It’s time we stopped to really do some pontification on a matter of importance:
Why are spiders so terrifying?
It’s one thing when they’re en masse. That’s gross for anyone. Even butterfly swarms can be sort of unnerving (they’re still bugs).
#duh
But even just a lone eight legger scouting the sidewalk is enough to stand my invisible fur on end like a Doberman spotting a robber.
It’s also enough for me to text everyone I know.
And let them know I just saw a whale sized tarantula with wings.
But inasmuch as simply summoning to mind the imagery or mere name of these radial demons brings with it stress and discomfort, I haven’t really ever asked myself the reason behind the fear.
Until now.
I need to know.
It’s safe to say that for me arachnophobia has been in effect since before I learned how to breathe. It’s a crazy, irrational fear I’ve tried to understand my whole life. And it seems I might be in good company.
A study done with two-year-olds showed that they’d recognize and have adverse reactions to spiders (even just pictures of them) before any other insects. But – wait- who the eff runs these experiments?! I mean, way to ruin your kids life in the name of science… and monetary compensation to the parents. Anyway, what came of this exercise in child traumatizing is that we might be innately afraid of arachnids for an evolutionary reason. Or as one psychologist from the hippie era called it, the “hypothesis of biological preparedness.”
Yes. Prepared, with Puma sneaker in hand.
But what must beta-stage Charlotte have been like for our forefather cavemen to develop such an evolutionary aversion? I mean, in the realm of creepy crawlies, I can’t logically make sense of it just by staring one down. Is the multi-appendages? That can’t be it. Ants only have two less limbs.
And they don’t bother me.
(AntMan’s power: carrying around really heavy shit for no apparent reason).
Nah.
I think the fear boils down to two R’s and two M’s: it’s the radial quality, repelling, murder method, and movement. If someone could see you perfectly when their back was turned, you’d hate them. And wonder if they could read your mind and bend spoons with theirs and eat your soul psychically. So, yeah. That 360 degree vision’s a bitch.
And that creep factor amplifies when you add in the fact that they wait for you to sleep. The bastards plot.
(I knew it. They’re the effing Ted Bundy of the bugs.)
They can and DO yo-yo down into your face holes while you sleep. I suffocate lullaby myself to sleep many a night in a mere attempt to secure my ears and nose from the army of dark entities I know are just waiting in the wings for my lights to go out.
And speaking of lights out, their murder method of catching creatures like Chris Hansen catches pedos is horrifying, the Killer Clown cocoon thing is over the top, and that one with an egg timer on its back is like nature’s foreshadowing of how long you get to live after being bitten.
(Can’t spell spider without the word “die”)
And then, finally, there’s the movement. Ants aren’t as bad because they just saunter through the soil at a natural speed. Spiders move like the ghosts in that 13 ghosts horror movie that American Pie girl played in.
So, that’s all reason enough for me.
Yet there’s hope for nope-o-phobia.
For example, my psychosis whisperer once said:
“Ashley, you’re beyond help.”
But then after that, he added: “You know, you can reduce or even rehabilitate arachnaphobia in one session.” Although I never personally learned anything about his credentials (or if he even had any), it must have been a doctorate from Hogwarts Academy.
‘cause to cure a fear that’s reigned my whole life…
…would definitely take a half blood prince.