Come with me while I get over my fear of spiders

My mum says that when I was a kid, I used to love learning about insects, including spiders but somewhere along the line I have developed this innate aversion to them. There’s something so alien about them, like I don’t know what kind of secrets they’re holding, or if they’re capable of changing my body’s composition. It got to a point where, in my London house when all my housemates were out, I saw a house spider on the staircase and I was stuck upstairs.

This was the first time someone other than my family has seen this embarrassing side of me. I didn’t come across any in uni, strangely. I must have walked past it without seeing it because I just went up to grab something and suddenly it was there.

I have seen some things that would supposedly shock me, such as sensational news, but this spider is what elicited such an organic, dramatic reaction out of me. I almost gagged, my jaw had dropped and I didn’t know where to go (I almost went into someone’s room). My housemates, house manager and instagram followers were subject to an over-exaggerated, self-centred freak-out. I even offered to pay if someone would come and take care of it for me. But people are busy so once they came to my rescue, it was too late.

While I was waiting, I tried to write a post (Comment la Tamise Fait-elle Ressemblance à l’Europe?), but I could not get that spider out of my head. Every brush of my hair or tingle from my clothes felt like something crawling and I couldn’t risk it being a spider. I was hyper-aware of them. And the more I spoke of it, the more embarrassed I became that I couldn’t get my laptop because of a dumb spider. I could hardly look at it. And the worst part was that when one of my housemates came home, she brought my laptop and the rest of my food up to me. I’m such a baby.

But my gut just kept telling me to get away. People use the cup method to get rid of spiders, but what will happen if I do it? Knowing me, it will probably go wrong. I don’t want something jumping on me when I don’t know what it can do.

So, I thought that rather than tackling the beast straight on, let’s start off with looking at images of spiders because my fear is more about their appearance rather than their bites. But this strategy just made me uncomfortable.

It was when I turned to YouTube for reassurance that spiders aren't scary, typing in "spiders are cute" or "spiders are misunderstood." I need more information about them, how they work and live to try and make connections between them and humans. I owe a lot of thanks to Travis McEnery's channel and his nerdery for spiders. I believe that the spider that I saw on the staircase was a Giant House Spider (Eratigena atrica), with the abdomen being slightly smaller than the head but the whole thing being really quite big. I could not get close to it at all so I don't really know, I'm just going with the scariest one.

In one of Travis' videos on 'the spiders in your house', I've learnt that Giant House Spiders, Hobo Spiders and Barn Funnel Weavers all have quite bad eyesight and navigate the world through touch, which is enhanced by the little hairs on their legs (which I stupidly forgot to add to my stencil sketch above). Basically, they sense what's there through vibrations in the ground and feeling for shapes. I know this is quite a common trait in insects and small animals would be able to do, but I didn't trust spiders until now. I thought they wanted to whisper something into my ear or something when they would run towards me, but just turns out they think I'm like a fly or whatever. But once they realise I am huge and intimidating, they're happy to leave. In the video I linked in this paragraph, Travis' spider Gary doesn't bite him even when he's trapped between human fingers and instead just taps his hand and politely moves on when released. I wish I had old guy Gary (R.I.P Gary).

The second part of that subject features Travis' spiders interacting with lego and running away from – get this – cheese. Stupid cheese. He does a fantastic job in demonstrating the different personalities in these quirky spiders. Rachel, Thalia, Gary, Toopy – they all have different little habits and patience levels. I get it. Much like Thalia the Barn Funnel Spider, I, too, get a little hot-headed when someone (usually other people and not cheese) tests me but when it comes to defence, all I can do is scare them a bit.

Spiders can be so pretty, but not these big brown ones. But as I was drawing this Giant House Spider, I could see the pattern its legs create and the type of creative life it might lead. Plus, you can't be scared of anything when it has a heart right next to it. It's much easier to not be scared of the incredibly cute and polite Jumping spider. These guys come in so many different colours, too.

I mean how, just how, can you say no to that face?! More info about Jumping Spiders ––> Arachnomoria.

I'm beginning to understand now that spiders really don't care about you. Whether they're cellar spiders, creepy house spiders or scrappy little orb-weavers, they just want to get on with their lives of eating and reproducing. They are too busy, they have so many duties to get entangled in the affairs of a human. In that sense, we humans are actually quite similar to spiders. Not like pesky flies that seem to wander erratically. They're not so different and not so scary after all.