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I was making my bed this morning when a large wolf spider sprung out from under my pillow and ran over the top of my hand.Im sure everyone in a 2 block radius heard my scream and the profanities that followed.I have even been bitten by my own tarantula and never let out a whimper,i was drunk.What is it with these evil multiple eyed freaks that scares the p#ss out of me?It has taken me 22 years and alot of beer to overcome my fear of these obviously dangerous and life threatening beasts.Im gonna tear my bed apart tonite before i go to sleep and anything that feels out of the normal will result in me tearing my bed apart till i feel safe.Im hoping it wont take another 22 years for me to get the guts enough to hold a spider again.And to think i was sad when my goliath bird eater died a month ago...Spider people dont get mad at my post,with just one exception all my bugs die of old age...Anyone else get creeped out by spiders?...Paul..

Don't feel bad, friend. My wife loves snakes and yet is terrified even of common house spiders. At least this one was a wolf spider!

Yes, I am deathly afraid of spiders. I am also afraid of all kinds of rodents and birds. It's weird though. If I can see a spider before I am just surprised by one then i'm ok. Sometimes I even pick them up. They scare the [bleep] out of me when I'm walking through the woods and run into a spider web in the trees and it gets all over my face and in my hair. Rodents..............blah. If their dead that's fine that's what I feed my snakes. If their alive I don't have anything to do with them. This goes for rats, mice, rabbits, and especially squirrels. The only time I will mess with one is if I have to feed and of my snakes live food(hardly ever happens). If someone threw a basket of squirrels and spiders at me then I would die of heart failure right there. If someone threw a basket of snakes on me then I would die from sheer excitement. I don't have any fear of anything with scales at all.

Snakes sometimes scare me, especially when I find them where they don't belong. Jester, one of our kingsnakes, has escaped twice, the first time he climbed into bed with us, second time he climbed into the toilet. Silly snake. But SPIDERS... ICK.

I lived in Utah to go to college. One day I casually look up at my ceiling and noticed it was moving. I looked closer and there must have been a THOUSAND spiders on the ceiling. now I've made a pact with teh "Spider Nation" ... if I don't see them, they get to live... but JIMINY! 1000 spiders crawling on my ceiling?!? I immediately left and went out and bought some bug killer, which I can't stand, but when left with a choice between 1000 spiders or evil pesticide, I chose the pesticide.

After I sprayed my room thouroughly, I slept on the couch. The next day I walked into my room, and it was a surreal nightmare. The spiders (babies) had all spun webs and descended only to have the poison kill them so the room was a forest of spider webs with little dead spiders.

I've been dead creeped out by spiders ever since.
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~Sasheena

if that happened to me, I'd be afraid of spiders too! GROSS!

I actually don't mind spiders. If I see them in the house, I will grab larger ones by a leg and put them outside, but the little fast ones I just point out to a cat and then there's no more spidey They are creepy, and I wouldn't ever want to be in a room with thousands of them, but one here and there doesn't bother me.

Show me a boxelder bug though and I'll freak!
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Dianne
AKA IcedGoddess
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a couple of weeks ago I was standing at my back door smoking a cigarette when the bigest spider i've ever seen in maryland drops down and whithin a few inches of my face.I screamed like a little girl.I called everyone over to see it and as each one saw it the also let out a scream.I must have unloaded more the half a can of spider killer on the evil @ss son of a b#tch.But let me encounter a timber ratler on a walk through the woods one day and my eyes would light up like a kid on xmas morning.
I clean my snake cages on my back deck with a hose if it starts to get dark before i'm done I have to get my wife to go under the deck to turn the sprocket off.She's not near as afriad of the spiders under there as me.
I've even considered getting a pet spider to help break my phobia.I know that people have unrealistic fears of snakes but I can't seem to get over my own unrealistic fear of spiders.I'm starting to itch just thinking about them.
I feel better now every body knows what a wimp I am and I don't have to stay in the closet anymore.lol

This got me to thinking.

I'm certainly not phobic of spiders, and in fact I've always been somewhat fascinated by them. But...many of them have always made me a bit nervous. I won't pick most up with my hand, only tarrantulas (sp) and a few like jumping spiders that I know are harmless.

After thinking about this post for minute I realize that the whole problem is that I don't know much about them, like which ones can be harmful other than the obvious ones.

Pretty much the same reason a lot of people are afraid of snakes!!!

I'll have to fix this... Anyone know any good general spider pages?
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Larry D. Fishel
Side effects may include paralysis
and death but are generally mild.

Have you ever seen one of those Jerusalem Cricket thingies? I think they are also called Potato Bugs. I guess they are native to California and parts of Mexico. They look like a cross between an ant, a bee and a fetus. I know they are harmless but they are so creepy they bring out this primal need in me to destroy them. I found one in my bed as a kid and I went crazy tearing up my room and screaming. My parents probably thought a serial killer was in the house. I wouldn't sleep in my own room for like a month.

Black widows get to me too. I was helping my mom clean out her garage one time and I swear they were jumping on us from the rafters on purpose. I think they are actually evil. I don't like them because they are sneaky, and they could be anywhere.

Oddly enough tarantulas don't bother me. I even held one once. Mostly I don't like things that are venomous or potentially painful. I am not a big fan of stumbling into a litter of opussoms in the dark. Those teeth are huge...
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Anna

Corns
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>>There is nothing I fear more then spiders...except maybe my wife when I piss her off.....LOL
I had my arm swell to almost twice it's normal size from a spider bite and from that time on I have had a serious loathing for spiders.
There is a "writing" or garden spider in my yard that knows this too.
Several mornings this year I have had a face full of spider and spider web while walking to my car for work. If any of my neighbors could have seen the way I was dancing around and waving my arms like a mad man they would have called the local asylum to see if I had escaped...lol
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Remember, my posts are MY opinion only.
Jimmy (draybar)

I love spiders as long as they are contained or not in my bed my first "wierd" pet was a little black widow. By the time she died (at almost 2 years old)she was the biggest black widow i had ever seen. she ate so much that her butt wasn't really black but a maroonish red color. I wish i had taken pictures! I really want a tarantula or a goliath bird eater but my snakes take precedence so i'll just wait till i have more room LOL

I am really scared of brown recluses though because of how much damage they cause and how fast and unnoticeable they are.
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~~~Amy~~~
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You have touched upon a subject I have noticed for years. What it boils down to is basic human fear of what is not understood. The vast majority of folks terrified by spiders have never been given reason to be so be it through a bite or any other action and in fact they are one of the most benificial creatures on earth removing tons of pestiferous insects.

Myself I have several hundred Tarantulas ( keep , breed, and sell them ) and the main reason I got into them was the incredible variety with over 800 species of them out there. Keep in mind this is only the number of Tarantulas as the number of spider species is in the thousands. All Tarantulas are harmless and the vast majority of spiders are harmless to humans even counting the widows and recluses which tend to only be a problem for the elderly and very young as well as those with compromised immune systems.

I have over the years found it higly amusing that snake folks will freely handle retics and other species which can deliver a far more damaging bite than a T but run like a screaming school girl at the mere sight of a big T. All it takes is seeing the beauty in the colorful species and looking past the blind fear to appreciate these fascinating animals. Over 500 million years old and one of the most succesful creatures on earth.

Anyone wanting a good site on them should check out arachnopets.com currwently the best site going on the subject and for pics there are a ton of them at birdspiders.com or I have a good bit at my site redwibneexotics.com.

Phil

Make that redwineexotics.com lol hit the b key while typing in the dark. Though another pic might be enjoyed as well.

Phil

Most spiders are fascinating.My Th.B. bird eater died a month ago.I still have one im not even sure of the name it's one i bought for 5 bucks and there the most common in petstores.Im always checking out Bill's site at invertipet and there are alot i would like to add to my collection.I cant explain my abnormal fear of them.They dont scare me when there behind glass.Were i live you dont have to walk very far without running into a black widow or work in the garden to find brown recluses.That wolf spider that ran across my hand at the speed of light was like sticking a fork into a toaster for me.Im grinding my teeth just thinking about it now.I will calm down in a few weeks and i garauntee you i will jump back into the saddle again.I will check out your website and dont give up hope on us yet....Paul.

I'm not afraid of spiders, but I've never been bitten badly by one. I've seen black widows, but I guess I've been lucky. My apartment is surrounded by spiders and I often stare at the interesting ones. I'm actually not really creeped out by ANY animal, and I think it's sort of a defect, like I was dropped on my head as a baby or something. I'm not horribly fond of yellow jackets, fire ants, and giant centipedes, but I'm not creeped out or terrified of them.
But if you think about it, the bug we should REALLY be afraid of is mosquitos. They kill more people in the US than spiders. In fact, spiders barely kill anyone, even black widows. But our brains just aren't wired to be logical, are they?
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

Try waking up with a huge spider (don't know what it was called) on your pillow staring straight at you less then 4" from your face. I admit it, I screamed, grabbed my alarm clock and killed it.
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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

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I'm not afraid of spiders, but I don't like to be surprised by any animal. In your situation, I would have screamed too

Here's a picture of a black widow I took at work last summer.

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1.0 Normal corn, "Mulder"

1.1 cockatiels "Farley" and "Snickerdoodle"
and 1.0 mutt "Logan"

Unfortunately, I'm the same way...just can't cope with anything having more than four legs. *shivers* If bugs get in my house, my other half has to 'save' me - that includes crickets, spiders, you name it...there's very few bugs that don't outright give me the willies. My friends are endlessly amused by the fact that I will pick up just about any snake with no fear but will run out of the room over a cricket. For the most part, I try not to kill anything but I'm afraid that if it's in the house it's fair game. That is, with one exception, I have a pair of very tiny spiders living in my spare bathroom. They eat the ants that sneak in through that window and for that I leave them alone - but if they come out of that bathroom..........