Overcoming Arachnophobia

 

Spiders!

Warning: there will be a couple of pictures of spiders and other beasties in this post so be warned if you're very sensitive to seeing those.

Phobia

Arachnophobia is as the name suggests, a Phobia, which is an irrational fear of something. In this case spiders, scorpions, basically beasties that belong to the Arachnid family and in horror movies. Although most people aren't that bothered by them, some find them pretty difficult to be around. Jo wasn't completely comfortable with them but on the whole, they didn't bother her that much whereas I really never liked being around them! Time has come however that I wanted to do something about it!

Creature Courage

After a pretty cool half of a day in Cambridge it was time to move onto the main event of the trip which was the Spider Therapy! With quite a lot of intellectual property being involved in this I'm not going to go into too much detail but, spoiler alert, it works. The session was with  Creature Courage and it was ran by the wonderful Britain who was very welcoming, friendly and professional. 

Some Background

If you're familiar with our YouTube channel DJA Adventures then you'll know that we're into hiking, the outdoors, wildlife and basically the natural world. Now ... if you're into those things, but at the same time scared of creepy crawlies, spiders and such, it's a bit of a problem. It means that you're not very keen to go to some of the cool places out there because there are likely to be creatures there that make you uncomfortable which takes away from the experience. Don't get me wrong, I have always appreciated the importance of spiders and all the little beasties out there, they all have a role to play, but that's the thing about phobias, it doesn't matter because the fear factor is irrational.

The time has come when I decided that enough was enough and I wanted to do what I can to get this behind me, make friends with those spidies that run across your living room floor every now and then and live side by side (within reason!) in harmony.

The Therapy

The session with Britain was split into two parts, well three, but the third one is probably not strictly speaking part of the day but was my favourite and most enjoyable given the new found bravery! First Britain started with mental prep and some facts / education about spiders which puts down groundwork for the most tricky second part of the day. The second part was not so much jumping in at the deep end, but more like walking down a steep bank into the water, but Britain sensed the tempo needed just right. After a quick lunch she brought out a few boxes / enclosures where she would later as the day went on, pull out a house spider and then three very cool Tarantulas! Even most of the people that I know that aren't bothered by spiders say they wouldn't be comfortable holding a tarantula!

Considering that prior to seeing Britain I would have not been very comfortable being in the same room as a decent sized house spider, after what didn't seem like too long I first had one run across my hand and shortly after I was actually playing with one passing it from one hand to the other! If anyone told me before I met Britain that something like that would happen I would have told them to be careful with whatever medication they may be on, I just didn't think that was even remotely possible. 

Once I was comfortable holding it and passing it from one hand to the other, Britain moved onto real life simulations essentially where we handled those gentle giants (of the British spider world anyway) in situations that we may find ourselves at home. Her techniques were working pretty well and although it probably took a couple of hours after lunch to get to this point, to me it seemed like 5 minutes and I was actually enjoying it!

Taking it up a notch

After all the work we did with house spiders Britain wasn't going to stop there, and I'm glad she didn't because at that point I found spiders more fascinating then scary which was a completely new state of mind for me (regarding spiders anyway). Somehow Britain managed to reprogram my brain enough to allow me to do things that I never thought I could. I wonder if she can teach you how to bend spoons by just looking at them ... anyway, once we were done with house spiders it was time to see what else was hiding in the other enclosures in the corner of the room.

This time, with my head re-programmed we didn't need to bother with the baby steps any more! I walked into that room in the morning in a state that if a house spider ran across the floor in front of me in the evening whilst I was watching a movie, my feet would be coming up onto the sofa! Yet here I was with this beauty on my hand. Britain pulled her out of the enclosure and just without hesitation passed her over to me straight away. When you hold a house spider you mostly feel it only when it's moving, this one, you could feel that you were holding something on your hand, they weigh a little!

After both Jo and I held Peaches (I think that was her name) Britain pulled out two more tarantulas each bigger then the previous one and let us hold them as they slowly walked on our hands. I'm not saying that I would go out hugging wild tarantulas, nor would Britain recommend it, but she knew what she was doing and which ones were safe for us to hold. I'm sure they could give a nasty bite if they wanted to though, look at these fangs! This one was called Ninja!

Part three of the day

Britain's kingdom of Fantastic Beasts doesn't end at a few house spiders and three tame tarantulas, oh no, no. After holding these guys for a bit Britain invited us to the room where she keeps all of her cool beasties which was by far my favourite part of the day, but I don't think I'd enjoy it as much if that wonderful lady hadn't re-programmed my brain beforehand! I was like a toddler that just learned to walk and Britain was going to make sure both Jo and I do some running before we leave her kingdom!

Britain showed us a few more tarantulas, one of which wasn't very happy about being disturbed but we let it be and theeeeeen Britain pulled out this fella! At that point Jo let out "I'm definitely not holding that one!" to which Britain replied, "You're definitely holding it then" - in a friendly non threatening way of course. That was it, seconds later Jo had it on her hands and shortly after her I had my turn. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you, the Whip Tailed Scorpion, essentially a cave scorpion.

Once we held this one it was all easy peasy, we held a couple of snakes, few types of cockroaches (hissing cockroaches and funky!) a couple of lizards and at the very end before it was time to go we got to hold a couple of flying squirrels which are super cute. The whole experience was wonderful and we'd definitely highly recommend it to others. If you're scared of spiders or any other animals, get in touch with Britain. Creature Courage