Rant/Discussion: Arachnophobia vs Fear

[Kendricks]

@sasker
Nothing to do with any of that.
As I said, he left for personal reasons.

 

[mconnachan]

I'm in a tarantula group elsewhere and I saw some people talking about how "arachnophobia is just a lack of understanding/ignorance/etc" and I felt like having a discussion on it and putting my two cents in for people who might not know the difference between arachnophobia and fear of spiders.

I, myself, am arachnophobic. I have been ever since I can remember. I don't know if it started as a fear and developed into a phobia or what happened, but I know it's now a phobia.

Phobias aren't just fears. They're disorders. They're not rational. You can't educate someone to get over their phobia like a fear. If they get over it, it's likely they never had a phobia to begin with.

People use the term phobia so loosely it's a little aggravating for the neurodivergent people of the world.

I have tarantulas. I keep true spiders when I find an interest in one. I like to watch them. I'm not uneducated. I spend hours on sites and groups, reading any sort of information I can get my hands on. I love to learn about them. But that doesn't make my phobia any less present.

Phobias aren't rational. When working with my Ts, it tends to kick up. I start thinking about the things the T might do (probably won't) and definitely will do (impossible). I expect my G. pulchripes to somehow jolt up my arm and bite me and run away before I can even blink. I know they're not that fast, but phobias aren't rational. I think the bite will swell up and just the idea of being bitten is terrifying—again, irrational phobia.

A fear can oftentimes be "cured" by showing the fearful individual how gentle these animals can be, show them a jumping spider, let them hold a docile tarantula. A phobia comes back always. It's often rooted in paranoia, delusions, and anxiety.

So I guess, this is sort of a rant, an open invitation to talk about fear vs phobias, talk about your experience, and educate people on how I experience my phobia? Sorry if it's a little messy...!

By the sounds of it you don't have a phobia or you wouldn't even be in the same room as a spider never mind keeping them and looking after them, it sounds as though you have an irrational fear of them yes, but not a phobia, a phobia is a neurological impulse which starts off with sweats then absolute terror - if you had arachnophobia you would not be able to be in the same area as a spider never mind looking after them, just a deduction of what I've seen with phobias in the past.