I am extremely scared of spiders and it's becoming a real problem. It's preventing me from doing really simple things. For example the other day I was taking out the trash but I saw a spider in the doorway. I had to vacuum the whole area before convincing myself to keep moving (sorry spiders - i don't hate you you just scare me). Does anyone have any suggestions for how to get over this?
I've hear that exposure is a good way to get over a phobia, but please no spider or other arachnid pictures on this thread. Thank you.

i was you for years actually! not as drastic but still terrified of spiders. its probably not what you wanna hear but exposure REALLY helps!! i started with small ones and forced myself to be close to them, and slowly when i became more comfortable id pick them up (only when other people were around me) and now i can hold any spider except the dangerous ones without any fear.
it also helps to educate yourself on the spiders in your area! i.e. i live in the us and unless you're allergic to spider bites, the only dangerous spiders in the country are black widows and brown recluses (brazilian wandering spiders as well if they come in on imports), and they're only deadly if the bite gets infected - so any other spider, the worst a bite can do is give a blister or a minor rash.
expecting to be bitten and making peace with it also is useful, like i was terrified of being bitten once i started holding them but then i realized after being bitten several times that a) most spiders usually give dry bites, which are bites without the venom and you can hardly feel it (unless its a tarantula or other very large spider) and b) the bites with venom barely hurt at all. most of them just ache or sting in a way so minor that you can forget about it in just a few seconds
i hope it helps!!! spiders get much worse rep than they deserve which is why so many people are afraid of them - its good to know that most are completely harmless, even the scary-looking ones (sometimes those are the most shy as well, even black widows would rather run away than bite you)
:) good luck!!

Play with Daddy Long Legs. They're harmless and will help you trust that a spider has no malicious agenda.

^ daddy long legs act just like most spiders in the world when interacted with, most spiders would rather run away from you than bite you

this is the person who started the thread btw (sry it might be confusing with the Anonymous).

This is what confuses me the most: I'm not at all scared of spider bites or of being bitten by spiders or even having them near me really. I've gotten spider bites before and honestly they're just about the least harmful bug bites i've ever gotten. Plus when I was a little kid I loved daddy long legs. Not quite sure what happened to change that. My problem is being aware that they are near me. The reason I call it a phobia is because I completely understand that most spiders are completely harmless to humans, but I still completely lose my composure when I see one. I also live in a pretty heavily spider populated area. I'm actually completely ok with them as long as I know they can't touch me (literally). Is there any step before exposure? I'm not sure I could just pick up a spider at this point.
I just can't come up with a logical reason why I should be reacting like this to spiders.
Thank you so much for the help so far. I'm still scared but it's infinitely helpful to know that there are others out there who have been able to get over this fear.

thats a toughy then :o
is there anything else that youre scared of but not as badly as spiders? getting over my fear of spiders is translating into how i get over other fears like wasps and heights, if you start on something scary but smaller and are able to overcome that then itll be easier to get over other fears
or you could try with pictures or fake spiders on you, if that stuff creeps you out at all and get accustomed before trying with real ones

problem is i actually don't have any other phobias. anything else i'm scared of is completely reasonable. thanks for the advice though. i'll try out the picture idea. it's already gotten better with fake spiders (once i see it's fake i'm completely fine. even picking it up). now on to moving fake spiders. i know this sounds pathetic but it's still progress! thanks everyone.

>>1 [shrugs] I'm in the same boat.
When I was a kid, my childhood home had a severe spider problem. I wish those motherf-kers were just daddy long legs. I lived in Georgia, and besides Atlanta, the place is mainly just acres of forestry. I remember coming home to spiders, waking up to spiders. Them being at the window, over the door...

We had a second floor basement that we mainly used for storage and when I went down there once, there was a Huge black spider that my dad tried to kill, but it skittered away amongst the boxes before he could.
Damn sure never went to that room again.

There was also a time when I came home and there was a large. hairy. orange spider on the wall to the downstairs level.


Sorry for bringing all that up, but what I'm trying to say is 1) You are most CERTAINLY. NOT. ALONE.
And 2) ...Personally, everyone has a fear, and I don't think there's anything wrong with you or not going out of your way to expunge.
Exposure is a key factor though; I'm also afraid of cockroaches (we have big ones in G.A.... At least they don't 'hiss' or jump. *shivers*), and the only way I got over that was while living in China we were in a roach infested apt complex motherf-ckers daily.

>>8 At least they don't 'hiss' or jump. *shivers*), and the only way I got over that was while living in China we were in a roach infested apt complex, and you had to kill those motherf-ckers daily.

I totally understand man I'm from Australia and it's the scariest thing seeing a spider and have it jump at you or chase you or just be as big as your face 😣

>>10 Are you trying to help or destroy her??? Get your Aussie ass back!

Jk tho, but does it really chase you around? You were just exaggerating right?? Right???

the way to solve this phobia is that you need to think of the spider as if it was nothing since if you compare the size of you and the spider there is a big difference. we humans are only scared of things because we don't understand them so its okay to be scared but you just have to move on so the next time you see a spider don't over react just leave it alone and it should leave you alone

>>12 And hatch its babies in your house. Hope you don't mind them fucking moving in-
What kind of advice is this!?!

This is terrible advice, but I once had HUUUGE arachnophobia.
Not that I don't have it now, but..

Okay I was about to write about this one time I forced myself to look at spiders(Don't. I just did it. Didn't help. Nope.) and convince myself that they were 'cute' just because they had sparkly eyes. It doesn't help.

Though I think the real reason I can tolerate them more is 'cause, for the summer holidays one year, I went to a best friend's family member's house with them and we stayed in the caravan and there were just spiders all over and inside //cries
So we both did this thing where she would find them(she was too afraid to kill them herself so I had to ahaha im crying), and I would try not to kill them, but throw them away.

Tl;dr - If you see one, try and face it? Scare it away? Trap it in a glass and chuck it out? I had a small one in the corner of my bathroom ceiling and I just left it there. Kinda.
//I now feel like there's something crawling over me. Ugh.

>> I forced myself to look at spiders

Ohhh boy.

>> (Don't. I just did it. Didn't help. Nope.) and convince myself that they were 'cute' just because they had sparkly eyes.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA- Hell No.

Tried doing that shit b4, too. Mm-mm! Nope!


You know what also helps? Alcohol. I'll kill all fucking day tipsy. But you can't even get me to look in a spider's general direction when sober.

A phobia is normally due to a past trauma. Sometimes you can't remember it because you were too young or it left a psychological scar. There are more or less two options:

1.Find someone who knows when you started being afraid of spiders and you work out why you are.

2.Consult a psychologist. It's part of their job to cure this kind of thing. It may take a few days or 2 years to cure it depending on you.

hi this is the person who started the thread. sry when i was posting before (on this thread) it would delete my name so it came up as "Anonymous". not exactly sure what happened but it works now! yay!
ok so thanks to all the responses i've been thinking about why exactly i'm scared of spiders. what i've figured out so far is that i'm mainly scared of them getting near my face or me not being able to get them off of me. also the many eyes and the arching legs. ik that's still a lot but it's more specified than before. i've started looking at spiders through windows now. they still give me nightmares every once in a while but it's gotten better. thank you all!
as for past trauma (not sure this is it but it's all i can remember): when i was 5-6 yrs old my friend told me that spider bites were permanent (5-6 yrs! i completely believed that). then when i was 7 i was told that you swallow spiders when you sleep (that also made me sleep with my mouth closed - tmi? sry). that must have just escalated into a phobia.
again thank you all so much! this is actually huge for me! XD

>>17 Or a spider could have crawled onto your face as a baby and freaked you out, hence why you're afraid of it coming near your face. Just a possibility ;p