A question on Spiders

Everyday living
1

I have never liked spiders and if one landed on me I would have hysterics.

I have noticed recently that they don’t scare me like they used to-bear with me please

Example; At the moment there is a spider in the bathroom, near a window and a mirror I use. It is within inches of where I stand at the mirror.

I am standing there cleansing and polishing while this spider is doing loop the loop up and down it’s silky thread. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have the urge to pick it up, I just find it strange how I’ve suddenly become desensitised.

I am thinking, if the brain lesions have been affecting my emotions, moods, responses, then is it possible it could have something to do with this?

I mentioned to my husband but he said something along the lines of me being certifiable. He doesn’t mean it really of course and if it was the other way round I would have probably laughed and said the same to him.

Seems logical to me though.

X

2

hi blossom

a couple of possible reasons:

  1. frequency of exposure to them, as they lose their mystique and the more you see them with age, the less of a surprise they become.

  2. you have bigger fish to fry having MS and its associated problems- e.g. if you were pre-MS and saw a spider in the car walking over the passenger seat, you would have been petrified with fear etc. but most likely would have composed yourself whilst driving and saved the fear response until you had parked up.

i don’t particularly like them, but my dislike and reaction tends to be correlated with the size of them. i can pick up small house spiders, but something hairier than me and with bigger teeth than the entire osmand family would certainly cause a browning of the underwear.

anyway, just some thoughts…

3

Do you know what fo. That is pretty much what my husband said, once he stopped laughing.

I suppose you are right, it does make sense-though it pains me to think my husband could be right again

Thank you for your thoughts

xx

4

I have gone the opposite way, i never had a fear of spiders,until i was putting my top on one day and a massive one dropped on to my shoulder and ran down my arm, euughhhhh !!!

makes me shudder just talking about it.

5

Now mrsJ, you could be swaying me back to my way of thinking about this

X

6

hiya noreen

its because we are irrational!

i used to feel the same re worms!

however i spent a long time trying to understand myself! especially when my ms became so disabling. our minds to run riot cos we let them. if u can take a step back (without falling over!) and really look at the problem-not what u perceive as the problem. i suspect that there isnt a problem really

i can now look at a worm without screaming! my friend ate a slug when younger! so no preconceived ideas about fear there eh?!

arent humans fascinating?! (and i am not suggesting u eat a spider!!!)

ellie x

7

Interesting ellie.

​Yes, we humans are fascinating.

Perhaps I am just too worn out to care about the little fiends

Actually, I’ve never liked to kill them. Always got my husband to put them outside.

X

8

Hi Blossom,

Very interesting.

Fear of spiders is a learnt fear not a natural one. Children fear them if parents do.

I love spiders as they fascinate me, building webs, different sizes and interesting patterns on they’re bodies I even went on a spider day with the local natural history society. We have loads in our house natural fly catchers !

If you look closely you can tell if they’re males , with boxing gloves, or females without.

Happy spider watching,

Jen x

9

Very interesting Jen.

I think I’ll pass on the look closer bit though

My daughter who is now 37, remembers me calling spiders Fred. She laughs at the memory of how I would make a story out of Fred visiting so she was never scared.

They don’t bother her at all, so maybe it helped

X

10

i always hated spiders, but i’ve become less afraid as i’ve got older. i can cope with the big leggy house spiders we all get, as long as it’s not above my shoulder height. a guy i used to work with had previously managed a small supermarket. early one day he was setting up a display of bananas, when a tarantula sized brown (yellowish?) spider sprinted up his arm. he was flailing around hitting himself with a bunch of bananas, bellowing at the top of his voice. the spider was never seen again. blurgh.

it’s moths that freak me out most, fluffyollie’s idea of safely pulling a car over, putting safety before the fear response would have been true for me, where spiders are concerned. but when a moth flew into my face while i was driving, years ago. i was lucky i didn’t crash into a lamp post/wall/parked car, in the thankfully person free road. i screeched to a halt and jumped out almost into oncoming traffic. i don’t like anything that typically has more than 4 legs.

wendy xx

11

You crease me Wendy

I can picture that guy now, flagellating himself with a bunch of bananas

X

12

hi wendy

the thought of that poor man and the tarantula running up his arm is awful enough; the thought that the eight-legged b*st&rd has not been seen since isn’t worth considering. On a completely un-related note, what name did this supermarket have, and what is its postcode please?

my four year old is the very essence of how we learn our fears. she happily picks up even fairly large spiders that she sees, as we’ve never gone nuts when we’ve seen them, ergo she doesn’t associated them with negative reaction. however, when nigel farage suddenly appears on the telly you’ll hear the screams in aberdeen…

4 legs good, 8 legs bad, ukip mad

fluffyollie xx

13

Well here I am in my recliner at 05:50 by my clock, sipping my first cuppa of the day.

Guess what bad dream woke me up guys?

Last thing I remember just before waking is standing in a kitchen. I am looking straight at this large spider staring straight back at me.

Quickly it advances towards me, rising up the nearer it gets. Then it lands in my fringe and I start to call out to my husband to help me. I wake up then and my legs are going 50 to the dozen

I was talking on pm yesterday to some of the guys about having a fringe, so that could be where that came in the dream

Can I put an order in to chat about a romantic evening with Tom Selleck this evening please

14

Good to know yah teaching yah daughter well fo

X

15

I love spiders and we used to have one living on our bathroom window and every morning when I got up she would be making her web for the day! Very interesting to watch. She lived for so long in there I named her Mabel and we used to tag team flies together I would hit them to her web and she would wrap and eat them :slight_smile: she eventually laid her eggs and then one day she was gone! I was upset but a week later when cleaning the bathroom I found her dead on the floor!! :cry: and her eggs never hatched. Now we have a mabel 2 living back in the bathroom but she’s not nearly half as clever as the first Mabel. I think I may have gone insane reading this back! Lol

1 Like
16

I was feeling rather tearful reading it Em, so I may have joined you in that insanity

1 Like
17

THE REDBACK ON THE TOILET SEAT
by Slim Newton

There was a redback on the toilet seat
When I was there last night.
I didn’t see him in the dark,
But boy I felt his bite.

I jumped high up into the air
And when I hit the ground,
That crafty redback spider
Wasn’t nowhere to be found.

I rushed into the missus,
Told her just where I’d been bit.
She grabbed a cut-throat razor-blade
And I nearly took a fit.

I said, "Just forget what’s on your mind
And call a doctor please,
'Cause I got a feeling that your cure
Is worse than the disease."

There was a redback on the toilet seat
When I was there last night.
I didn’t see him in the dark,
But boy I felt his bite.

And now I’m here in hospital
A sad and sorry sight,
And I curse the redback spider
On the toilet seat last night.

I can’t lie down, I can’t sit up
And I don’t know what to do,
And all the nurses think it’s funny
But that’s not my point of view.

I tell you its embarassing,
And that’s to say the least,
That I’m too sick to eat a bit
While that spider had a feast.

And when I get back home again
I tell you what I’ll do,
I’ll make that redback suffer
For the pain I’m going through.

I’ve had so many needles
That I’m looking like a sieve,
And I promise you that spider
Hasn’t very long to live.

There was a redback on the toilet seat
When I was there last night.
I didn’t see him in the dark,
But boy I felt his bite.

But now I’m here in hospital
A sad and sorry sight,
And I curse the redback spider
On the toilet seat last night.

I couldn’t resist

18

If I see one I have to catch it and release it in the garden or if it’s nighttime I drop it from the window, I’m sure they just dust themselves off and come straight back in

Jan x

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19

They do come back in Jan but they wipe their 8 feet first

xx

20

I should have said I trap them in a glass and slip paper underneath to pick it up, I’m not as brave as my mum who just picks them up with her hand and throws them out of the door !!!

Squeamish…Jan x