🔗 Share this article

I maintain the conviction that it is forever an option to change. I think you truly can train a seasoned creature, as long as the old dog is open-minded and ready for growth. Provided that the old dog is prepared to acknowledge when it was in error, and strive to be a better dog.

OK yes, I am that seasoned creature. And the lesson I am attempting to master, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an important one, something I have grappled with, often, for my whole existence. I have been trying … to become less scared of huntsman spiders. Apologies to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my possible growth as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is imposing, commanding, and the one I encounter most often. Encompassing a trio of instances in the recent past. Within my dwelling. You can’t see me, but a shudder runs through me with discomfort as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least becoming a baseline of normalcy about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders from my earliest years (as opposed to other children who find them delightful). In my formative years, I had plenty of male siblings around to guarantee I never had to engage with any directly, but I still freaked out if one was obviously in the immediate vicinity as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and attempting to manage a spider that had made its way onto the living room surface. I “handled” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, practically in the adjoining space (in case it pursued me), and discharging half a bottle of bug repellent toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and annoy everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whomever I was in a relationship with or sharing a home with was, automatically, the most courageous of spiders in our pairing, and therefore responsible for handling the situation, while I emitted frightened noises and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my strategy was simply to exit the space, turn off the light and try to forget about its presence before I had to re-enter.

In a recent episode, I was a guest at a friend’s house where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who made its home in the window frame, for the most part hanging out. To be more comfortable with its presence, I envisioned the spider as a her, a one of the girls, part of the group, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us yap. It sounds rather silly, but it had an impact (a little bit). Alternatively, making a conscious choice to become less phobic proved successful.

Regardless, I’ve tried to keep it up. I think about all the sensible justifications not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I know they eat things like insect pests (creatures I despise). It is well-established they are one of the planet's marvelous, harmless-to-humans creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to walk like that. They propel themselves in the utterly horrifying and borderline immoral way conceivable. The vision of their multiple limbs carrying them at that frightening pace causes my primordial instincts to enter panic mode. They ostensibly only have eight legs, but I believe that multiplies when they move.

Yet it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – if not more. I’ve found that employing the techniques of trying not to have a visceral panic reaction and run away when I see one, trying to remain calm and collected, and consciously focusing about their beneficial attributes, has actually started to help.

The mere fact that they are furry beings that dart around at an alarming rate in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, is no reason for they warrant my loathing, or my girly screams. I can admit when I’ve been wrong and fueled by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “trapping one under a cup and taking it outside” level, but one can't be sure. A bit of time remains within this seasoned learner yet.