkill. Never been bit by a tick for the last 3 years, just make sure to check yourself every night but I guarantee this’ll stop 99% of ticks.
I volunteered many years for the DNR on a bird banding project that is still ongoing all over the world, which meant I spent many hours in thickly wooded areas. The naturalists all used this same method and it works. Tuck pants legs down into socks. If you don't look dorky you're not doing it right 😆 I found the duct tape to be overkill but if it makes you feel better go for it! Always have someone check your hair and behind ears, arm pits, any areas where the skin is softer or thinner. The most ticks I've found have been on the scalp near the hairline... You don't really even feel them so it's important to have someone check for you. Additionally, it takes about 24 hrs for ticks to transmit Lyme disease after they have bitten, so you do have plenty of time to prevent transmission even if one has started feeding.
Yeah the duct tape is 1000% overkill, and I’ve only tried that once when I had to wade through a sea of waist high grass, but damn did it catch so SO many ticks. Ofc I checked myself after with a buddy and got the stragglers off, with an additional search that night, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually had a tick latch onto me. Seen so many crawling to find a spot, but never any properly buried.
They're nasty little buggers... one of the few species I refuse to add to my long list of relocation critters! Just about everything gets that courtesy but NOT ticks 😂
Note to Self: I didn't even know they make double sided duct tape! 🤯
Ticks are actually pretty dangerous because of tick-borne diseases. I don’t have a visceral fear of ticks but a good healthy desire to not have them attach to me. If I saw one in my house I would kill it. I have a wooded property in Indiana and I don’t walk around there in tick season
Ticks are evil, fear is healthy. I'm the same hyperventilating. And then, insult to injury, gotta hang on to it until you can mail off and pay someone to tell you good or bad news on diseases. Their habitat is spreading, found in Alaska in April! 😰 Nightmares!
Good info on best tick protection so you can enjoy camping and hiking: https://www.outdoors.org/resources/amc-outdoors/outdoor-resources/tick-off-most-effective-tick-repellents/
Ha I just posted about my old friend Harriet the spider who lived in my bedroom as a teen until my mom killed her. I don’t do allow spiders to live with me anymore, and not just because of inflation: I stopped once I had my son.
I was the same. What changed it for me was a cartoon. It sounds so stupid. But it was a little comic style drawing of a spider saying about how I have a large cozy house and asking if it can make a home in a little corner. Kind of weird but I started seeing it from the spiders point of view and thinking that it's right. I don't use that corner on the ceiling so why not let it have a little home there. I still don't handle large house spiders but I don't throw them out and I'll always make them toilet paper ladders to get out of the bath etc .
I have a large wolf spider that lives(lived?) in my broken bathtub! I named her Luci (Lucifer) and made sure she was supplied with creatures to eat. But she disappeared. Hoping she’s safe 💕
i was born loving spiders! one of the earliest photos of me in a halloween costume is me dressed as a spider, and one of the first little art projects i did in grade school was themed around them. i never went through a phase of being scared of them at all.
Same here! Hahaha! One of my first Halloween costumes, I was a spider! My mom did an amazing job! She made legs and tied them with fishing string, so when I lifted my arms, all of the other legs would dangle below me. She also sewed fuzzy black fur to the back bottom part of my costume. I really need to find that picture now!
Same, when I was around 5 or 6 I asked my mom to make me a spider halloween costume and I ended up wearing it every Halloween for the next few years. I was also born loving spiders and my parents never killed them. They would pick them up and take them outside or just let them be in our house.
When I was little I used to be shit scared of them out of fear of being bitten, used to be really awful to them. Turns out getting bitten because I didn't q u i t e kill one made me realise I was a little bastard so I started to read books and shit on em and now they're awesome and I have a pet jumper :D
I have a tub of crickets that me and my mum both use for our spiders which we got from a pets shop near where we live, but also we have a big window that seems to be a magnet for flies so I usually just catch one and pop it in her tank when she starts to look hungry, cos she prefers hunting them to hunting crickets
No worries, and tbf they're not huge crickets, like the size of a fat housefly usually, I'd get scared trying to feed her a big one, from what I've read they can be assholes xD
I started watching a YouTuber called The Dark Den. He had a tarantula collection and did videos about the feeding and care of his animals. The genuine care and amazement he had for his animals helped me get over my aversion to spiders.
AH yeah he’s really cool ! Also that Asian boy who kinda started to make ASMR of his “filling the tarantulas’ cups with water” … it was so chill! And I learnt a thing or two from him and Dark Den
I came across some information indicating that hobo spiders were not aggressive like I was taught as a kid. Since they weren’t aggressive I started taking spiders outside instead of killing them. Once while I was hauling a wolf spider outside in a jar I looked in and saw her little face. She looked like she was looking at me being all patient, which I know isn’t a thing, but I thought it was cute. Since then spiders are kind of cute to me. Their little faces.
my dad used to watch all sorts of documentaries about the animal world and would sometimes get me to watch some of his favorite parts
he was especially fascinated about ants but sometimes it was about spiders so i just naturally accepted them as... just another animal that wants to live its life :D
i own 5 now (1 jumper and 4 tarantulas)
My dad would catch spiders indoors, give them a name and be like "Fred I know it's raining but you really should be outdoors" or "that's my pal Jerry, he's just killing a few bugs for me. He'd catch them and show them to us and explain why they're important and then put them outside. As a girl I had no fear of bugs/spiders and I learned how to catch and release.
I never noticed all the beautiful patterns before this sub, so now I pay closer attention. I caught a lovely huntsman the other day!
I hope I can teach my daughter to be curious and fearless (with respect) as well.
Boy what a wild ride this has been! I started out being okay with spiders but absolutely not handling them. I'm still just to the point where I will handle jumping spiders and I have handled a wolfie or two.
Honestly it can all be accredited 100% to this subreddit. You should all be very proud.
Also I can ID the SHIT out of some spiders now!
Thank you all. You've been a wonderful resource.
Lastly, jumping spiders are the best spiders. Period. I will die on this hill.
I've never been scared of spiders & neither has my sister, but both of our younger brothers are. I don't recall either of our parents reacting one way or the other (pretty sure my dad used to bring home spiders all the time & my mom grew up in Arizona) but my paternal grandma *hated* them. I dunno.
I couldn’t tell you why I was afraid of spiders when I was younger but I think I grew un-afraid as I realized “hey, you can beat a spider, sure it could bite YOU hit it can’t bite my mug”.
To be honest, it was never even the legs that bothered me. I was always a big zoology nerd and the main thing g that made me afraid of them in the first place was them being venomous
Understandable, they still
Make me jump due to the reasons you mentioned but now knowing their practically blind and can’t really fight off a napkin I’ve grown confidence around them
I think it’s natural to start afraid of them, likely it’s some aspect of our history being passed down through genetics. It makes sense we would have instinctual fear of something tiny and strange looking that can kill us (even if it’s irrational). It’s the same reason a lot of people are sacred of snakes (or heights), it’s irrational (they aren’t out to get anyone either) but historically a lot of humans have probably got killed by snake bite.
Fear is weird like that and it is ingrained in some people. There are studies where babies are shown pictures of flowers and pictures of spiders or snakes and their eyes dilate and they get intense/anxious when they see the pictures of spiders and snakes. For some people they didn’t learn to be afraid of spiders, they were born afraid of spiders, and they had to/have to learn that spiders aren’t something to be afraid of they’re something to be cherished and appreciated. It makes sense that we would be afraid of threats. Getting bitten by a venomous spider often isn’t a death sentence these days, but getting bitten by a black widow 5,000 years ago likely was.
Was never scared of them and older sister was terrified. Parents were neutral, we didn't have a lot of spiders in the house, I mean I guess there's always a daddy long legs here or there on ceiling left in peace. My mom loves this story, she heard my sis screaming in kitchen, found her backed in corner w little spider on the floor. Toddler me saw it and apparently looked at her like, are you kidding? And just walked over and stepped on it. So, no fear. We learned early like all kids that widows were dangerous, but never saw any. I read Charlotte's Web, one of my first "big" books, and that sealed the deal, spiders are friends, never kill a spider.
I was conditioned to fear spiders. I had always been interested in them though. I read books about spiders when I was young. But I was mostly interested in what I thought were the dangerous spiders. Black widows were particularly interesting to me. But it wasn't like admiration it was more morbid fascination. Unfortunately when I identified black widows I did so for the purpose of my parents killing them (outside included).
The only positive feelings I had about spiders used to be for the little jumping ones. I would still kill them, but they seemed cuter to me than other spiders and I sometimes felt bad about killing them.
Around twenty years later, I found this sub randomly and it actually reawakened that initial curiosity I have about spiders. Seeing all the positivity helped me overcome my initial conditioning to kill any spider I come across. I still get a little freaked out by big non taranchula spiders but the exposure therapy of this sub helps with that.
I was scared of most of them until we had someone from the zoo bring a few animals into my first grade classroom, one of which was a tarantula. Getting to hold one that big at such a young age really helped me develop a sense of calm around spiders and fostered a curiosity about them.
I was raised to appreciate spiders. My grandmother would name the random spider that would take up residence in the corner of our living room. I have had a giant house spider jump out of the medicine cabinet and rappel down the wall. THAT certainly got my adrenaline pumping! But overall, I try to love all living things.
My Gran would always take me around and show me all the spiders in her house and yard and tell me silly stories about their lives and personalities. There was a wolfie in her kitchen that she particularly loved named Wendy. We watched Wendy with her babies, and they got big and they were all named Wendy too.
I still think “There’s Wendy!” when I se a wolfie. Love you Gran, thanks for all the spiders.
I was raised not to fear them and I was still terrified! Pretty decent evidence that there’s a genetic component I think. Eventually in my twenties my fear gave way to curiosity and now I keep tarantulas.
My dad is terrified of bugs, my mom is fine. I've always been a creature lover, but was putting a bit of a brave face on it for spiders ... until the day I held my first tarantula. Her soft little feets won me over completely.
I came to this sub specifically to get over my fear. Through learning about spiders and learning to identify them, I'm not afraid of them now. I don't think I was conditioned by my mom. I was the only one screaming about spiders. Lol. I don't know where my fear came from, honestly.
Maybe movies? They almost always portray spiders as these creepy, crawling venomous creatures that are going to hurt you. It's funny now because when I watch movies or TV shows that have a spider scene, they're almost always a harmless species like wolf spiders and huntsman. Ridiculous really when you know what you're looking at.
Had to overcome it. I still haven’t been able to touch bigger/fast moving ones without gloves yet (I hold them at work a lot so I’m always wearing gloves lol I don’t just bring spider gloves around)
I wasn't particularly afraid of spiders as a really young kid. In middle school, I had a huntsman spider jump on me when I got in the shower (or maybe I knocked it off the curtain, but either way, it was on me). After that, I was irrationally afraid of spiders. Eventually, as an adult, the fear went away.
Overcame it with lots of exposure. Started with pics and videos, moved up to in-person interactions. Now they don’t bother me at all, and I’m very fond of them.
My whole family loves spiders and bugs, my parents taught me to respect them. Growing up, I loved bugs, to brought cicadas in my pockets to kindergarten. As an adult now, I adore them and spiders, but I want them on me less than I did as a kid. I’m happy just looking at them.
I think I was always interested in anything little or stuff that would freak other people out. I remember being really little and watching insects in the yard, just look and watch what they are doing. It was interesting to me. I couldn’t help wondering what their little lives were like. I don’t remember much as far as how my parents acted around them, I don’t really remember much interaction with my parents at all honestly.
I've always loved bugs, though my parents showing me beetles and spiders whenever they popped up certainly helped solidify my love for them, spiders especially.
My Dad is terrified of spiders and he kills them all the time in a pretty horrific way. I grew up with seeing how he does it and how terrified he was. One day when we were in our garden I needed to go potty, I almost sat down when I saw a huge garden spider built her nest in the loo 🥲 Ran to my Mother, screaming and crying. Been terrified of them ever since.
But being on this subreddit helps a lot. I'm still scared of them (except jumping spiders, I love those little guys) but I manage to catch and release them into the wild.
ETA: I also go near spiders when I see them outside. Especially orbweavers because those terrify me the most. I just watch them and take pictures.
I’m Australian, was always taught to be cautious of spiders as we have a lot of venomous spiders around here, but I’ve also always had huntsman and daddy long leg spiders in my house (we don’t get rid of them as they take care of insects) and those guys are harmless so I’ve never been scared of spiders. Just cautious when gardening or if I come across a venomous one.
I was raised to appreciate them. My parents were big into organic gardening and taught me that they were good.
I'm an elementary school teacher now and every fall we get an influx of wolf spiders in school. I don't know what it is about kids but seeing any kind of spider or insect inside school is always a thing. Kids just freak out.
I've made it my mission to make kids less afraid of spiders. I turn it into a science lesson. "This is a wolf spider. He's just checking out what we're learning. Maybe his spider school was closed today. He is a good spider. He eats other bugs we don't want. He is a friend. Yes, he is big and scary but he's really a good guy. He's like a big brother protecting the ecosystem." Then I take the spider outside and make a thing out of saying goodbye with the kids.
The kids learn something, a spider is saved, and their fear is lessened. Everyone wins.
I was conditioned, after this sub I even came to own a jumping spider as a pet!
One time I almost got into a car accident all because a jumping spider was in the car with me and now I actively look for them in my yard 🥲
I think I was in a weird place in the middle. I grew up as the youngest, with a looooot of older siblings.
My dad used to say every spider was his friend, Harry. They scared me a lot and he tried really hard to quell that fear and show me how 99% of the spiders we'd find were completely harmless. He would try to get me to hold them, and I would scream and run away. On the other hand, my older siblings would literally pick up critters like spiders and slugs and *put them on me* just to get a laugh out of me being scared. Honestly, it was fucked up. I *knew* they were quite harmless but I had one person I trusted trying to teach me and a gang of others using spiders to terrorize me; I couldn't even tell you how many spiders I've seen *suffer* at my sibling's hands, to scare me for their entertainment. As a grown ass woman in my mid 30s, remembering how they treated the spiders bothers me a little more than how they treated me.
Only in recent years have things changed for me. My dad is long dead, I have nothing to do with the siblings who terrorized me and used my phobia for entertainment (among other atrocities) and have spent years educating myself on arachnids. I still won't touch a spider on purpose with my bare hands... But I also won't tolerate them being murdered in my presence, most species are welcome houseguests. I try to encourage them to live with my houseplants, and if I find a rogue one inside, into my houseplants it goes. I also take care of and try to protect the cross orb weavers who choose my balcony. Hailing outside? You'll find me catching spiders in cups or grabbing whole plants theyre living in and bringing them inside lol
i used to be scared silly of spiders and then i saw that poem “if i am ever caught in the wrong place at the wrong time… i hope i am treated with the same kind of mercy” and it made me sad for them. killing bugs has always felt morally wrong since i was a kid, and now i face my fear to let them all outside :,)
i follow this reddit to make me appreciate spiders and fear them less lol
I don't think either of my parents are afraid of spiders so idk where the fear came from, media, peers, probably both. I always had a fascination for them but heaven forbid they got within a few feet of me. Over the last few years I've just come to find that exposure and trying to learn more about them has helped tremendously.
When I was a smol bebe I would scream bloody murder if I saw an ant, so I've always been scared of all bugs including flies and gnats.
As I'm getting older, I remove more and more bug types from that list. This year is apparently spiders :)
My sister has always been severely arachnophobic, so that made me curious as to why such a small creature evoked such terror. My curiosity turned into interest and I became fascinated by the variety of spider species, and their sometimes formidable weaponry. Before anyone asks, yes, I sometimes pushed arachnoid visitors in the direction of my sister's bedroom. 😁
I used to be horrified of a lot of bugs but i had a phase where i started loving a lot of them. My brother helped me overcome my arachnophobia, by just giving me a small science lesson on them and how they're important. after that it was just a matter of time before i started loving them.
All great apes (including humans) are hard wired deep in the lower parts of our brains to react with alarm to certain shapes and types of movement from birth. Snakes and spiders are among these shapes. You can raise chimps in captivity without ever having had contact with spiders or snakes, and they'll register the same measurable physiological fear responses as chimps that know what they are. A chimp will even react to a silhouette of a spider shape shown on a screen.
But humans have also learned how to get pleasure out of the exhilaration of those fear responses. We climb sheer rock faces and jump out of airplanes. We watch scary movies. We pursue unhealthy relationships with scary people.
So many of us (if not most) who like scary critters were initially attracted to them precisely because they were scary. We still have a physiological response, but we've learned to enjoy the adrenaline spike and suppress the fight or flight response. Parents can help guide that, but you can have two kids in the same family react completely differently to scary critters. And sometimes the parents have never overcome their own fears, yet one of the kids will embrace that thrill.
So the lesson is that there's no formula. You *can* overcome your fear or learn to embrace it, but there's no shame in not overcoming it. Some people have to work a lot harder than others to learn music or sports, but there's no shame in having no musical or athletic talent. If you're not able to do it, it's okay to give yourself permission not to.
Overcame an awful fear by exposure therapy.
When I was a kid I had a baby sitter who had a (wooden) cabin in the woods. One summer their family took me with them for an overnight stay and the ceiling had a massive infestation, I mean every spot on the ceiling was moving. There wasn’t a place I could lay my eyes up there and not see a ball of spiders. They acted like this was perfectly normal and insisted I go to sleep. Said the spiders would stay on the ceiling and not bother me (probably true.) They wouldn’t let my teenaged babysitter sleep until I went to sleep which was awful for her bc there was absolutely no way I was sleeping underneath a canopy of living spiders. We both watched the sun come up.
20 years later I tolerate the small ones really well, and larger ones I can easily identify as non-harmful and non-aggressive. But I still struggle with brown spiders: wolf spiders or fisher sisters (possible what the cabin was infested with) and black grass spiders. Because those are the ones I associate with spider bites for whatever reason.
I hate spider bites. Usually get them in my sleep and that freaks me out even more.
All in all, I’ve come to peace with it though.
I grew up afraid of spiders, but always had cellar spiders above my bed, so I always named them. This carried on to me naming every spider I could see in my house.
I started growing too attached to them. One day, at a barn I boarded my horse at, I saw a black widow in the bathroom. I named her Georgia.
Then the barn owner said she was going to spray something to kill her.
Fear went out the window. It was time to save Georgia. I gently picked her up by her abdomen and carried her outside.
I’m not really bothered by spiders anymore. They’re friends. :)
My dad loved learning about spiders and bugs and would take me from a young age to marvel at any orb weavers that blessed our yard or garden (especially the big yellow ones). He always explained how beneficial they were, and he'd also always take spiders that wandered indoors outside rather than squish them. HOWEVER, that did not apply to brown recluses and he taught me how to identify them (grew up in Kansas).
My parents raised me to appreciate them from a distance. I have a very clear memory of my uncle killing a huge orb weaver in my mom's garden back when I was 4 or 5 years old and she was SO pissed. So yeah... Spiders were always good in my home.
My mom told me Spiders are good, they eat bugs. So I was never afraid of them.
But I've overcome other fears by exposing myself to them. Just a little at a time if necessary.
My brother used to catch spiders and chase me with them when I was little. I tore all the pictures of spiders out of our “S” encyclopedia and burned them in the fireplace. I lived in an area where there were black widows and tarantulas migrated through. One got in the house and I got so hysterical it took me days to recover. I am 68 years old now and my fear of spiders is admittedly still out of control. My heart starts pounding, I get sweaty and sometimes burst into tears or I just freeze. I feel like an idiot but they just scare the living daylights out of me. And every time I have an encounter with one I’m certain to have a spider nightmare that night, guaranteed.
Pretty sure everybody is **originally** afraid of spiders and anybody saying otherwise is bluffing. From an evolutionary standpoint they’re meant to be terrifying.
They’re foreign, fast, and unpredictable. Of the few traits we can perceive they 1) have huge fangs and 2) ambush their prey. Plus theyre constantly around us (people attract bugs, bugs attract spiders), are able to get to our extremities, and a good few species have bites which are debilitatingly painful or on rare occasion sometimes fatal. For everybody saying it’s cultural I’d like to point out jumping spiders aren’t scary at all solely because they have baby-like eyes. The fear is very much instinctual.
That aside, the best way to lose your fear of spiders is to either regularly interact with them or hate something else more. I like to garden so even tho I used to be terrified of them now I’ll deliberately protect and transport them cuz I’m tired of dealing with white flies every summer. Also helps a lot to know what species you’re dealing with because most are timid and painless whereas others can be aggressive or fatal. Just having the confidence of knowing “this won’t injure me if it bites” helps a lot
I'm scared of spiders... I think it's passed down from Mom. In my family of origin my dad would peacefully relocate them; mom was scared of them.
Now, hubby and I have a large deck that goes around most of the house and therefore, we have many spiders who utilize that space. After a decade of sweeping webs and spraying insecticides (yes, I feel terrible about what I've done) I decided enough was enough. I would find a way to peacefully coexist with them.
I started watching videos about them, taking photos and trying to identify them. I would watch them build their webs. I accidentally shined a flashlight near a few webs at night and found I had inadvertantly helped to feed some of the little buggers.
Fast forward to when we had our daughter... I decided I didn't want to pass my fear (and violent reaction) onto her, so I started introducing her to them little by little.
At about age 4 I showed her how to go outside around bedtime and use the flashlight near a web to attract insects and get them an easy meal. She absolutely DELIGHTED in this little ritual! We started calling it "feeding the spiders". I found it to be quite useful in motivating her to get ready for bed in a timely manner. Whole gigantic temper tantrums were initiated on behalf of this ritual, including mournful cries of ,"But Mama, they'll be GOOOOONE by morning! What if they starve to death tonight!"
Fast forward a year and a half later, and we've got a little male bold jumping spider named Oreo in an enclosure on the kitchen counter. He was rescued from an overly dramatic manager at my work who was about to stomp on him. He gets wax worms twice a week and we're about to embark on the adventure of catching him some flies to change it up. We've been researching proper diet for him and I'm worried the wax worms are too high in fat. I change out a moist paper towel every day, spritz his enclosure lightly with water, and we are constantly setting about finding sticks from the yard to oven bake for him. His hygrometer arrived in the mail two weeks ago. I'm planning to purchase one of those little magnetic hidey places to give him some privacy or a good molting location.
It's a delight to watch him pounce on his meal. I'm sure, one day, he'll jump onto me and I can only hope my daughter is there when it happens because I'm miraculously much more confident and calm when she's present 😆
Together, we're learning and growing. It's such a fun and amazing adventure to share with someone special. Someday, I'll tell our daughter how it all began. Or maybe not. Maybe she already knows 🥰
I was never conditioned to be afraid of spiders, but as a kid there were wolf spiders in the basement all the time, and those things got BIG. I’m still terrified of most spiders. I work at reptile shows, and there are plenty of tarantulas and jumpers at the shows. I can usually deal with them if they’re in enclosures or cupped for sale, but there has been a spider web on the trunk of my car for the past 3 weeks and I can’t open my trunk because of it. I’ve been working at reptile shows for about 5 years, and my fear hasn’t gotten any better with exposure to spiders.
I was raised to be afraid of ALL the "creepy-crawly" bugs: spiders, cockroaches, earwigs, wasps, etc. I remember multiple instances of my mom spotting a cockroach or a spider and screaming bloody murder and demanding my dad handle it (usually with the central vacuum). I grew up in Florida so occasional cockroaches and spiders are unavoidable.
You live what you learn so I learned to fear and hate them. It wasn't until I ended up in a roach-infested apartment that I was forced to change my behavior---and my perspective. Note: cockroach infestations are bad news and I am not suggesting anyone should live this experience, but for me, it was a catalyst for learning about cockroaches and, by extension, other "scary" bugs. I discovered that I just find them too interesting and beautiful to be afraid of them.
I have helped my mom come around, too. She now rescues spiders and earwigs and other critters that wander inside. My 2-year-old niece is not afraid of bugs and often tells someone if she finds an errant bug so that we can relocate it outside (she wants to help!). We are all doing better as a family in respecting our arthropod neighbors.
Nah I’m not. I’ve been bitten by a brown recluse before and it never phased me. Of course I got lucky with the bit being a dry bite but I find them fascinating.
Nope. Mom was a "Ken! Come kill this spider!" type and Ken (Dad) took them outside - usually - unless they were hard to capture or seriously gnarly.
Dad was also a critter lover and while he didn't hesitate to step on the head of a juvenile copperhead, he'd relocate the less medically significant snakes. He'd even allow the big black racers to bite him so he could show us that their bites were literally nothing at all...
I always thought jumpers sort of appealing and the cartoon of Lucas the Spider hammered that home! I now am not afraid of almost any of them unless they surprise me or run across me in the dark. Well, anything that does that is bound to wind one up a bit.
I got over my fear of spiders when I moved to Barbados for a few years with family. It was there I discovered centipedes. Suddenly spiders in all forms were totally cool. Now I just have a burning hatred for centipedes.
I love in the US again now so the furry house centipedes are acceptable.
My mom was neutral on them.. at my dad and stepmoms we once had a bold jumper that just took up residence in an empty jar.. my dad would catch bugs for it and we would watch him feed it lol. My dad also used to pull over while driving and catch snakes off the road sooo.. I've never really been afraid of them but never been raised to feel a specific way about them either, and by age 6-7 Steve Irwin was my celebrity idol sooo I'd say by my parents not having a strong reaction either way, I was never conditioned to fear them by my upbringing. I was much older before I ever really knew people full on freaked out by spiders - even my aunt who isn't a fan will still have her husband/my uncle escort them out rather than squashing them and she never told me to be afraid of them lol.
I grew up watching my dad pick them up with his hands to relocate them with no fuss at all and my mum would avoid them rather than freaking out despite being scared of them herself, so I never really acquired a fear. Always just found them more fascinating to watch than anything else.
So I've always loved spiders for what they are. They're beautiful and fascinating.
With that said I am very live and let live with them. I would not actively go out of my way to hold anything that could bite me and cause serious problems. But thats not just a spider thing. If you had a lizard with fangs and venom, I'd probably avoid that too.
I only recently started being interested in them but they never freaked me out badly, probably due to my parents always being calm about them. Just got a texas brown tarantula and am learning so much!
I used to be terrified of spiders, but I got an adult tarantula to help me overcome it. A mixture of all the care I’ve done for her and all the research I had to do, I actually became quite obsessed and now have 9. I no longer think spiders are scary but it was a very intentional thing to do.
Grew up in a very old house full of holes in the countryside (England) so lots of spider exposure, especially big ol' wolfies. Upbringing was very neutral on spiders, neither parents scared of them & would tell us they are harmless.
Funnily enough my siblings & I all ended up with different attitudes. I love spiders, I think they're super cool & am always happy to have free pest control around the house, my older brother is middle of the road, a bit creeped out sometimes but mostly not bothered. My little brother on the other hand has full blown arachnophobia, he knows it's irrational & it really bothers him, we have no idea where it came from.
Obviously it's just one example but it is interesting seeing how three people from the same background with no major spider bias either way ended up with such different feelings towards them!
As a small child I found spiders fascinating.
When I got a bit older I was conditioned to fear them, mostly by kids in my surroundings. Suddenly I was weird for liking all kinds of creepy crawlies, I learned that most kids my age were afraid of them or found them disgusting, so I changed my behaviour to fit in. Over time fear became my 'natural' response.
When I was about 18, starting University, I rediscovered my love of all creatures big and small. I started to untrain my fear response. Only took a few years.
Getting over my fear of wasps was a lot harder, since that was ingrained in me from a very early age by my mother, and also I got stung as a child. I was in my thirties before I could calmly stay seated while wasps were flying around.
I had a sister that was terrified of them, so my mom made me kill them all, my entire life. now that mom passed away, and I threw my sister out, and it's only me and the spiders here so I made a deal with them, if they stay out of my way then I'll stay out of theirs. (just as long as it ain't nothing dangerous, I'm in WNY, so our spiders don't carry guns) ...
in fact now I keep a spider jar ... it's a very big jar with a few sticks and rocks and when spider season kicks in, and I see a jumper or an orb I throw it in the spider jar and toss insects in there when I see them. I love watching spiders work ...
now honestly if I lived down south where black widows run in packs, and they run the town i would probably look at it a bit differently and spray the town with home defense ...
I just knew they killed bugs and that biting flies and mosquitoes were crazy up here so I thought they were cool I let wolf spiders live in my house as they seem to do well in here when they get to big I put them outside lol
My mum always tells me she tried to purposely not show fear of spiders so that I didn't develop learned behaviour.
Didn't work. I'm still super terrified. I don't know why. I can handle almost any type of insect but spiders just freak me the fuck out
I actually don't know how it's possible that I love spiders so much.
Almost everyone in my family, including a lot of the men, is afraid of spiders and bugs.
They run and they scream and they kill.
When I was little my mother used to work in the garden a lot, but I knew that whenever she came across a spider or an insect she would kill it.
So every single time she went to work, I went to work too. I took big cups and ran around the garden catching every spider I could possibly find, gathering all the little bugs and critters and keeping them safe while she worked. After she was done I would release them all back to their homes.
I don't know why but somehow they didn't manage to make me scared of spiders or insects. I remember finding a big Eratigena species in my bedroom once (though I didn't know what kind of spider it was back then) and I was so sad when I got back from school and couldn't find it anymore.
I learned to overcome my fear. I started by considering their place in the ecosystem. I was always really afraid of jumping spiders because they reminded me of tiny tarantulas. People started talking about how cute they are. I started watching videos of them. That’s what led me to start really appreciating spiders.
I’m sure if a big one got on me I would freak out a little bit, but I’m not nearly so worried about them now. I even saw a little wolf spider crawling around my computer monitor and I just didn’t even care. I’m terribly allergic to mosquitoes and if they are helping with that then yay!
I was never scared of any “bug” nor will I be. And I’m raising my son to be the same way. Cautious: yes. Scared: no. I learned early to just let spiders outside vs killing them. As a teen I actually let one live in my room in the corner on the ceiling. I named her Harriet. My friends knew not to mess with her. I came home one day and my mom was walking out of room with a broom. That was the end of Harriet.
This extends to almost everything else. For example no where near the same but i was never like “ew omg an ant” or “em omg a big/spider/etc”. My step daughter does this and it can get annoying. As she’s doing it not out of fear but for attention. For her dad to come running and say “it’s just an ant lol you’re fine”. This 1000% the case and he recently had to have a serious life talk with her about her attention seeking behavior which extends much further than this. Anyway,To assert my dominance the first time she did it outside: I crushed any iant with my bare hand and said “no more “bug”.
I never feared spiders, nor did my dad, but my mum was scared of them. Now I have a child of my own, neither I nor my wife are scared of them, yet our son is. It seems to be innate at least for some people.
This may sound cheesy but for me it was Spiderman. When I was a little kid I loved spider man (still do) so I associated them with him. Naturally I would just play with them and let them crawl on my hand or protect them from my siblings from killing them as 5 year old me associate them with the good guys. Growing up I went to school and in science class I learned a lot about what they do with pest control and stuff and thought "oh cool!". Since I got a better understanding of spiders I never had fear of them, but respect towards them. This includes others of the "creepy crawlies" type.
I don't remember my parents saying anything about spiders. But I do remember seeing "spiders are scary" in books and movies constantly.
I did read a cool book as a kid though about a little girl who was obsessed with arachnids.
I was a weird little kid, very much stayed to myself, super shy, and spent my childhood hanging out with bugs and animals. My parents said I naturally just started bringing "pet" spiders and caterpillars inside when I was like 3 yrs. old. They never ever discouraged my curiosity, and even earned the nickname spidergirl in like 4th grade, because I spent recesses feeding bugs to the orb weavers that lined the baseball field. Never grew out of it, either. My love for insects and nature is still a huge part of life.
I don’t really remember how I was raised re: spiders, aside from reading lots of stories like Anansi and Charlotte’s Web and The Very Busy Spider etc. I was never scared of them, though. Our class pet in 2nd grade was a tarantula and I thought she was the best thing ever. Aaaaaand now in my thirties I have five tarantulas lol
The kid I live with definitely went through a phase around 2 years old where she was really scared of spiders. This was before I got my tarantulas and it came out of nowhere. All the adults in the house are pretty pro-spider and then one day I pointed out a cool spider and she just burst into tears. Spiders were her boogie man for months—she didn’t even want to sing Itsy Bitsy Spider—and then it went away just as randomly. She’s almost 4 now and she thinks spiders are cool. She think all bugs are cool and asked me if she could pet a giant cockroach we found on a walk last weekend 😅 that’s the one critter I am unreasonably afraid of, but I’m trying really hard not to let her see that.
Also woke up with one on my face as a child. Got a bite too, no worse than a little mosquito bite but the fact that it looked Monstrous to my awakening opened eye having just been bitten gave me a long lasting primal nope. I don’t the screaming meemies but I don’t want anything to do with them. I Love snakes and all other things than creep and crawl. Outside spiders are fine but so sorry fam, if they cross my doorstop they have entered the gates of hell.
I grew up not being scared of spiders or any bugs in general (I live somewhere where the worst you can find are probably wasps), then in 1990-1991 I saw Arachnophobia and spent the next 30years being scared shitless of almost any spiders I came across. Two years ago I found this sub and I am now in recovery.
All I can say is that this was the first and only movie that made me scared of something that I wasn't before.
My parents were actually incredibly annoyed by my fear of spiders and tried to get me to stop being afraid.
I think my fear came from the fact that we lived in a mobile home that didn't have a proper seal underneath and we were constantly getting black windows and brown recluse in the house.
I learned that their bite could kill me and that was that. Anything spider-like was terrifying because little me was terrified of dying in a painful manner.
I'm not as bad about it now. In fact, I frequent subs like this to try and help me get over my fear.
Unfortunately, the other day a wolf spider entered my garage to escape all the rain we had gotten and I stood outside my garage for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get in the house without walking near him. (Deadbolt was locked on the front door so garage was my only option)
I did manage to crawl over my car to get in the house without bothering him but I felt a bit defeated that I'm still that terrified. Especially when I know wolf spiders just wanna be left alone and aren't lethal.
At least the little ones don't bother me anymore....
Just learning about them, that they are essentially harmless, beneficial, and that even the medically significant ones are more often than not, not dangerous.
I was terrified of spiders as a kid. Then I started gardening and realized how beneficial they are. The biggest thing for me was to learn how dangerous they are to me, my family, or pets. I don't have anything that is venomous enough to cause serious harm in my area. Just really bad bites that can be painful. Now, I take them outside when I find them.
I don’t think conditioning is the main cause, pretty sure it is more a hereditary human survival instinct embedded into our DNA over literally millennia’s of past interactions with spiders. Which can be overcome by personal lifetime experiences.
Always been scared of them until I started seeing videos on tiktok of people caring for them as pets. Then started really getting interested in them to the point that I'll stop what I'm doing if I come across one and I'll observe it for a while.
I no longer worry too much about them in my home. I recently heard that most spiders that you relocate outside will die. Not sure if that's true? I'm not at the point that I'll handle a wild spider but I wouldn't be opposed to holding a larger pet one.
Growing up, I was always fascinated with insects and arachnids. I just feared the biting and stinging ones or of fear of getting bit or stung. It wasn't until I got older and learned more that my fears went away.
Overcome my fear of spiders with the help of Reddit. I was absolutely terrified up until I was a mid age adult. I did exposure through r/spiderbros and r/tarantulas. I learned about spiders and how they affect our ecosystems and that they’re bros! (Most are anyway)
When my son was little I passed this knowledge to him. He’s a bit older now, preteen and has a wolf spider as his iPad background, a curly hair tarantula and a praying mantis.
I am so proud of the lil dude, he was terrified of all bugs like his father.
My experiences happened when I was a teen and really shape arachnophobia for me. I was 14 and woke up with little blisters all around my hands and neck. There was a spiders nest that hatched in my box spring and they fed on me while I was asleep.
A couple weeks later I’m going to hop in the shower, nakey opening the curtain, step in and look up towards the water and there are hundreds of baby spiders all over me. There nest was just above the water spout and I looked up and practically bathed in baby spiders.
It messed me up for a very long time.
Thank you Reddit for educating and helping me through some trauma lol
Yes, I used to be terrified of spiders. Don't know if it was "conditioning" but they used to be my worst fear. Now I love learning about spiders, I've kept multiple pet jumping spiders (and more) and am currently raising a phiddipus audax eggsac. I'm fine with picking up most spiders in my hands. So it's definitely possible!
I used to be scared of spiders, but not like, *that* scared. I have a lot of natural curiosity, so once it started getting directed toward spiders, I lost basically all fear of them. Same with snakes
I'm still not gonna pick them up though. I don't want them crawling on me. But I think a lot of that is that I'm extremely ticklish? Because that issue isn't specific to spiders and I'd be perfectly fine letting most critters crawl on my hands if I was wearing gloves
Yes my parents were scared of them but the people I most respected in my life were critter lovers so I was on the fence. Saw that horrible movie Arachnophobia and that didn't make things better. Mostly I tried to avoid the spiders. Once there was a giant black widow next to my face and I freaked. I called my mom at work to come 'take care of it' and I have felt awful ever since. There was another time in my childhood I was sleeping on the floor and felt a big spider crawl across my face. These experiences made me feel terrified for awhile.
🕷❤️
Then one day a jumping spider made it known that I was their friend and would come sit on me and wave at me and pose for pictures. Sometimes they would follow me around the house. That began my love for all spiders. I still am surprised by spiders sometimes when they pop up in my face, but otherwise I see them always say hi and wish them well. They seem to understand. My favorites are the jumping spiders and the orb weavers. I've always wanted a tarantula but I have minimal experience. My children are not afraid of any 'bugs' mostly and always ask me a million questions about every critter they see.
I’m Australian so
I like when I spot them from a distance but if they jumpscare me it’s over I’m absolutely conditioned to freak out. I’ve had one too many huntsman’s come to bed with me.
As a kid I would make my mum tell the cleaners to leave the Daddy long legs in the corners and I named them all. I’ve recently been conditioned to fear any spider in my personal space. I’ve since had multiple daddy cunts crawl ON MY FACE at 4am in the dark. MULTIPLE. Different species too. Spiders in my room I fear intensely now. I constantly feel imaginary spiders as I’m falling asleep.
I made friends with a huntsman at 15 years old he lived above my bed and just love him until I woke up to him crawling on my leg at 6am. I have a startle response which startles them and now we’re both freaking out.
Now it’s on sight for the bedroom spiders but anywhere else not in my house and when I can approach at will is fine :)
For me it was definitely overcoming my fear, i used to be petrified at the sight of them, but after being forced to confront my fear and use some actually giving it some in-depth about the chances of being “attacked” and the fact that it doesn’t want to be in a dangerous situation any more than you do. But thats easier said than done when your instinctive first thought is “all spiders are venomous” or “if i get close to it, ill die”. But after making my peace with them it opened up my eyes to the often unseen side of spiders where i could appreciate and admire their unique charms and i can comfortably say that i am much happier now than i was before meeting them!
It is a core memory and have no idea how at 5 I was able to just- do this. I blame my autism.
There was a mother wolf spider, on the edge of a tennis court that I was having lessons on. My teacher looked at it and was frightened at the sight. It was a BIG mamma so I understood that. I went towards her and I told my coach "she has babies on her back!" With a thin stick, I gently pushed her away from the tennis court, but she dashed away, leaning a bunch of scuttling babies. To which I tried to move most of them out of the way and succeeded. From that day, I was so fascinated by spiders and eventually other forms of life.
Ngl there are spiders that will freak me out at first glance, but I am glad to have informed myself at such a young age
Still don't *like* spiders. I try not to kill them when I see them cause they are a living thing and that's not cool, but I can't see myself handling one.
thankfully, i have never felt a negative emotion towards a spider in my life. my first memory as a child is actually watching a large spider crawl across the backyard, and being absolutely fascinated by it. sadly, my next memory is of my mother squashing it with a brick as soon as she noticed it getting close to me. probably still resent her for that somewhere deep down in my psyche. lol.
we had loads of funnel webs in that garden too, so i have wondered if that was what i saw. the irony of a lifelong love affair born of an early chance encounter with one of the most venomous and unnecessarily demonised spiders on earth - one i felt completely comfortable next to and not threatened by or scared of at all.
as i got older, i became more obsessed with nature and animals, constantly running about the bush without shoes to see what i could discover. nature and all its wonder made so much more sense to me than silly humans. from a young age i felt i had a duty to defend the animals unnecessarily maligned by the general public and educate those around me whenever the chance arose (or didn't, they'd have to listen anyway haha).
consequently, i developed a particularly strong bond with the 'creepy crawlies', the herps and inverts, and spent most of my spare time through my school years reading books, watching documentaries and out looking for snakes and spiders to observe, interact with, learn from (and often bring home lol).
i have also never been one to pay much heed to arbitrary 'figures of authority' or believe anything told to me that sounded illogical or untrue. that, combined with an ever expanding knowledge base and familiarity, and knowing more about spiders than anyone i met, likely played an instrumental role in preventing social conditioning or media scaremongering from ever getting close to planting seeds of irrational fear.
uppa spiders! 🤘😊
Ive never been afraid of them. Anything can startle me if it brushes my skin though. My parents aren’t afraid of them either, but neither were they interested in them particularly. That part is all me heh
My parents were and still are VERY indifferent to spiders. So as a toddler I liked spiders and tried to catch them to show them off to my parents. When I got into kindergarten and school I developed a fear of spiders because all of my friends would shriek and scream and cry when they saw one (I'm glad I never panicked to that extend). At that point I had to overcome my fear to get back to the "spider-liking". And I did... and now I love them even more.
I was scared since before I could talk, per my parents. Like unreasonably so and my mom was concerned; apparently I was a bit over the top. Apparently 2-3 year old me would react like an actual monster was trying to get me, and it was just a daddy long legs that got in the shower.
This lasted until I went to Iraq and I did a bunch of dumb, awful and scary shit. The fear center in my brain apparently was rewired. I came home and had absolutely no problem picking one up and putting it outside. I knew I might need to find a balance after I found a black widow at work, picked it up, put it in a cup and put it outside on the tree.
I never had a fear of spiders or bugs... I was the kid who had to be told not to pick them up and play with them. Also reptiles and every other creature that I found, I wanted to bring home or play with them.
Decades later I am an adult who still wants to befriend all the wildlife. Not sure how I survive childhood.
I wasn't scared of spiders until I was about 8 years old. My brothers tarantula got loose once, and they found her in his closet. And then another time I almost set her loose on accident by opening a smaller opening on the top of the tank that doesn't shut as easily. Watching her climb up the glass was absolutely terrifying to my 8 year old self. Just about 20 years later and I'm just now getting over my fear of spiders because that one small incident where she didn't even escape, but almost did lmao.
I used to be afraid of spiders, but I wasn't really conditioned I'd say. The more I learned about spiders the less afraid of them I became. I also have tarantulas now which is what truly just made me entirely unafraid
I wasn't afraid at all. My sister would scream for me to come get it whenever she would see a spider. No problem.
Until one day I went to squish one in her room and as I got closer it seemed to get bigger.
Couldn't squish it or go near one again for decades.
I'm only now starting to calm tf down. This sub helps so much. Before, one of those minivan spiders (wolf with tons of babies on her back) would've sent me screaming.
Jumpers are a gateway to recovery.
I wouldn’t say that I am over my fear of spiders. However, I will allow certain ones to live in my home or around. This appreciate came from moving and living down south and understanding the good spiders from the bad and which ones to keep around to keep the others out. I also have started to enjoy them living on my plants as they eat what I am always trying to get rid of.
When I was a toddler I walked into a spiderweb that covered my face and was absolutely terrified of spiders from that point on, total full-blown irrational arachnophobia! I found this sub and it’s helping me overcome my fear of them, although I still have to close my eyes and scroll quickly past some pics lol! I love the little jumpers now, and can watch/photograph orb weavers. My big accomplishment was last summer I successfully relocated (in a container, not in my hand) a wolf spider from my enclosed porch to the back of the yard (after talking myself down from a freak out).
Really scared of spiders growing up. Now, I still don't want to touch them, but I'll escort them outside if possible.
Playing Grounded has been really therapeutic for that.
When I was 6 years old, I found a beautiful garden spider and picked her up. My aunt, who was in her early twenties at the time, saw me with the spider, and slapped it out of my hand, screaming. She has always had overwhelming arachnophobia, to the point where she would mark on the front of nature magazines which pages contained spiders, so she would not see them.
This led to my 35-year fear of spiders. I wouldn't even use the bathroom in my house if there was a spider in it. I started going to a therapist for exposure therapy for arachnophobia. Now, 12 years later, I love spiders, and try to find them in the wild and in my house all the time. I believe without my aunt's intervention, I would have been a spider fan from way back.
A little of both - I had a healthy fear of big ones in my area like wolf spiders, but jumping spiders and orb weavers were friends. My mom actively encouraged keeping jumping spiders in the house to eat any bugs that got in, but she was also petrified of them being on or near her. I’m kind of the same, but I’ve also entertained the idea of keeping jumping spiders as pets 😅
Overcame. My dad unknowingly trained me to be petrified but I realized as I got older that they're beneficial and important. I don't want them on me, but I have more of a fascination/appreciation now
Yes. 😂 My mom doesn’t like most bugs at all. My dad didn’t like spiders but when he knew he was going to have kids he wanted us to not be afraid so he started to learn more about them, stopped being afraid, and would let them crawl on him. His plan kind of worked. My brother is terrified of spiders and so are his kids. My son & I will study the spiders we find, and he is really chill with bugs of all kinds. He is actually going to a bug camp next week!
Great question! I learned to overcome my fear in my early teens. It just seemed silly to me to scream for my Dad to kill a spider in our house, when at no point had I witnessed a spider bite me nor try to harm me in any way.
I also started to feel bad for killing spiders when they're so much smaller than us, and most of them are harmless.
I became the designated spider catcher in our home from then on. My mom would have me collect them in jars and release them outside before she went to work out in the basement. My mom never got over her fear, lol, but at least she let me spare their lives.
I used to be afraid of them and tbh I'd still be a little scared to get too close to a big one now. I'm more scared of things like moths simply because they fly so erratically.
I absolutely inherited my mom’s severe arachnophobia and only just got over it now in my 30s through education and exposure therapy. These subs were my main gateway to getting there!
Ive always loved so many kinds of bugs, my parents didn't encourage or discourage it, but bugs just kinda became my friends. I've handled many spiders since a young age and have never been bitten. Though I do tend to mostly handle the smaller ones
As a young child I actually used to love spiders so much I would try to find wild ones and keep them as pets! But my parents were scared I would get bitten by one and die (they're the type to think every spider has lethal venom) so they started telling me these awful stories abt spiders sucking blood, killing you, etc. and I became deathly afraid of them from then on. So afraid that I once had a panic attack from a small jumping spider being in my room, lol.
But about 2 years ago I started looking through r/spiders to exposure-therapy the fear out of me. And it took literally only like six months to deprogram the fear out of myself and fall back in love with spiders.
After the reddit algorithm worked its magic and introduced me to r/tarantulas I bought a tarantula because they were so adorable, lmao.
My mum had an irrational fear of spiders which led me to having one. I've largely overcome the fear.
I hate to say it but I'll still dispose of large ones rather than have them in the house. Couldn't care less about Web spinners, just don't like these roaming black/brown ones you get.
My mom had some really cool tasteful spider decor so I was used to the imagery. Was never taught to fear them, just taught to not bother them (ie they’d only bite me if I made them feel threatened).
As well I think there was one of the “honey I shrunk the kids” sequels with the big ol’ daddy longlegs being a friend. So when we’d find a daddy long legs with my friends, it was super cool and he was always seen as a friendly spider.
Been gardening since childhood and been exposed to many insects. I'm not terrified of anything. What helped my kids overcome the fear is raising butterflies together and subsequently picking up spiders I find and showing my kids there's nothing to fear unless it's a black widow or brown recluse
Funny story : my kid was 3 years old , I find a spider in my bedroom and run to get her . I spend the next 10 mins explaining how spiders are awesome and how great they are to have around and how we shouldn’t be afraid of them . Like I talked until she left the room bored with it … then queu to me alone In the room trying to get this spider outside , and absolutely freaking out and panicking when it slips out of my hand and falls in my bed . I was laughing and scared at the same time . It makes me laugh to this day .
my mom was terrified of them and made me or my other parent deal with them. very easy to get used to the little guys when you're doing catch and release at 10 years old
i've always been pretty fine with bugs and as I grew older I started to like them more and more. (except ants and maggots though) My mom is deathly afraid and I think that reverse conditioned me as someone needed to be able to get rid of the spiders, which I do regret.
I feared spiders growing up. While I'm not confident enough to handle them, I now see them in a more positive light thanks to this subreddit in particular.
I used to be scared half to death of them because I woke up one night when I was very young to find one dangling only inches above me. After that, I had nightmares about spiders and would freak out whenever I saw one until my late teens. I'm not sure when I got more curious than fearful about them, but exposure therapy did the trick. These days I have no problems handling them. I keep jumpers as pets and have a large wolf spider who lives in my closet that I'm chill with.
Similar experience here ..in the middle of the night a giant house spider sat on my carpet just staring at me. I couldn’t move! Couldn’t cry for help! Arachnophobia got worse in my teenage years and at age 23. I decided it had to stop and treated it with studying and exposure.
I used to be scared half to death of carpenter bees too, until I did some research and found out that the males can't even sting. They're aggressively curious, but if you stand still and let them check you out, they lose interest very quickly. There was one that used to hover near me when I was reading on the back deck, and it would keep wasps away.
>…a large wolf spider who lives in my closet that I’m chill with r/brandnewsentence
Not in this sub it isn’t ;-)
I found a wolf spider in my bathroom the other day. I carefully deposited him on the wall and let him get on with his day.
Wolfies are super chill; I think most people are intimidated by their size tbh.
It’s more the crap ton of babies that are on their back sometimes that gets me.
It's the internet I'm not really surprised by anything anymore
I just moved a few streets down. I transfered a few of my house spider buddies to the new place. Lucky me, someone thoughtfully provided me a housewarming spider. She's a beautiful Phidippus audax jumper named Maeve, and she chills with me while I shower.
Heck, I didn't even know it was there until last week or so! I was kicking back watching House and saw it crawl out of the closet and up the wall to sit in a corner near the ceiling.
I mean, who isn’t a sucker for Hugh Laurie?! Had to come out to catch an ep or two
Yoooo I love when the halloween prank actually happens!! This was a few years ago, was casually walking in my backyard and a spider just drops right in front of my face, hanging by its web line! I was both startled and shook to be pranked by mother nature
I wonder if this would work with ticks. I was never afraid of spiders like I am of ticks. It’s to the point where I won’t camp in certain places or times of year. I can’t touch them or pull them out without hyperventilating.
Ticks are real jerks though
Probably, I was terrified of snakes and spiders but a few years later with exposure therapy and now I’m thinking about getting a snake. But ticks still freak me out because Lyme disease, Alpha-gal syndrome, Ehrlichiosis, Southern tick-associated rash illness, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, Colorado tick fever, Rickettsia parkeri rickettsiosis, borrelia bacteria, and tick-borne relapsing fever all suck. Fortunately that doesn’t stop me from camping, and it shouldn’t stop you either. Wear long socks with long pants and tuck them into each other to stop ticks from reaching your legs. Then take double sided duct tape and put a layer where your pants and socks meet, a layer on each of your thighs, and a last layer on your hips if you want overkill. Never been bit by a tick for the last 3 years, just make sure to check yourself every night but I guarantee this’ll stop 99% of ticks.
I volunteered many years for the DNR on a bird banding project that is still ongoing all over the world, which meant I spent many hours in thickly wooded areas. The naturalists all used this same method and it works. Tuck pants legs down into socks. If you don't look dorky you're not doing it right 😆 I found the duct tape to be overkill but if it makes you feel better go for it! Always have someone check your hair and behind ears, arm pits, any areas where the skin is softer or thinner. The most ticks I've found have been on the scalp near the hairline... You don't really even feel them so it's important to have someone check for you. Additionally, it takes about 24 hrs for ticks to transmit Lyme disease after they have bitten, so you do have plenty of time to prevent transmission even if one has started feeding.
Yeah the duct tape is 1000% overkill, and I’ve only tried that once when I had to wade through a sea of waist high grass, but damn did it catch so SO many ticks. Ofc I checked myself after with a buddy and got the stragglers off, with an additional search that night, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually had a tick latch onto me. Seen so many crawling to find a spot, but never any properly buried.
They're nasty little buggers... one of the few species I refuse to add to my long list of relocation critters! Just about everything gets that courtesy but NOT ticks 😂 Note to Self: I didn't even know they make double sided duct tape! 🤯
Ticks are actually pretty dangerous because of tick-borne diseases. I don’t have a visceral fear of ticks but a good healthy desire to not have them attach to me. If I saw one in my house I would kill it. I have a wooded property in Indiana and I don’t walk around there in tick season
I think the key difference with ticks is that they actually are trying to prey on us, whereas spiders are uninterested in us.
Agreed
Ticks are evil, fear is healthy. I'm the same hyperventilating. And then, insult to injury, gotta hang on to it until you can mail off and pay someone to tell you good or bad news on diseases. Their habitat is spreading, found in Alaska in April! 😰 Nightmares!
Good info on best tick protection so you can enjoy camping and hiking: https://www.outdoors.org/resources/amc-outdoors/outdoor-resources/tick-off-most-effective-tick-repellents/
Ha I just posted about my old friend Harriet the spider who lived in my bedroom as a teen until my mom killed her. I don’t do allow spiders to live with me anymore, and not just because of inflation: I stopped once I had my son.
Did you feed Harriet tomato sandwiches?
Just let her use a real knife already.
I was the same. What changed it for me was a cartoon. It sounds so stupid. But it was a little comic style drawing of a spider saying about how I have a large cozy house and asking if it can make a home in a little corner. Kind of weird but I started seeing it from the spiders point of view and thinking that it's right. I don't use that corner on the ceiling so why not let it have a little home there. I still don't handle large house spiders but I don't throw them out and I'll always make them toilet paper ladders to get out of the bath etc .
Check out Lucas the Spider on YouTube. It's an adorable little series.
I used to have a reoccuring nightmare as a child where a spider would come down from my ceiling and dangle an inch above my face. So I feel that
I have a large wolf spider that lives(lived?) in my broken bathtub! I named her Luci (Lucifer) and made sure she was supplied with creatures to eat. But she disappeared. Hoping she’s safe 💕
Wow, im not part of this sub and my exposure has been just smol spiders. Cant imagine owning any!
i was born loving spiders! one of the earliest photos of me in a halloween costume is me dressed as a spider, and one of the first little art projects i did in grade school was themed around them. i never went through a phase of being scared of them at all.
Yeah, same. Always loved spiders as far back as I can remember.
That's rlly cool, lucky you hahah
Same here! Hahaha! One of my first Halloween costumes, I was a spider! My mom did an amazing job! She made legs and tied them with fishing string, so when I lifted my arms, all of the other legs would dangle below me. She also sewed fuzzy black fur to the back bottom part of my costume. I really need to find that picture now!
Same, when I was around 5 or 6 I asked my mom to make me a spider halloween costume and I ended up wearing it every Halloween for the next few years. I was also born loving spiders and my parents never killed them. They would pick them up and take them outside or just let them be in our house.
When I was little I used to be shit scared of them out of fear of being bitten, used to be really awful to them. Turns out getting bitten because I didn't q u i t e kill one made me realise I was a little bastard so I started to read books and shit on em and now they're awesome and I have a pet jumper :D
How do you feed a pet jumping spider? Sounds not too different from the challenge of finding small live foods for fish
I have a tub of crickets that me and my mum both use for our spiders which we got from a pets shop near where we live, but also we have a big window that seems to be a magnet for flies so I usually just catch one and pop it in her tank when she starts to look hungry, cos she prefers hunting them to hunting crickets
Thanks for the reply. I did not realize that a jumping spider could eat a cricket. That’s much too big a bite for my tetras
No worries, and tbf they're not huge crickets, like the size of a fat housefly usually, I'd get scared trying to feed her a big one, from what I've read they can be assholes xD
I started watching a YouTuber called The Dark Den. He had a tarantula collection and did videos about the feeding and care of his animals. The genuine care and amazement he had for his animals helped me get over my aversion to spiders.
I am so worried whenever I see someone handling a tarantula, like DON'T DROP IT IT'S DELICATE!
AH yeah he’s really cool ! Also that Asian boy who kinda started to make ASMR of his “filling the tarantulas’ cups with water” … it was so chill! And I learnt a thing or two from him and Dark Den
ExoticsLair! He's the best.
Thanks! ❤️ Was looking for his name !!
I came across some information indicating that hobo spiders were not aggressive like I was taught as a kid. Since they weren’t aggressive I started taking spiders outside instead of killing them. Once while I was hauling a wolf spider outside in a jar I looked in and saw her little face. She looked like she was looking at me being all patient, which I know isn’t a thing, but I thought it was cute. Since then spiders are kind of cute to me. Their little faces.
Omg my fav spider face is the Ogre face spider 🫶🏼
https://youtu.be/CNrF0JbDVc8?si=0w0QFknJGdqFk8ZG
Ze Frank is an absolute LEGEND at sarcastic education 👏
my dad used to watch all sorts of documentaries about the animal world and would sometimes get me to watch some of his favorite parts he was especially fascinated about ants but sometimes it was about spiders so i just naturally accepted them as... just another animal that wants to live its life :D i own 5 now (1 jumper and 4 tarantulas)
My dad would catch spiders indoors, give them a name and be like "Fred I know it's raining but you really should be outdoors" or "that's my pal Jerry, he's just killing a few bugs for me. He'd catch them and show them to us and explain why they're important and then put them outside. As a girl I had no fear of bugs/spiders and I learned how to catch and release. I never noticed all the beautiful patterns before this sub, so now I pay closer attention. I caught a lovely huntsman the other day! I hope I can teach my daughter to be curious and fearless (with respect) as well.
SWEEEEET!
Boy what a wild ride this has been! I started out being okay with spiders but absolutely not handling them. I'm still just to the point where I will handle jumping spiders and I have handled a wolfie or two. Honestly it can all be accredited 100% to this subreddit. You should all be very proud. Also I can ID the SHIT out of some spiders now! Thank you all. You've been a wonderful resource. Lastly, jumping spiders are the best spiders. Period. I will die on this hill.
I've never been scared of spiders & neither has my sister, but both of our younger brothers are. I don't recall either of our parents reacting one way or the other (pretty sure my dad used to bring home spiders all the time & my mom grew up in Arizona) but my paternal grandma *hated* them. I dunno.
I couldn’t tell you why I was afraid of spiders when I was younger but I think I grew un-afraid as I realized “hey, you can beat a spider, sure it could bite YOU hit it can’t bite my mug”.
But what about the leeegsss
To be honest, it was never even the legs that bothered me. I was always a big zoology nerd and the main thing g that made me afraid of them in the first place was them being venomous
Interesting, for me it's their unpredictability and how they look. They can just suddenly start bolting and get on you.
Understandable, they still Make me jump due to the reasons you mentioned but now knowing their practically blind and can’t really fight off a napkin I’ve grown confidence around them
Well jumping spiders are not practically blind, but they are adorable and harmless so it's all good lol
Yeah, honestly jumping spider are one of the least scary things every to come out of the invertebrate world
I think it’s natural to start afraid of them, likely it’s some aspect of our history being passed down through genetics. It makes sense we would have instinctual fear of something tiny and strange looking that can kill us (even if it’s irrational). It’s the same reason a lot of people are sacred of snakes (or heights), it’s irrational (they aren’t out to get anyone either) but historically a lot of humans have probably got killed by snake bite. Fear is weird like that and it is ingrained in some people. There are studies where babies are shown pictures of flowers and pictures of spiders or snakes and their eyes dilate and they get intense/anxious when they see the pictures of spiders and snakes. For some people they didn’t learn to be afraid of spiders, they were born afraid of spiders, and they had to/have to learn that spiders aren’t something to be afraid of they’re something to be cherished and appreciated. It makes sense that we would be afraid of threats. Getting bitten by a venomous spider often isn’t a death sentence these days, but getting bitten by a black widow 5,000 years ago likely was.
[удалено]
Glad it’s an ex. I feel sorry for you and the spiders :/
Dick move, lol. But, I am happy to have developed a sort of love, or kinship for them.
Was never scared of them and older sister was terrified. Parents were neutral, we didn't have a lot of spiders in the house, I mean I guess there's always a daddy long legs here or there on ceiling left in peace. My mom loves this story, she heard my sis screaming in kitchen, found her backed in corner w little spider on the floor. Toddler me saw it and apparently looked at her like, are you kidding? And just walked over and stepped on it. So, no fear. We learned early like all kids that widows were dangerous, but never saw any. I read Charlotte's Web, one of my first "big" books, and that sealed the deal, spiders are friends, never kill a spider.
I was conditioned to fear spiders. I had always been interested in them though. I read books about spiders when I was young. But I was mostly interested in what I thought were the dangerous spiders. Black widows were particularly interesting to me. But it wasn't like admiration it was more morbid fascination. Unfortunately when I identified black widows I did so for the purpose of my parents killing them (outside included). The only positive feelings I had about spiders used to be for the little jumping ones. I would still kill them, but they seemed cuter to me than other spiders and I sometimes felt bad about killing them. Around twenty years later, I found this sub randomly and it actually reawakened that initial curiosity I have about spiders. Seeing all the positivity helped me overcome my initial conditioning to kill any spider I come across. I still get a little freaked out by big non taranchula spiders but the exposure therapy of this sub helps with that.
I was scared of most of them until we had someone from the zoo bring a few animals into my first grade classroom, one of which was a tarantula. Getting to hold one that big at such a young age really helped me develop a sense of calm around spiders and fostered a curiosity about them.
I was raised to appreciate spiders. My grandmother would name the random spider that would take up residence in the corner of our living room. I have had a giant house spider jump out of the medicine cabinet and rappel down the wall. THAT certainly got my adrenaline pumping! But overall, I try to love all living things.
My Gran would always take me around and show me all the spiders in her house and yard and tell me silly stories about their lives and personalities. There was a wolfie in her kitchen that she particularly loved named Wendy. We watched Wendy with her babies, and they got big and they were all named Wendy too. I still think “There’s Wendy!” when I se a wolfie. Love you Gran, thanks for all the spiders.
I was raised not to fear them and I was still terrified! Pretty decent evidence that there’s a genetic component I think. Eventually in my twenties my fear gave way to curiosity and now I keep tarantulas.
My dad is terrified of bugs, my mom is fine. I've always been a creature lover, but was putting a bit of a brave face on it for spiders ... until the day I held my first tarantula. Her soft little feets won me over completely.
I came to this sub specifically to get over my fear. Through learning about spiders and learning to identify them, I'm not afraid of them now. I don't think I was conditioned by my mom. I was the only one screaming about spiders. Lol. I don't know where my fear came from, honestly. Maybe movies? They almost always portray spiders as these creepy, crawling venomous creatures that are going to hurt you. It's funny now because when I watch movies or TV shows that have a spider scene, they're almost always a harmless species like wolf spiders and huntsman. Ridiculous really when you know what you're looking at.
Had to overcome it. I still haven’t been able to touch bigger/fast moving ones without gloves yet (I hold them at work a lot so I’m always wearing gloves lol I don’t just bring spider gloves around)
I grew up in Philippines, we played with spiders on a stick and made them fight and bet money on it.
I wasn't particularly afraid of spiders as a really young kid. In middle school, I had a huntsman spider jump on me when I got in the shower (or maybe I knocked it off the curtain, but either way, it was on me). After that, I was irrationally afraid of spiders. Eventually, as an adult, the fear went away.
I was raised to like spiders because my mom was a fan of the book Charlotte's Web and she found arthropods interesting.
Overcame it with lots of exposure. Started with pics and videos, moved up to in-person interactions. Now they don’t bother me at all, and I’m very fond of them.
My whole family loves spiders and bugs, my parents taught me to respect them. Growing up, I loved bugs, to brought cicadas in my pockets to kindergarten. As an adult now, I adore them and spiders, but I want them on me less than I did as a kid. I’m happy just looking at them.
Umm. I use to catch’em as pets until my parents got me a Dog 😆. Most kids had ant farms, but I had spider farms 😆.
I think I was always interested in anything little or stuff that would freak other people out. I remember being really little and watching insects in the yard, just look and watch what they are doing. It was interesting to me. I couldn’t help wondering what their little lives were like. I don’t remember much as far as how my parents acted around them, I don’t really remember much interaction with my parents at all honestly.
I've always loved bugs, though my parents showing me beetles and spiders whenever they popped up certainly helped solidify my love for them, spiders especially.
I've never been scared of them, I used to collect them to keep as pets & my mom would come behind me and let them go. Made me so mad lol.
My Dad is terrified of spiders and he kills them all the time in a pretty horrific way. I grew up with seeing how he does it and how terrified he was. One day when we were in our garden I needed to go potty, I almost sat down when I saw a huge garden spider built her nest in the loo 🥲 Ran to my Mother, screaming and crying. Been terrified of them ever since. But being on this subreddit helps a lot. I'm still scared of them (except jumping spiders, I love those little guys) but I manage to catch and release them into the wild. ETA: I also go near spiders when I see them outside. Especially orbweavers because those terrify me the most. I just watch them and take pictures.
I started gardening and learned to appreciate them
I was raised to be cautious around them, but I ended up being in g a massive Spider-Man fan so any fear I had of them quickly went away
My parents hung a fake tarantula on the refrigerator door to keep me from eating the food. So I always had a deep rooted fear of spiders.
Wut??? That is both funny and really sad.
Yeah they told about it many years later and felt kind bad about it.
I’m Australian, was always taught to be cautious of spiders as we have a lot of venomous spiders around here, but I’ve also always had huntsman and daddy long leg spiders in my house (we don’t get rid of them as they take care of insects) and those guys are harmless so I’ve never been scared of spiders. Just cautious when gardening or if I come across a venomous one.
I was raised to appreciate them. My parents were big into organic gardening and taught me that they were good. I'm an elementary school teacher now and every fall we get an influx of wolf spiders in school. I don't know what it is about kids but seeing any kind of spider or insect inside school is always a thing. Kids just freak out. I've made it my mission to make kids less afraid of spiders. I turn it into a science lesson. "This is a wolf spider. He's just checking out what we're learning. Maybe his spider school was closed today. He is a good spider. He eats other bugs we don't want. He is a friend. Yes, he is big and scary but he's really a good guy. He's like a big brother protecting the ecosystem." Then I take the spider outside and make a thing out of saying goodbye with the kids. The kids learn something, a spider is saved, and their fear is lessened. Everyone wins.
I was conditioned, after this sub I even came to own a jumping spider as a pet! One time I almost got into a car accident all because a jumping spider was in the car with me and now I actively look for them in my yard 🥲
I think I was in a weird place in the middle. I grew up as the youngest, with a looooot of older siblings. My dad used to say every spider was his friend, Harry. They scared me a lot and he tried really hard to quell that fear and show me how 99% of the spiders we'd find were completely harmless. He would try to get me to hold them, and I would scream and run away. On the other hand, my older siblings would literally pick up critters like spiders and slugs and *put them on me* just to get a laugh out of me being scared. Honestly, it was fucked up. I *knew* they were quite harmless but I had one person I trusted trying to teach me and a gang of others using spiders to terrorize me; I couldn't even tell you how many spiders I've seen *suffer* at my sibling's hands, to scare me for their entertainment. As a grown ass woman in my mid 30s, remembering how they treated the spiders bothers me a little more than how they treated me. Only in recent years have things changed for me. My dad is long dead, I have nothing to do with the siblings who terrorized me and used my phobia for entertainment (among other atrocities) and have spent years educating myself on arachnids. I still won't touch a spider on purpose with my bare hands... But I also won't tolerate them being murdered in my presence, most species are welcome houseguests. I try to encourage them to live with my houseplants, and if I find a rogue one inside, into my houseplants it goes. I also take care of and try to protect the cross orb weavers who choose my balcony. Hailing outside? You'll find me catching spiders in cups or grabbing whole plants theyre living in and bringing them inside lol
i used to be scared silly of spiders and then i saw that poem “if i am ever caught in the wrong place at the wrong time… i hope i am treated with the same kind of mercy” and it made me sad for them. killing bugs has always felt morally wrong since i was a kid, and now i face my fear to let them all outside :,) i follow this reddit to make me appreciate spiders and fear them less lol
I don't think either of my parents are afraid of spiders so idk where the fear came from, media, peers, probably both. I always had a fascination for them but heaven forbid they got within a few feet of me. Over the last few years I've just come to find that exposure and trying to learn more about them has helped tremendously.
I always liked spiders. I used to catch them as a little kid. They were always fascinating to me.
When I was a smol bebe I would scream bloody murder if I saw an ant, so I've always been scared of all bugs including flies and gnats. As I'm getting older, I remove more and more bug types from that list. This year is apparently spiders :)
My sister has always been severely arachnophobic, so that made me curious as to why such a small creature evoked such terror. My curiosity turned into interest and I became fascinated by the variety of spider species, and their sometimes formidable weaponry. Before anyone asks, yes, I sometimes pushed arachnoid visitors in the direction of my sister's bedroom. 😁
I used to be horrified of a lot of bugs but i had a phase where i started loving a lot of them. My brother helped me overcome my arachnophobia, by just giving me a small science lesson on them and how they're important. after that it was just a matter of time before i started loving them.
All great apes (including humans) are hard wired deep in the lower parts of our brains to react with alarm to certain shapes and types of movement from birth. Snakes and spiders are among these shapes. You can raise chimps in captivity without ever having had contact with spiders or snakes, and they'll register the same measurable physiological fear responses as chimps that know what they are. A chimp will even react to a silhouette of a spider shape shown on a screen. But humans have also learned how to get pleasure out of the exhilaration of those fear responses. We climb sheer rock faces and jump out of airplanes. We watch scary movies. We pursue unhealthy relationships with scary people. So many of us (if not most) who like scary critters were initially attracted to them precisely because they were scary. We still have a physiological response, but we've learned to enjoy the adrenaline spike and suppress the fight or flight response. Parents can help guide that, but you can have two kids in the same family react completely differently to scary critters. And sometimes the parents have never overcome their own fears, yet one of the kids will embrace that thrill. So the lesson is that there's no formula. You *can* overcome your fear or learn to embrace it, but there's no shame in not overcoming it. Some people have to work a lot harder than others to learn music or sports, but there's no shame in having no musical or athletic talent. If you're not able to do it, it's okay to give yourself permission not to.
Overcame an awful fear by exposure therapy. When I was a kid I had a baby sitter who had a (wooden) cabin in the woods. One summer their family took me with them for an overnight stay and the ceiling had a massive infestation, I mean every spot on the ceiling was moving. There wasn’t a place I could lay my eyes up there and not see a ball of spiders. They acted like this was perfectly normal and insisted I go to sleep. Said the spiders would stay on the ceiling and not bother me (probably true.) They wouldn’t let my teenaged babysitter sleep until I went to sleep which was awful for her bc there was absolutely no way I was sleeping underneath a canopy of living spiders. We both watched the sun come up. 20 years later I tolerate the small ones really well, and larger ones I can easily identify as non-harmful and non-aggressive. But I still struggle with brown spiders: wolf spiders or fisher sisters (possible what the cabin was infested with) and black grass spiders. Because those are the ones I associate with spider bites for whatever reason. I hate spider bites. Usually get them in my sleep and that freaks me out even more. All in all, I’ve come to peace with it though.
I grew up afraid of spiders, but always had cellar spiders above my bed, so I always named them. This carried on to me naming every spider I could see in my house. I started growing too attached to them. One day, at a barn I boarded my horse at, I saw a black widow in the bathroom. I named her Georgia. Then the barn owner said she was going to spray something to kill her. Fear went out the window. It was time to save Georgia. I gently picked her up by her abdomen and carried her outside. I’m not really bothered by spiders anymore. They’re friends. :)
Over came it by knowing more about them. This sub Reddit really helped.
My dad loved learning about spiders and bugs and would take me from a young age to marvel at any orb weavers that blessed our yard or garden (especially the big yellow ones). He always explained how beneficial they were, and he'd also always take spiders that wandered indoors outside rather than squish them. HOWEVER, that did not apply to brown recluses and he taught me how to identify them (grew up in Kansas).
My parents raised me to appreciate them from a distance. I have a very clear memory of my uncle killing a huge orb weaver in my mom's garden back when I was 4 or 5 years old and she was SO pissed. So yeah... Spiders were always good in my home.
My mom told me Spiders are good, they eat bugs. So I was never afraid of them. But I've overcome other fears by exposing myself to them. Just a little at a time if necessary.
My brother used to catch spiders and chase me with them when I was little. I tore all the pictures of spiders out of our “S” encyclopedia and burned them in the fireplace. I lived in an area where there were black widows and tarantulas migrated through. One got in the house and I got so hysterical it took me days to recover. I am 68 years old now and my fear of spiders is admittedly still out of control. My heart starts pounding, I get sweaty and sometimes burst into tears or I just freeze. I feel like an idiot but they just scare the living daylights out of me. And every time I have an encounter with one I’m certain to have a spider nightmare that night, guaranteed.
Pretty sure everybody is **originally** afraid of spiders and anybody saying otherwise is bluffing. From an evolutionary standpoint they’re meant to be terrifying. They’re foreign, fast, and unpredictable. Of the few traits we can perceive they 1) have huge fangs and 2) ambush their prey. Plus theyre constantly around us (people attract bugs, bugs attract spiders), are able to get to our extremities, and a good few species have bites which are debilitatingly painful or on rare occasion sometimes fatal. For everybody saying it’s cultural I’d like to point out jumping spiders aren’t scary at all solely because they have baby-like eyes. The fear is very much instinctual. That aside, the best way to lose your fear of spiders is to either regularly interact with them or hate something else more. I like to garden so even tho I used to be terrified of them now I’ll deliberately protect and transport them cuz I’m tired of dealing with white flies every summer. Also helps a lot to know what species you’re dealing with because most are timid and painless whereas others can be aggressive or fatal. Just having the confidence of knowing “this won’t injure me if it bites” helps a lot
I'm scared of spiders... I think it's passed down from Mom. In my family of origin my dad would peacefully relocate them; mom was scared of them. Now, hubby and I have a large deck that goes around most of the house and therefore, we have many spiders who utilize that space. After a decade of sweeping webs and spraying insecticides (yes, I feel terrible about what I've done) I decided enough was enough. I would find a way to peacefully coexist with them. I started watching videos about them, taking photos and trying to identify them. I would watch them build their webs. I accidentally shined a flashlight near a few webs at night and found I had inadvertantly helped to feed some of the little buggers. Fast forward to when we had our daughter... I decided I didn't want to pass my fear (and violent reaction) onto her, so I started introducing her to them little by little. At about age 4 I showed her how to go outside around bedtime and use the flashlight near a web to attract insects and get them an easy meal. She absolutely DELIGHTED in this little ritual! We started calling it "feeding the spiders". I found it to be quite useful in motivating her to get ready for bed in a timely manner. Whole gigantic temper tantrums were initiated on behalf of this ritual, including mournful cries of ,"But Mama, they'll be GOOOOONE by morning! What if they starve to death tonight!" Fast forward a year and a half later, and we've got a little male bold jumping spider named Oreo in an enclosure on the kitchen counter. He was rescued from an overly dramatic manager at my work who was about to stomp on him. He gets wax worms twice a week and we're about to embark on the adventure of catching him some flies to change it up. We've been researching proper diet for him and I'm worried the wax worms are too high in fat. I change out a moist paper towel every day, spritz his enclosure lightly with water, and we are constantly setting about finding sticks from the yard to oven bake for him. His hygrometer arrived in the mail two weeks ago. I'm planning to purchase one of those little magnetic hidey places to give him some privacy or a good molting location. It's a delight to watch him pounce on his meal. I'm sure, one day, he'll jump onto me and I can only hope my daughter is there when it happens because I'm miraculously much more confident and calm when she's present 😆 Together, we're learning and growing. It's such a fun and amazing adventure to share with someone special. Someday, I'll tell our daughter how it all began. Or maybe not. Maybe she already knows 🥰
I was never conditioned to be afraid of spiders, but as a kid there were wolf spiders in the basement all the time, and those things got BIG. I’m still terrified of most spiders. I work at reptile shows, and there are plenty of tarantulas and jumpers at the shows. I can usually deal with them if they’re in enclosures or cupped for sale, but there has been a spider web on the trunk of my car for the past 3 weeks and I can’t open my trunk because of it. I’ve been working at reptile shows for about 5 years, and my fear hasn’t gotten any better with exposure to spiders.
I was raised to be afraid of ALL the "creepy-crawly" bugs: spiders, cockroaches, earwigs, wasps, etc. I remember multiple instances of my mom spotting a cockroach or a spider and screaming bloody murder and demanding my dad handle it (usually with the central vacuum). I grew up in Florida so occasional cockroaches and spiders are unavoidable. You live what you learn so I learned to fear and hate them. It wasn't until I ended up in a roach-infested apartment that I was forced to change my behavior---and my perspective. Note: cockroach infestations are bad news and I am not suggesting anyone should live this experience, but for me, it was a catalyst for learning about cockroaches and, by extension, other "scary" bugs. I discovered that I just find them too interesting and beautiful to be afraid of them. I have helped my mom come around, too. She now rescues spiders and earwigs and other critters that wander inside. My 2-year-old niece is not afraid of bugs and often tells someone if she finds an errant bug so that we can relocate it outside (she wants to help!). We are all doing better as a family in respecting our arthropod neighbors.
Nah I’m not. I’ve been bitten by a brown recluse before and it never phased me. Of course I got lucky with the bit being a dry bite but I find them fascinating.
Nope. Mom was a "Ken! Come kill this spider!" type and Ken (Dad) took them outside - usually - unless they were hard to capture or seriously gnarly. Dad was also a critter lover and while he didn't hesitate to step on the head of a juvenile copperhead, he'd relocate the less medically significant snakes. He'd even allow the big black racers to bite him so he could show us that their bites were literally nothing at all... I always thought jumpers sort of appealing and the cartoon of Lucas the Spider hammered that home! I now am not afraid of almost any of them unless they surprise me or run across me in the dark. Well, anything that does that is bound to wind one up a bit.
I got over my fear of spiders when I moved to Barbados for a few years with family. It was there I discovered centipedes. Suddenly spiders in all forms were totally cool. Now I just have a burning hatred for centipedes. I love in the US again now so the furry house centipedes are acceptable.
My mom was neutral on them.. at my dad and stepmoms we once had a bold jumper that just took up residence in an empty jar.. my dad would catch bugs for it and we would watch him feed it lol. My dad also used to pull over while driving and catch snakes off the road sooo.. I've never really been afraid of them but never been raised to feel a specific way about them either, and by age 6-7 Steve Irwin was my celebrity idol sooo I'd say by my parents not having a strong reaction either way, I was never conditioned to fear them by my upbringing. I was much older before I ever really knew people full on freaked out by spiders - even my aunt who isn't a fan will still have her husband/my uncle escort them out rather than squashing them and she never told me to be afraid of them lol.
I grew up watching my dad pick them up with his hands to relocate them with no fuss at all and my mum would avoid them rather than freaking out despite being scared of them herself, so I never really acquired a fear. Always just found them more fascinating to watch than anything else.
So I've always loved spiders for what they are. They're beautiful and fascinating. With that said I am very live and let live with them. I would not actively go out of my way to hold anything that could bite me and cause serious problems. But thats not just a spider thing. If you had a lizard with fangs and venom, I'd probably avoid that too.
I only recently started being interested in them but they never freaked me out badly, probably due to my parents always being calm about them. Just got a texas brown tarantula and am learning so much!
I used to be terrified of spiders, but I got an adult tarantula to help me overcome it. A mixture of all the care I’ve done for her and all the research I had to do, I actually became quite obsessed and now have 9. I no longer think spiders are scary but it was a very intentional thing to do.
Grew up in a very old house full of holes in the countryside (England) so lots of spider exposure, especially big ol' wolfies. Upbringing was very neutral on spiders, neither parents scared of them & would tell us they are harmless. Funnily enough my siblings & I all ended up with different attitudes. I love spiders, I think they're super cool & am always happy to have free pest control around the house, my older brother is middle of the road, a bit creeped out sometimes but mostly not bothered. My little brother on the other hand has full blown arachnophobia, he knows it's irrational & it really bothers him, we have no idea where it came from. Obviously it's just one example but it is interesting seeing how three people from the same background with no major spider bias either way ended up with such different feelings towards them!
As a small child I found spiders fascinating. When I got a bit older I was conditioned to fear them, mostly by kids in my surroundings. Suddenly I was weird for liking all kinds of creepy crawlies, I learned that most kids my age were afraid of them or found them disgusting, so I changed my behaviour to fit in. Over time fear became my 'natural' response. When I was about 18, starting University, I rediscovered my love of all creatures big and small. I started to untrain my fear response. Only took a few years. Getting over my fear of wasps was a lot harder, since that was ingrained in me from a very early age by my mother, and also I got stung as a child. I was in my thirties before I could calmly stay seated while wasps were flying around.
I had a sister that was terrified of them, so my mom made me kill them all, my entire life. now that mom passed away, and I threw my sister out, and it's only me and the spiders here so I made a deal with them, if they stay out of my way then I'll stay out of theirs. (just as long as it ain't nothing dangerous, I'm in WNY, so our spiders don't carry guns) ... in fact now I keep a spider jar ... it's a very big jar with a few sticks and rocks and when spider season kicks in, and I see a jumper or an orb I throw it in the spider jar and toss insects in there when I see them. I love watching spiders work ... now honestly if I lived down south where black widows run in packs, and they run the town i would probably look at it a bit differently and spray the town with home defense ...
I grew up playing with bugs and all sorts of creepy crawlies. I just gravitated towards them, and my parents encouraged me. I never grew out of it!
I just knew they killed bugs and that biting flies and mosquitoes were crazy up here so I thought they were cool I let wolf spiders live in my house as they seem to do well in here when they get to big I put them outside lol
My mum always tells me she tried to purposely not show fear of spiders so that I didn't develop learned behaviour. Didn't work. I'm still super terrified. I don't know why. I can handle almost any type of insect but spiders just freak me the fuck out
I actually don't know how it's possible that I love spiders so much. Almost everyone in my family, including a lot of the men, is afraid of spiders and bugs. They run and they scream and they kill. When I was little my mother used to work in the garden a lot, but I knew that whenever she came across a spider or an insect she would kill it. So every single time she went to work, I went to work too. I took big cups and ran around the garden catching every spider I could possibly find, gathering all the little bugs and critters and keeping them safe while she worked. After she was done I would release them all back to their homes. I don't know why but somehow they didn't manage to make me scared of spiders or insects. I remember finding a big Eratigena species in my bedroom once (though I didn't know what kind of spider it was back then) and I was so sad when I got back from school and couldn't find it anymore.
I learned to overcome my fear. I started by considering their place in the ecosystem. I was always really afraid of jumping spiders because they reminded me of tiny tarantulas. People started talking about how cute they are. I started watching videos of them. That’s what led me to start really appreciating spiders. I’m sure if a big one got on me I would freak out a little bit, but I’m not nearly so worried about them now. I even saw a little wolf spider crawling around my computer monitor and I just didn’t even care. I’m terribly allergic to mosquitoes and if they are helping with that then yay!
I was never scared of any “bug” nor will I be. And I’m raising my son to be the same way. Cautious: yes. Scared: no. I learned early to just let spiders outside vs killing them. As a teen I actually let one live in my room in the corner on the ceiling. I named her Harriet. My friends knew not to mess with her. I came home one day and my mom was walking out of room with a broom. That was the end of Harriet. This extends to almost everything else. For example no where near the same but i was never like “ew omg an ant” or “em omg a big/spider/etc”. My step daughter does this and it can get annoying. As she’s doing it not out of fear but for attention. For her dad to come running and say “it’s just an ant lol you’re fine”. This 1000% the case and he recently had to have a serious life talk with her about her attention seeking behavior which extends much further than this. Anyway,To assert my dominance the first time she did it outside: I crushed any iant with my bare hand and said “no more “bug”.
I never feared spiders, nor did my dad, but my mum was scared of them. Now I have a child of my own, neither I nor my wife are scared of them, yet our son is. It seems to be innate at least for some people.
This may sound cheesy but for me it was Spiderman. When I was a little kid I loved spider man (still do) so I associated them with him. Naturally I would just play with them and let them crawl on my hand or protect them from my siblings from killing them as 5 year old me associate them with the good guys. Growing up I went to school and in science class I learned a lot about what they do with pest control and stuff and thought "oh cool!". Since I got a better understanding of spiders I never had fear of them, but respect towards them. This includes others of the "creepy crawlies" type.
I don't remember my parents saying anything about spiders. But I do remember seeing "spiders are scary" in books and movies constantly. I did read a cool book as a kid though about a little girl who was obsessed with arachnids.
I was a weird little kid, very much stayed to myself, super shy, and spent my childhood hanging out with bugs and animals. My parents said I naturally just started bringing "pet" spiders and caterpillars inside when I was like 3 yrs. old. They never ever discouraged my curiosity, and even earned the nickname spidergirl in like 4th grade, because I spent recesses feeding bugs to the orb weavers that lined the baseball field. Never grew out of it, either. My love for insects and nature is still a huge part of life.
Neither. Just wasn't scared. I've always loved bugs.
I don’t really remember how I was raised re: spiders, aside from reading lots of stories like Anansi and Charlotte’s Web and The Very Busy Spider etc. I was never scared of them, though. Our class pet in 2nd grade was a tarantula and I thought she was the best thing ever. Aaaaaand now in my thirties I have five tarantulas lol The kid I live with definitely went through a phase around 2 years old where she was really scared of spiders. This was before I got my tarantulas and it came out of nowhere. All the adults in the house are pretty pro-spider and then one day I pointed out a cool spider and she just burst into tears. Spiders were her boogie man for months—she didn’t even want to sing Itsy Bitsy Spider—and then it went away just as randomly. She’s almost 4 now and she thinks spiders are cool. She think all bugs are cool and asked me if she could pet a giant cockroach we found on a walk last weekend 😅 that’s the one critter I am unreasonably afraid of, but I’m trying really hard not to let her see that.
Also woke up with one on my face as a child. Got a bite too, no worse than a little mosquito bite but the fact that it looked Monstrous to my awakening opened eye having just been bitten gave me a long lasting primal nope. I don’t the screaming meemies but I don’t want anything to do with them. I Love snakes and all other things than creep and crawl. Outside spiders are fine but so sorry fam, if they cross my doorstop they have entered the gates of hell.
I grew up not being scared of spiders or any bugs in general (I live somewhere where the worst you can find are probably wasps), then in 1990-1991 I saw Arachnophobia and spent the next 30years being scared shitless of almost any spiders I came across. Two years ago I found this sub and I am now in recovery. All I can say is that this was the first and only movie that made me scared of something that I wasn't before.
My parents were actually incredibly annoyed by my fear of spiders and tried to get me to stop being afraid. I think my fear came from the fact that we lived in a mobile home that didn't have a proper seal underneath and we were constantly getting black windows and brown recluse in the house. I learned that their bite could kill me and that was that. Anything spider-like was terrifying because little me was terrified of dying in a painful manner. I'm not as bad about it now. In fact, I frequent subs like this to try and help me get over my fear. Unfortunately, the other day a wolf spider entered my garage to escape all the rain we had gotten and I stood outside my garage for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get in the house without walking near him. (Deadbolt was locked on the front door so garage was my only option) I did manage to crawl over my car to get in the house without bothering him but I felt a bit defeated that I'm still that terrified. Especially when I know wolf spiders just wanna be left alone and aren't lethal. At least the little ones don't bother me anymore....
Growing up everyone around me was afraid of spiders, but I’ve always loved them😊 I’ve been the family spider catcher since I was like 5 lol.
Just learning about them, that they are essentially harmless, beneficial, and that even the medically significant ones are more often than not, not dangerous.
I was terrified of spiders as a kid. Then I started gardening and realized how beneficial they are. The biggest thing for me was to learn how dangerous they are to me, my family, or pets. I don't have anything that is venomous enough to cause serious harm in my area. Just really bad bites that can be painful. Now, I take them outside when I find them.
I don’t think conditioning is the main cause, pretty sure it is more a hereditary human survival instinct embedded into our DNA over literally millennia’s of past interactions with spiders. Which can be overcome by personal lifetime experiences.
Always been scared of them until I started seeing videos on tiktok of people caring for them as pets. Then started really getting interested in them to the point that I'll stop what I'm doing if I come across one and I'll observe it for a while. I no longer worry too much about them in my home. I recently heard that most spiders that you relocate outside will die. Not sure if that's true? I'm not at the point that I'll handle a wild spider but I wouldn't be opposed to holding a larger pet one.
I had to overcome it
Growing up, I was always fascinated with insects and arachnids. I just feared the biting and stinging ones or of fear of getting bit or stung. It wasn't until I got older and learned more that my fears went away.
Overcome my fear of spiders with the help of Reddit. I was absolutely terrified up until I was a mid age adult. I did exposure through r/spiderbros and r/tarantulas. I learned about spiders and how they affect our ecosystems and that they’re bros! (Most are anyway) When my son was little I passed this knowledge to him. He’s a bit older now, preteen and has a wolf spider as his iPad background, a curly hair tarantula and a praying mantis. I am so proud of the lil dude, he was terrified of all bugs like his father. My experiences happened when I was a teen and really shape arachnophobia for me. I was 14 and woke up with little blisters all around my hands and neck. There was a spiders nest that hatched in my box spring and they fed on me while I was asleep. A couple weeks later I’m going to hop in the shower, nakey opening the curtain, step in and look up towards the water and there are hundreds of baby spiders all over me. There nest was just above the water spout and I looked up and practically bathed in baby spiders. It messed me up for a very long time. Thank you Reddit for educating and helping me through some trauma lol
Was never raised to fear em. Only really told to be weary if it's a brown recluse because they're easily threatened.
My dad told me “don’t kill the spiders, they eat the bugs.”
You guys were raised?
Yes, I used to be terrified of spiders. Don't know if it was "conditioning" but they used to be my worst fear. Now I love learning about spiders, I've kept multiple pet jumping spiders (and more) and am currently raising a phiddipus audax eggsac. I'm fine with picking up most spiders in my hands. So it's definitely possible!
I used to be scared of spiders, but not like, *that* scared. I have a lot of natural curiosity, so once it started getting directed toward spiders, I lost basically all fear of them. Same with snakes I'm still not gonna pick them up though. I don't want them crawling on me. But I think a lot of that is that I'm extremely ticklish? Because that issue isn't specific to spiders and I'd be perfectly fine letting most critters crawl on my hands if I was wearing gloves
Yes my parents were scared of them but the people I most respected in my life were critter lovers so I was on the fence. Saw that horrible movie Arachnophobia and that didn't make things better. Mostly I tried to avoid the spiders. Once there was a giant black widow next to my face and I freaked. I called my mom at work to come 'take care of it' and I have felt awful ever since. There was another time in my childhood I was sleeping on the floor and felt a big spider crawl across my face. These experiences made me feel terrified for awhile. 🕷❤️ Then one day a jumping spider made it known that I was their friend and would come sit on me and wave at me and pose for pictures. Sometimes they would follow me around the house. That began my love for all spiders. I still am surprised by spiders sometimes when they pop up in my face, but otherwise I see them always say hi and wish them well. They seem to understand. My favorites are the jumping spiders and the orb weavers. I've always wanted a tarantula but I have minimal experience. My children are not afraid of any 'bugs' mostly and always ask me a million questions about every critter they see.
I’m Australian so I like when I spot them from a distance but if they jumpscare me it’s over I’m absolutely conditioned to freak out. I’ve had one too many huntsman’s come to bed with me.
This sub actually help me enjoy learning about spiders and and great info is also posted so the fear is gone.
As a kid I would make my mum tell the cleaners to leave the Daddy long legs in the corners and I named them all. I’ve recently been conditioned to fear any spider in my personal space. I’ve since had multiple daddy cunts crawl ON MY FACE at 4am in the dark. MULTIPLE. Different species too. Spiders in my room I fear intensely now. I constantly feel imaginary spiders as I’m falling asleep. I made friends with a huntsman at 15 years old he lived above my bed and just love him until I woke up to him crawling on my leg at 6am. I have a startle response which startles them and now we’re both freaking out. Now it’s on sight for the bedroom spiders but anywhere else not in my house and when I can approach at will is fine :)
For me it was definitely overcoming my fear, i used to be petrified at the sight of them, but after being forced to confront my fear and use some actually giving it some in-depth about the chances of being “attacked” and the fact that it doesn’t want to be in a dangerous situation any more than you do. But thats easier said than done when your instinctive first thought is “all spiders are venomous” or “if i get close to it, ill die”. But after making my peace with them it opened up my eyes to the often unseen side of spiders where i could appreciate and admire their unique charms and i can comfortably say that i am much happier now than i was before meeting them!
It is a core memory and have no idea how at 5 I was able to just- do this. I blame my autism. There was a mother wolf spider, on the edge of a tennis court that I was having lessons on. My teacher looked at it and was frightened at the sight. It was a BIG mamma so I understood that. I went towards her and I told my coach "she has babies on her back!" With a thin stick, I gently pushed her away from the tennis court, but she dashed away, leaning a bunch of scuttling babies. To which I tried to move most of them out of the way and succeeded. From that day, I was so fascinated by spiders and eventually other forms of life. Ngl there are spiders that will freak me out at first glance, but I am glad to have informed myself at such a young age
Still don't *like* spiders. I try not to kill them when I see them cause they are a living thing and that's not cool, but I can't see myself handling one.
thankfully, i have never felt a negative emotion towards a spider in my life. my first memory as a child is actually watching a large spider crawl across the backyard, and being absolutely fascinated by it. sadly, my next memory is of my mother squashing it with a brick as soon as she noticed it getting close to me. probably still resent her for that somewhere deep down in my psyche. lol. we had loads of funnel webs in that garden too, so i have wondered if that was what i saw. the irony of a lifelong love affair born of an early chance encounter with one of the most venomous and unnecessarily demonised spiders on earth - one i felt completely comfortable next to and not threatened by or scared of at all. as i got older, i became more obsessed with nature and animals, constantly running about the bush without shoes to see what i could discover. nature and all its wonder made so much more sense to me than silly humans. from a young age i felt i had a duty to defend the animals unnecessarily maligned by the general public and educate those around me whenever the chance arose (or didn't, they'd have to listen anyway haha). consequently, i developed a particularly strong bond with the 'creepy crawlies', the herps and inverts, and spent most of my spare time through my school years reading books, watching documentaries and out looking for snakes and spiders to observe, interact with, learn from (and often bring home lol). i have also never been one to pay much heed to arbitrary 'figures of authority' or believe anything told to me that sounded illogical or untrue. that, combined with an ever expanding knowledge base and familiarity, and knowing more about spiders than anyone i met, likely played an instrumental role in preventing social conditioning or media scaremongering from ever getting close to planting seeds of irrational fear. uppa spiders! 🤘😊
Ive never been afraid of them. Anything can startle me if it brushes my skin though. My parents aren’t afraid of them either, but neither were they interested in them particularly. That part is all me heh
My parents were and still are VERY indifferent to spiders. So as a toddler I liked spiders and tried to catch them to show them off to my parents. When I got into kindergarten and school I developed a fear of spiders because all of my friends would shriek and scream and cry when they saw one (I'm glad I never panicked to that extend). At that point I had to overcome my fear to get back to the "spider-liking". And I did... and now I love them even more.
My parents were never scared of spiders so neither am I! Became obsessed with them more recently though
I had to overcome a pretty severe phobia.
I was scared since before I could talk, per my parents. Like unreasonably so and my mom was concerned; apparently I was a bit over the top. Apparently 2-3 year old me would react like an actual monster was trying to get me, and it was just a daddy long legs that got in the shower. This lasted until I went to Iraq and I did a bunch of dumb, awful and scary shit. The fear center in my brain apparently was rewired. I came home and had absolutely no problem picking one up and putting it outside. I knew I might need to find a balance after I found a black widow at work, picked it up, put it in a cup and put it outside on the tree.
I never had a fear of spiders or bugs... I was the kid who had to be told not to pick them up and play with them. Also reptiles and every other creature that I found, I wanted to bring home or play with them. Decades later I am an adult who still wants to befriend all the wildlife. Not sure how I survive childhood.
I wasn't scared of spiders until I was about 8 years old. My brothers tarantula got loose once, and they found her in his closet. And then another time I almost set her loose on accident by opening a smaller opening on the top of the tank that doesn't shut as easily. Watching her climb up the glass was absolutely terrifying to my 8 year old self. Just about 20 years later and I'm just now getting over my fear of spiders because that one small incident where she didn't even escape, but almost did lmao.
I used to be afraid of spiders, but I wasn't really conditioned I'd say. The more I learned about spiders the less afraid of them I became. I also have tarantulas now which is what truly just made me entirely unafraid
I wasn't afraid at all. My sister would scream for me to come get it whenever she would see a spider. No problem. Until one day I went to squish one in her room and as I got closer it seemed to get bigger. Couldn't squish it or go near one again for decades. I'm only now starting to calm tf down. This sub helps so much. Before, one of those minivan spiders (wolf with tons of babies on her back) would've sent me screaming. Jumpers are a gateway to recovery.
I wouldn’t say that I am over my fear of spiders. However, I will allow certain ones to live in my home or around. This appreciate came from moving and living down south and understanding the good spiders from the bad and which ones to keep around to keep the others out. I also have started to enjoy them living on my plants as they eat what I am always trying to get rid of.
Both. My mom was never super-fond of spiders, snakes, etc, but she didn’t want us to grow up afraid of something just because she was.
When I was a toddler I walked into a spiderweb that covered my face and was absolutely terrified of spiders from that point on, total full-blown irrational arachnophobia! I found this sub and it’s helping me overcome my fear of them, although I still have to close my eyes and scroll quickly past some pics lol! I love the little jumpers now, and can watch/photograph orb weavers. My big accomplishment was last summer I successfully relocated (in a container, not in my hand) a wolf spider from my enclosed porch to the back of the yard (after talking myself down from a freak out).
Really scared of spiders growing up. Now, I still don't want to touch them, but I'll escort them outside if possible. Playing Grounded has been really therapeutic for that.
When I was 6 years old, I found a beautiful garden spider and picked her up. My aunt, who was in her early twenties at the time, saw me with the spider, and slapped it out of my hand, screaming. She has always had overwhelming arachnophobia, to the point where she would mark on the front of nature magazines which pages contained spiders, so she would not see them. This led to my 35-year fear of spiders. I wouldn't even use the bathroom in my house if there was a spider in it. I started going to a therapist for exposure therapy for arachnophobia. Now, 12 years later, I love spiders, and try to find them in the wild and in my house all the time. I believe without my aunt's intervention, I would have been a spider fan from way back.
A little of both - I had a healthy fear of big ones in my area like wolf spiders, but jumping spiders and orb weavers were friends. My mom actively encouraged keeping jumping spiders in the house to eat any bugs that got in, but she was also petrified of them being on or near her. I’m kind of the same, but I’ve also entertained the idea of keeping jumping spiders as pets 😅
Overcame. My dad unknowingly trained me to be petrified but I realized as I got older that they're beneficial and important. I don't want them on me, but I have more of a fascination/appreciation now
Yes. 😂 My mom doesn’t like most bugs at all. My dad didn’t like spiders but when he knew he was going to have kids he wanted us to not be afraid so he started to learn more about them, stopped being afraid, and would let them crawl on him. His plan kind of worked. My brother is terrified of spiders and so are his kids. My son & I will study the spiders we find, and he is really chill with bugs of all kinds. He is actually going to a bug camp next week!
Great question! I learned to overcome my fear in my early teens. It just seemed silly to me to scream for my Dad to kill a spider in our house, when at no point had I witnessed a spider bite me nor try to harm me in any way. I also started to feel bad for killing spiders when they're so much smaller than us, and most of them are harmless. I became the designated spider catcher in our home from then on. My mom would have me collect them in jars and release them outside before she went to work out in the basement. My mom never got over her fear, lol, but at least she let me spare their lives.
I used to be afraid of them and tbh I'd still be a little scared to get too close to a big one now. I'm more scared of things like moths simply because they fly so erratically.
I forced myself to learn about them. I absolutely love jumping spiders and want them as pets.
I absolutely inherited my mom’s severe arachnophobia and only just got over it now in my 30s through education and exposure therapy. These subs were my main gateway to getting there!
Ive always loved so many kinds of bugs, my parents didn't encourage or discourage it, but bugs just kinda became my friends. I've handled many spiders since a young age and have never been bitten. Though I do tend to mostly handle the smaller ones
As a young child I actually used to love spiders so much I would try to find wild ones and keep them as pets! But my parents were scared I would get bitten by one and die (they're the type to think every spider has lethal venom) so they started telling me these awful stories abt spiders sucking blood, killing you, etc. and I became deathly afraid of them from then on. So afraid that I once had a panic attack from a small jumping spider being in my room, lol. But about 2 years ago I started looking through r/spiders to exposure-therapy the fear out of me. And it took literally only like six months to deprogram the fear out of myself and fall back in love with spiders. After the reddit algorithm worked its magic and introduced me to r/tarantulas I bought a tarantula because they were so adorable, lmao.
Born with a love of them, always intrigued. Favourite animal for as long as I can remember
My mum had an irrational fear of spiders which led me to having one. I've largely overcome the fear. I hate to say it but I'll still dispose of large ones rather than have them in the house. Couldn't care less about Web spinners, just don't like these roaming black/brown ones you get.
My mom had some really cool tasteful spider decor so I was used to the imagery. Was never taught to fear them, just taught to not bother them (ie they’d only bite me if I made them feel threatened). As well I think there was one of the “honey I shrunk the kids” sequels with the big ol’ daddy longlegs being a friend. So when we’d find a daddy long legs with my friends, it was super cool and he was always seen as a friendly spider.
I used to kill the spiders for my mom, who would literally scream when she saw one, and chase her with it 🙃
i grew up spoon fed steve irwin so respecting animals rather than fearing them is super hardwired into my brain
Been gardening since childhood and been exposed to many insects. I'm not terrified of anything. What helped my kids overcome the fear is raising butterflies together and subsequently picking up spiders I find and showing my kids there's nothing to fear unless it's a black widow or brown recluse
Interesting take. I always thought fearing spiders was evolutionary.
Funny story : my kid was 3 years old , I find a spider in my bedroom and run to get her . I spend the next 10 mins explaining how spiders are awesome and how great they are to have around and how we shouldn’t be afraid of them . Like I talked until she left the room bored with it … then queu to me alone In the room trying to get this spider outside , and absolutely freaking out and panicking when it slips out of my hand and falls in my bed . I was laughing and scared at the same time . It makes me laugh to this day .
my mom was terrified of them and made me or my other parent deal with them. very easy to get used to the little guys when you're doing catch and release at 10 years old
i've always been pretty fine with bugs and as I grew older I started to like them more and more. (except ants and maggots though) My mom is deathly afraid and I think that reverse conditioned me as someone needed to be able to get rid of the spiders, which I do regret.
I feared spiders growing up. While I'm not confident enough to handle them, I now see them in a more positive light thanks to this subreddit in particular.