A childhood encounter with a spider becomes a reader’s starting point for describing persistent fear, frightening stories and daily avoidance.
This is a reader’s personal account, edited for readability and privacy. Ages and circumstances refer to the time of submission. It is not a clinical assessment.
Well, I wasn’t really afraid of anything until this point of my life. Well of course it started off as a beautiful spring (I didn’t have allergies back then) morning. Sun was shining, birds were chirping you get the picture. It was about 20 or so minutes before our family was to go to church and my older siblings (boys of course) thought that it was a wonderful and amazing idea to go look for roly-polies (call them pill bugs, potato bugs, etc.). As they were common under rocks where I lived so, we went out and were having a grand time when suddenly a piece of my hair moved at the top of my head just out of my sight of vision. I didn’t think much of it I mean it’s hair. A few seconds later it moved again. And again. I still didn’t think of it with wind and all.
Now here is the most terrifying part of it all. A spider. CRAWLS DOWN MY FACE. I’M LIKE 4-5 YEARS OLD. And a daddy long leg too. My brothers had told me the story that daddy longlegs were extremely venomous but had mouths too small to hurt people. That was what I had heard and believed as a child, not a verified fact about the animal. I’ve never screamed so loud in my life. My brothers immediately turned around to see the ginormous spider on my face and think that it’s so incredibly cool that I have been chosen to be the one whom a spider should crawl down on my face (sorry that was worded weird) so, they start patting me on the back and asking me if they can pet it and what its name is. At this point i’m crying but I don’t really know what to do because theres a spider on my face and what do you do when you have a spider on your face? So I just stood there and cried.
My brothers thankfully took it off my face and I ran toward the house bawling my eyes out. Ever since spiders have just terrified me. And my brothers were (and are) really no help. I have heard stories of my brothers friend’s cousin’s other cousin dying because a brown recluse bit him.
In second grade we were learning about them and were told of a spider that bug spray has no effect on. “Bug spray only makes them madder” they told us. They made forts of webs and ate their prey whole. I was also told that an extremely dangerous spider in Australia made its web in toilets and that you had to check before using one (even though i live in the US i checked the toilet for MONTHS afterward). I heard more alarming stories about enormous camel spiders, spiders eating birds and animals waiting in holes for prey. I did not know which stories were accurate. You get the picture: the details frightened me. I. Was. Petrified.
In third grade we were reading an article about spiders. And it included ‘wonderful’ full color pictures of spiders in bubbles they made themselves; them in lakes, ponds, and other small bodies of water. One kid found out that I was afraid of them and promptly cut out all of the pictures of the spiders and taped them to the inside of my desk. Never reached in there until my friend kindly removed them.
The next frightening experience was when I was 12. I was on a camping trip with my church youth group and we had cabins and a deck. None of that was so bad until I noticed a very large and very terrifying spider the size of my fist just hanging out on its web. The entire week I didn’t step foot on that deck. The last day of camp I got the brilliant idea of spraying it with bug spray (of all things) hoping to kill it. It moved when I sprayed it, but did not die. I was acting out of fear. One girl who was ‘one with nature’ if you know what I mean, felt bad for the creature. She wrote me a note asking kindly if I would not do it again. I felt quite nauseous reading it. Now empathy is not hard for me to feel but, empathy for a SPIDER is something I cannot do. Sorry.
My father is also not the person I went to for help with a spider. He thinks they are ‘wonderful things’. A blessing of all things.
Another encounter stayed with me too. I was sitting down on the ground, my back to the wall. My friend is sitting opposite me and suddenly she freezes and is like, “dude, there’s a spider right by your head” and I was like, “Stop playing!” and she was like “no there LEGITLY is a spider next to you. So I look over and there, on the wall next to me, Is. A. Spider. So I flip out, grab my shoe and kill it. Multiple times. I was focused on getting rid of it and did not stop to think about what I was seeing. My friend and I later named the spider ‘Peter’ (sorry to all Peters out there reading this). The incident reminded me how quickly I reacted when a spider was close to me.
I hope this account gives you some insight as to how it’s like living in constant fear of spiders. Thank you for your time and I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors. Thank you.
Editorial note
This account cannot establish a spider’s identity or medical risk. Frightening stories, surprise pictures, and ridicule are not treatment. If fear restricts daily life, a qualified professional can help plan appropriate support while preserving genuine safety precautions.
An online story cannot establish a diagnosis. If fear or distress is affecting your daily life, a qualified healthcare professional can help assess it. Comments and readers’ experiences are not a substitute for individual care.
The “daddy longlegs has deadly venom but cannot bite” story is a myth; the common name also refers to different animals. See UC Riverside’s explanation. “Camel spiders” are a different group of arachnids from true spiders; the Burke Museum discusses common exaggerated stories. These corrections do not make the writer’s distress less real.