🔗 Share this article

I firmly hold the belief that it is never too late to change. My view is you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, on the condition that the mature being is willing and ready for growth. Provided that the individual in question is ready to confess when it was mistaken, and work to become a better dog.

Well, admittedly, the metaphor applies to me. And the trick I am attempting to master, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an significant challenge, a feat I have grappled with, frequently, for my whole existence. My ongoing effort … to grow less fearful of those large arachnids. My regrets to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my potential for change as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is large, dominant, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Encompassing three times in the last week. Inside my home. Though unseen, but a shudder runs through me and grimacing as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but my project has been at least becoming a standard level of composure about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders since I was a child (unlike other children who are fascinated by them). During my childhood, I had ample brothers around to make sure I never had to confront any myself, but I still became hysterical if one was visibly in the immediate vicinity as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had made its way onto the living room surface. I “managed” with it by standing incredibly far away, nearly crossing the threshold (in case it ran after me), and discharging half a bottle of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it did reach and disturb everyone in my house.

As I got older, whoever I was dating or cohabiting with was, as a matter of course, the bravest of spiders in our pairing, and therefore tasked with dealing with it, while I emitted low keening sounds and ran away. In moments of solitude, my method was simply to exit the space, douse the illumination and try to forget about its being before I had to re-enter.

In a recent episode, I visited a pal's residence where there was a notably big huntsman who made its home in the sill, primarily lingering. In order to be more comfortable with its presence, I conceptualized the spider as a her, a gal, one of us, just relaxing in the sun and overhearing us chat. Admittedly, it appears rather silly, but it was effective (a little bit). Or, the deliberate resolution to become more fearless worked.

Whatever the case, I've made an effort to continue. I think about all the logical reasons not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they eat things like insect pests (the bane of my existence). I know they are one of the world's exquisite, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the most terrifying and borderline immoral way imaginable. The sight of their numerous appendages transporting them at that terrible speed induces my caveman brain to kick into overdrive. They ostensibly only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I maintain that increases exponentially when they are in motion.

Yet it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have just as much right to be where I am – if not more. My experience has shown that employing the techniques of working to prevent immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, attempting to stay composed and breathing steadily, and consciously focusing about their beneficial attributes, has begun to yield results.

The mere fact that they are fuzzy entities that scuttle about extremely quickly in a way that haunts my sleep, does not justify they merit my intense dislike, or my girly screams. I am willing to confess when fear has clouded my judgment and driven by irrational anxiety. I doubt I’ll ever make it to the “trapping one under a cup and taking it outside” phase, but you never know. Some life is left left in this old dog yet.