Arachnophobia (strong language warning)

Before I had ever moved my things into my new house, before I had even scheduled the movers, I had an encounter of the eight legged kind. After work on this particular Monday, I decided to take some small odds and ends to the new house. Things that would break easy, or were just easier in my mind for me to take care of. Like my jewelry holder, the bag of random wrapping paper and gift bags, that glass pitcher that didn't fit into any box, that box of breakables that didn't have a lid. I loaded up my car and headed to my lovely new home, excited to see it again.
I parked under the car port, grabbed a couple things and headed into the house. I set my purse and things on the kitchen counter and got out my camera to take the "before I moved in the house looked like this" pictures. I walked through the living room *click*, the dining room *click*, into the kitchen *flash*, through the hall *click*, and into the bathroom. I leaned back towards the tub to get a picture of the wall of mirrors. I turned around to take a picture of the tiled shower and HOLYFUCKINGHELL! I was suddenly back in the hall, panting and trying to comprehend what I had just seen.
No way. There is no way I just saw a spider that big in my tub. There is no fucking way that I just saw a spider that big, in my new tub, inches away from where I had been standing. There is no fucking way that a spider that big exists outside of tropical climates. I took a step back into the bathroom, shaking, to peer over the edge of the tub. I saw legs. I jumped back. Dear God...it's real! I really saw that! Fuckfuckfuck. I kept my eyes on the edge of the tub, to make sure it didn't come crawling over the edge. I talked to myself.
Now K, maybe you're exaggerating the size in your head. Listen K, it's going to be ok.
I take a step back into the bathroom and peer a little further into the tub this time to see the entire thing. Oh sickgrossfuckdamnitmotherfucker that thing is a GIANT! It must have mated with a fucking dog. Why is this thing real?? Why is this thing in my tub?? I walked into the living room, keeping my eye on the tub. Making sure the tub is in my sights at all times. That thing is literally the biggest spider I've ever seen in real life. I honestly don't think it would fit down the drain if I tried to wash it down. And to wash it down I would have to get close to it. Oh God, and what if I tried to wash it down and I failed and scare it and it comes out of the tub after me?! I can't handle this. I start breathing hard again, keeping my eyes on the tub while I pace the living room.
What am I going to do? I have nothing but breakables at the house. No broom to whack the dog spider with, no bugzooka to capture this unauthorized intruder with, not that I believe this giant would actually fit in the bugzooka chamber. I don't know what to do. I start to panic. Tears spring to my eyes. I'm trapped here. I can't leave and go get something or someone to help me. What if I leave and come back...and it's gone?! I'll never know where it went! I cannot possibly move my things into this house knowing at any moment I could come face to face with an amazonian spider!

You think I'm crazy right? I know. It's ok. That's why I'm writing this. I have actual arachnophobia. I've had this problem for as long as I can remember. It's the reason my mom bought me my bugzooka. Almost everyone brushes my fear off as me being just another girl afraid of bugs. Most people don't realize how serious my phobia is until they see me in a panic attack, and even then, some people still don't get it. I'm writing this to show how those panic attacks look. How my brain works when I see a spider. I think that people assume this is just something I can get over if I stop being a wuss, but that's just the thing. This is a phobia. It's an extreme or irrational fear or aversion to something. That's the definition of phobia. It's not something I can control (without help). I don't like the powerless feeling that overcomes me when I'm faced with my fear. I'm normally a rational, logical person. But when it comes to spiders, I seem to lose all control.

I sent a text to my friend A about the spider. Hoping her or her boyfriend could come save me. In fact, I sent a lot of texts hoping to get help. The whole time, pacing my living room and keeping an eye on the tub. In my mind I could see the spider crawling up over the edge and coming after me out of the bathroom. What would I do if that happened? I was way too terrified to actually step on it. Can you imagine the crunch it would make?! Sick! With it's legs, that thing was the size of my fist. Literally the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life. I realize I'm repeating myself, but that's what my brain does in these situations. My friend D said he could come kill the spider for me. Of course, it took a little convincing for him to realize I was serious when I asked. I kept trying to get myself to leave the house. To get into my car, even just get out the front door. I couldn't get myself out of the living room for anything more than another peek in the tub to make sure the monster was still there. When I thought of going back to my car, I could easily imagine more of these giant mutant spiders crawling along the underside of the carport, which would mean they would be right above my head. What if one dropped down onto me?! If I went on the porch, same problem. They could be everywhere! If there was one there would be more right? I waited anxiously for D to arrive to kill that spider, but I couldn't leave my spot. A asked me to send her a picture of the thing causing me so much stress.
A picture meant I had to get close again. But I had to have some validation. I had to prove that my fear was justified. I took a step into the bathroom again. The legs were still there. I took a deep breath and looked away for a moment. I turned my phone camera on and aimed it at the tub from where I stood in the doorway. I held it high above my head to get a clear shot into the tub without me having to step any closer than necessary. Zoom is my friend. I started to shake. What if it moved? What if the shutter sound scared it? What if the flash woke it up? What was I going to do? I pressed the button and ran back into the living room, breathing hard and trying to stifle my tears. I could barely even look at the picture I took. Just enough to make sure it wasn't too blurry. But it was too blurry. I had to take another picture. Which meant I had to go back into the bathroom. Damn it. It took me three tries before I got one clear enough to send. I was shaking and I could no longer hold the tears back. Each picture I took, I thought for sure would be the one that sent this spider into a rage. Thankfully, it never moved. I got the reaction I expected from the picture, laughter. There's no way I could get close enough to get a picture that would do my fear justice.
Where was D? What was taking him so long? I stayed in the living room, glancing from the tub to the window, hoping that any moment I would see D's car turn down my street. I wanted so badly to go outside. I was so hot. Warm from all my anxiety. My face was red and tears were streaming down my cheeks. Every time I checked to make sure the spider was still in the tub I cried harder. It was real. I wasn't imagining it. And I couldn't do anything about it. I wanted so badly to be a normal person. I wanted so badly to be someone that could stomp on that fucker with no hesitation. But even the thought of it sent my mind into a frenzy. It could be super fast! It could be poisonous! It could TOUCH me. This was not ok. This is my dream house. It cannot have spiders the size of house pets! What was I going to do if this was the norm at this house? I couldn't live there.
I was literally paralyzed with fear. I couldn't move beyond the living room. I tried to go into the kitchen but two things stopped me. 1) The knowledge that if I left my watch post in the living room and came back to find the spider missing, I would absolutely not be ok. It would be my fault that it got away and I didn't know where it had gotten to and 2) There could be more spiders just like that one in the rest of the house. Just on the other side of any door. On the ceiling of any room. Hiding in the corner of any closet or cupboard. Anything that I couldn't see from where I stood had the possibility of harboring one of the biggest spiders I've ever seen. I could see it clearly in my mind and even when I told myself to calm down, even when I reminded myself that I had been in this house before with no sightings of giant arachnids, I couldn't actually move. I just kept looking back and forth, from the tub to the window that faced the street. When would D get here?
It felt like forever before he showed up. Probably because of my maniacal pacing. He laughed when he saw me. I know I was a sight...red face, trembling with fear, unable to speak properly. I hate not being able to hold my composure. I pointed to the bathroom when he asked me where it was and I backed as far away as I could while still being able to see the bathroom, and not be too close to the fireplace, which surely hid more monsters in it's dark abyss of a chimney. Even D, who has been overseas and seen those literal giant spiders admitted it was a larger spider than would be seen indoors in the northwest. It was so large that it didn't even move when he went in to kill it. It never moved. I made him flush it.
For all we know it could have been dead the whole time. But guess what? That doesn't matter to me. Dead spider, live spider, plastic spider, picture of a spider, spider on the tv screen....They all have the same affect on me. You're supposed to be able to free the things you catch in the bugzooka. I can't, simply because I can't actually touch something so close to a living spider. I can't touch a picture of a spider. I can't wipe a dead spiders guts off the wall. I just can't. I try. I really do sometimes. But the closer I get, the shakier I get and I just can't seem to get myself under control.
I made D walk through the house with me, to give him a tour at the same time we checked to make sure there were no more mutant eight legged things around. I am so incredibly grateful to have friends that will come help me when I'm a blubbering mess. A few days after this I asked some friends to come over and help me "spider proof" my new house before I moved my things in. I got spray to use around the perimeter of the house to keep spiders out. I got a can of bug spray for any live ones I may come face to face with without any kind of "weapon". And I got more than a few things to plug in that emit a supersonic sound that is supposed to keep spiders and bugs away. There is now one of those in every room of the house, 3 in the basement. We decobwebbed, sprayed, and searched until we had done all we could. Whether or not these measures actually keep bugs and spiders away, I don't know. But they give me enough peace of mind to continue living in this house.
I still haven't put my foot in the spot that spider was. I still check every room as I enter it, to make sure there's no spider there. Since seeing that spider in my tub, the biggest spider I've ever seen in person, I feel I'm better able to handle the "normal" size spiders that I come across. I still cant get close to them. I still get shaky. But I can at least keep the tears back while I trap them in the bugzooka chamber.
There are really two reasons I chose to write about this. The first, it's a funny story. When I'm not in the moment, being terrified and screaming for help, even I can acknowledge the way I act is funny. The second reason, to shed some light on what goes on for a person with arachnophobia. This has always been an issue for me. I have had to deal with this for as long as I can remember. I've gotten to the point where I don't run away when there's a spider on the tv (or in a video game), but I still can't look at it. I have spider encounter stories of all kinds. In the car, walking through webs, waking up with a spider hanging from the ceiling above my face. I've been trapped in the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the hallway. Sometimes when I use a shoe to squish a spider (after a lot of pep talking of course) I can't wear that shoe for months, if ever again. I know that it's ridiculous. I know that. I really can't help it. I want to. I don't want to act this way. I don't want to be the girl running, screaming and crying through haunted houses because of imagined spiders (yes, that really happened once). But I just can't help it. It's real fear. It's so very real and I think that's what people don't realize. I've heard people say that it's an attention seeking thing, that it's just a way to get sympathy, that I should just get over it, that I'm a drama queen. One of my ex boyfriends actually refused to keep killing spiders for me because he said I needed to get over it myself. I might agree if I didn't feel what it feels like to have a panic attack at the sight of something that's actually natural.
It's not funny to mess with someone because of their phobia. It's not funny to send someone into a panic attack. I know that no matter what I say, some people will always think I'm just being crazy. I just wanted to hopefully shed a little light on why I act the way I act. Some people have phobias of snakes, some have phobias of slugs or eyeballs, and some people really are just drama queens. But phobias are real fear. Sure, they can make for some funny stories but please be nice to people about their phobias.