Social Question

Dutchess_III's avatar

Do you freak the hell out over spiders and things?

Asked by Dutchess_III (47140points) October 17th, 2019

I know many people who FREAK OUT!!! anytime they see a spider. I don’t. If it’s a brown recluse or a black widow I may not allow it to live, but I don’t freak out.
I don’t freak out when wasps are flying around my head, either. They aren’t going to attack unless they have a reason….and swatting at them is a pretty good reason to attack.
Some people go into absolute meltdown when ever they see a bug. One woman I know saw the smallest spider you can imagine crawling toward her while we were under an outdoor pavilion at the park. She started screaming and scrambling away. I said, “Jesus! What do you think the spider is going to DO to you?!” When that sunk in she seemed a little sheepish.

How do you react to unwelcome bugs?

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15 Answers

zenvelo's avatar

The only time I freak out is when I see rats.

Bugs don’t bug me.

Stache's avatar

Spiders are my friends.

canidmajor's avatar

Bugs bite me. If a bug is going to bite something, it will bite me. Unprovoked, just out of the blue, it will bite me. Wasps will bring their friends to bite me. Mosquitoes have social media pages devoted to extolling the virtues of biting me. I am 5 stars in the buggy Zagat guide. They don’t freak me out, but I go to extremes to avoid them.
Spiders leave me alone, I don’t know why.

Therapy can help with a phobia, just telling someone they are dumb for being scared will not.

Dutchess_III's avatar

Spiders leave everyone alone.
I don’t react to mosquitoe bites any more. It’s a little odd, but I don’t welt up and itch anymore.
I got over my fear of wasps during a canoe / camping trip my ex and I took many, many moons ago. We found a perfect place to pitch our tent. It was right by a water filled cave and it was on a bluff over looking the river. But to get to it you had to hike a narrow patch that took you to within 2 feet of a bush that was just swarming with wasps. That bush hummed. Once I got over my initial hesitation it was fine. They never once bothered us.

ragingloli's avatar

Only if there are thousands of them, or if they are 2 metres tall.

BackinBlack's avatar

I don’t freak out about spiders or any bugs EXCEPT centipedes. I really, really, really, hate them and I involuntarily screech when one presents itself to me.

We get ones that are about 2 inches long and are almost always hefty, meaty f******. They are so fast and hard to catch and kill, I do not like squishing them because of how big they are. It’s almost like smashing a small animal lol.

If I find one just sitting still it will take my breathe away. The worst is when I pick up the dish sponge and I touch one hiding under it.

It’s an irrational phobia because they rarely bite or even bother you.

I’m always annoyed by people who scream about a bee or wasp…. Those insects make me freeze up until they leave.

I usually save spiders in my house and take them outdoors.

ucme's avatar

One huge fucker crawled across the living room wall one time, it was the size of a cupcake, no bigger, more like a scone.

Anyhoo, it startled me in a way that a teenage boy would feel if he saw his grandma naked, so I hit it with a hammer & moved on.

jca2's avatar

I don’t mind spiders unless they’re actually crawling on me.

Bees, wasps, yellow jackets, hornets, yes, I don’t like having them around. I won’t run screaming but I will jump up and try to get away if they’re buzzing around.

Dutchess_III's avatar

We had just moved to Kansas from Florida. The little kids and I were in the basement when we saw a HUGE, HUGE spider! We went screaming up the stairs. My dad came down poo pooing us, saying, “Now how big could it be? Oh. Yeah. That’s a big one.”
Shit. It was like The Brady Bunch goes to Hawaii. A tropical tarantula had hidden away in one of our packing boxes and came to Kansas with us.
Dad whacked it with a 10 foot 2 X 4.

Dutchess_III's avatar

One morning I got up to get ready to go teach and there was a ginormous wolf spider in my kitchen sink. The damn fool was stupid enough to get in on the garbage disposal side…...

YARNLADY's avatar

I have an irrational fear of spiders that even extends to pictures of them. I have learned not to run away, but I have a complete panic attack. My heart tries to beat itself out of my chest, and my breathing gets difficult whenever I see one .

Dutchess_III's avatar

That would be very scary.
My sister developed a phobia about frogs. The exact same thing happens to her. We can never figure out where it sprang from because she played with frogs when we were little. But now….holy shit. You can’t even joke about it. It’s deadly serious.
Have you guys heard the story of when we went to a hotel for a family reunion and little Chris rounded up a coffee can from somewhere and caught a bunch of frogs and put them in our room. next to the door…..and my sister came in. She was standing about 5” from that can, chatting with us…..Chris started trembling because he wanted to be a brat and tell her. I stopped him cold. It was a royal battle in Seattle that went down right in front of her and she never even knew it.

anniereborn's avatar

I only freak out some if there is a wasp in the house because I worry about my kitty getting to it. Centipedes oog me the fuck out. But other than that I don’t worry. If need be I do catch and release.

Mimishu1995's avatar

Spiders are nothing to me. In my place most spiders are harmless anyway. Big spiders may look scary, but they are just like a slow chubby kid sitting in a corner of the class playing video games instead of playing outside. They never move from their spot, unless they’re seriously disturbed.

I can’t stand cockroaches. They’re nasty creatures with few redeeming qualities. They only range from medium to big in size. They’re hyperactive and unpredictable, you never know when they will run or fly, and they’re super fast when they do. And they ruin everything they touch. It doesn’t help that as a kid I almost had a cockroach climb into my mouth. They clean up trash, that may be the only good thing about them.

Dutchess_III's avatar

Now cockroaches make me throw up a little.

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