🔗 Share this article

I maintain the conviction that it is never too late to transform. I believe you can in fact teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the experienced individual is open-minded and ready for growth. Provided that the person is prepared to acknowledge when it was mistaken, and strive to be a better dog.

OK yes, the metaphor applies to me. And the trick I am working to acquire, even though I am a creature of habit? It is an important one, something I have grappled with, frequently, for my all my days. I have been trying … to grow less fearful of huntsman spiders. Pardon me, all the other spiders that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my potential for change as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is large, dominant, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Including on three separate occasions in the previous seven days. Inside my home. Though unseen, but a shudder runs through me and grimacing as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least achieving a standard level of composure about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders since I was a child (in contrast to other children who adore them). During my childhood, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to guarantee I never had to handle any personally, but I still freaked out if one was visibly in the general area as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had made its way onto the lounge-room wall. I “handled” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, practically in the adjoining space (for fear that it ran after me), and spraying half a bottle of pesticide toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it did reach and irritate everyone in my house.

As I got older, whoever I was dating or sharing a home with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore in charge of dealing with it, while I produced low keening sounds and ran away. If I was on my own, my method was simply to vacate the area, plunge the room into darkness and try to ignore its being before I had to return.

In a recent episode, I was a guest at a companion's home where there was a very large huntsman who lived in the sill, mostly just lingering. In order to be less fearful, I imagined the spider as a 'girlie', a gal, one of us, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us gab. This may seem quite foolish, but it was effective (somewhat). Put another way, the deliberate resolution to become less phobic proved successful.

Whatever the case, 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 recognize they consume things like flies and mosquitoes (creatures I despise). I am cognizant they are one of the planet's marvelous, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to move like that. They propel themselves in the utterly horrifying and borderline immoral way imaginable. The vision of their numerous appendages transporting them at that alarming velocity triggers my primordial instincts to enter panic mode. They ostensibly only have a standard octet of limbs, but I believe that increases exponentially when they get going.

However it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – if not more. I’ve found that employing the techniques of working to prevent have a visceral panic reaction and retreat when I see one, attempting to stay still and breathing, and consciously focusing about their good points, has proven somewhat effective.

Simply due to the reality that they are fuzzy entities that move hastily at an alarming rate in a way that invades my dreams, does not justify they warrant my loathing, or my high-pitched vocalizations. I am willing to confess when I’ve been wrong and motivated by baseless terror. I’m not sure I’ll ever reach the “trapping one under a cup and taking it outside” stage, but one can't be sure. Some life is left for this seasoned learner yet.