A Slightly Hysterical Letter from an [Arachno]phobic to Non-[Arachno]phobics

I’m going to publish this from the MS Word document I just whipped up now because if I wait until the morning when I have calmed down, I will find it too cringey/whiny/ranty/vulnerable to show to the light of day. This is about arachnophobia but could be related to social anxiety or probably any phobia/anxiety problem…

• “Please don’t make light of my phobia just because you don’t understand it. I don’t understand it myself. Before I fully know what’s going on, a thousand red lights have lit up in my brain and I’m screaming and standing on a chair. Please understand I don’t know what I can do to stop that, but I really am sorry that it embarrasses you.

• Please just be glad you don’t have the same problem and help me to have the shortest and least traumatic experience possible.

• Please don’t try and force me to face my fear. If you do this when I am at my most irrational, this will impress itself in my head as something I will be afraid to do even when I am back in a rational frame of mind. Only I can make the choice to face my fear. You probably don’t know how to face this fear, so please don’t act like you think you do.

• Please don’t tell me off for panicking… when I’m panicking…

• Please don’t use my phobia for a prank. I know you mean it in a spirit of fun but doing this tells me you aren’t even trying to imagine the fear I’m feeling or that you think I’m only exaggerating a petty fear. I really desperately wish you would understand but this is the strongest evidence to me that you do not.

• Right now I can’t imagine how I will live the rest of my life with this level of fear in these situations. I’ve imagined some extreme scenarios relating to this, and the unfortunate truth is that many of them are plausible.

• Please don’t laugh at my fear, because then I will have to deal not only with my fear, but with an increasing distrust towards humanity. Please don’t feed that.

• Even if you think I might be an attention seeker exaggerating a fear that isn’t such a big deal, please give me the benefit of the doubt and treat it with discretion anyway. In case I really am out in the deep end.

•  I really am out in the deep end.

Sincerely,
Arachnophobe”