🔗 Share this article

I firmly hold the belief that it is forever an option to evolve. I think you can in fact instruct a veteran learner, provided that the experienced individual is willing and willing to learn. So long as the person is prepared to acknowledge when it was mistaken, and work to become a improved version.

OK yes, I am the old dog. And the lesson I am trying to learn, even though I am decrepit? It is an important one, an issue I have battled against, repeatedly, for my entire life. The quest I'm on … to become less scared of huntsman spiders. Apologies to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be grounded about my possible growth as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is imposing, in charge, and the one I encounter most often. This includes a trio of instances in the last week. Inside my home. Though unseen, but I’m shaking my head and grimacing as I type.

It's unlikely 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 dating back to my youth (unlike other children who are fascinated by them). During my childhood, I had ample brothers around to ensure I never had to handle any directly, but I still became hysterical if one was clearly in the immediate vicinity as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had crawled on to the lounge-room wall. I “managed” with it by standing incredibly far away, nearly crossing the threshold (lest it ran after me), and discharging a generous amount of bug repellent toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and annoy everyone in my house.

As I got older, my romantic partner at the time or living with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore in charge of managing the intruder, while I made low keening sounds and ran away. When finding myself alone, my method was simply to vacate the area, turn off the light and try to forget about its presence before I had to enter again.

Recently, I visited a friend’s house where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the casement, for the most part stationary. As a means to be less fearful, I envisioned the spider as a 'girlie', a gal, in our circle, just relaxing in the sun and overhearing us yap. Admittedly, it appears extremely dumb, but it worked (to some degree). Alternatively, making a conscious choice to become less scared worked.

Be that as it may, I’ve tried to keep it up. I think about all the logical reasons not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I understand they prey upon things like buzzing nuisances (my mortal enemies). I know they are one of the planet's marvelous, benign creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to move like that. They travel in the utterly horrifying and somehow offensive way possible. The appearance of their numerous appendages transporting them at that frightening pace triggers my caveman brain to enter panic mode. They claim to only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I believe that triples when they get going.

But it isn’t their fault that they have unnerving limbs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – if not more. I’ve found that taking the steps of working to prevent instantly leap out of my body and retreat when I see one, working to keep still and breathing, and deliberately thinking about their beneficial attributes, has proven somewhat effective.

Just because they are fuzzy entities that move hastily extremely quickly in a way that invades my dreams, doesn’t mean they deserve my hatred, or my shrieks of terror. I am willing to confess when fear has clouded my judgment and fueled by irrational anxiety. It is uncertain I’ll ever reach the “trapping one under a cup and relocating it outdoors” level, but miracles happen. A bit of time remains left in this veteran of life yet.