Arachnophobia is Getting Better

I know this picture is a grand daddy long legs, not an actual spider.  For someone who has arachnophobia, we could truly care less about the difference.  Anything that remotely looks like a spider or walks like a spider, in my world is a spider.  I have always had arachnophobia.  Even the smallest spiders would give me the “heebie jeebies” and cause me to go into a frenzie of screams, jumps and phrases like “PLEASE CAN YOU KILL IT!!!”  I’m a city girl, born and raised in DC.  We never had many spiders in our house.  Our bugs consisted of roaches, ants, lightning bugs, worms, cockroaches and an occasional butterfly here and there.  As a child, I loved being outdoors and I could handle any other bug out there.  But when I went to Virginia to visit my grandmother during summer vacation, I always came across my biggest threat – the one that made me feel like I was inferior to it (that would be a spider or any variation of it).  When it came to spiders, I could barely sleep, especially if I knew one was in the same room with me or if it got away and it was still roaming around somewhere.  My summers as a child were full of sleepless nights!  I would get this weird feeling all over me like they were crawling on me and would feel that way hours after it was already smashed.  At times my heart would race, especially if it was one of the “jumpy” ones or one with hair on it.  I have been this way all my life up until about a year or so ago.  I know that if I am going to garden then I have to be one with nature.  Since living in Georgia, I am realizing that they are inevitable.  So far the spiders around the outside of my house, although we don’t like each other, we have managed to find a mutual respect for each other’s space.  I try not to mess with them and they hopefully will not mess with me.  I’m not as jumpy anymore and can even kill them on my own if I need to.  For the most part, as long as they are outside, I just try to work around them.  I know they are beneficial insects and I try to keep that in mind.  I guess I am working my way through recovery, but if I see one big enough, most definitely I will be up on top of a chair hollering in octaves even Mariah Carey can’t hit!