I had hypnotherapy for arachnophobia and was immediately handed a tarantula. Here’s what happened.
Content warning: this article contains chat about, and blurry pics of, hairy spiders.
An audio version of this article is available below (narrated by me):
Editor: “Jo, what are you scared of?”
Me: “Being kidnapped by the reincarnation of Ted Bundy and gesturing for help through the window of his VW Bug, only for the person I’m waving at to think I’m just saying ‘hello’ and wave cheerily back. Why?”
Editor: “Oh. I meant more like: ‘do you have any phobias?’”
Me: “Yes, spiders. Why? OMG, IS THERE ONE ON ME? IS IT IN MY HAIR?”
That’s a verbatim retelling of the conversation between myself and an editor, 11 years ago, that saw me accept a commission to confront my fear of spiders. The magazine was sending journalists with different fears to test various ‘cures’. I was to attend the ‘Friendly Spider Programme’ at London Zoo where I’d be hypnotised and then promptly handed a large tarantula.
“We’ll be sending a photographer along to snap you holding the tarantula for the cover shot,” my editor said.
“Sounds like every nightmare I’ve had for the past five years,” I replied. “Sign me up.”
A wolf at the door
Every arachnophobe has a story – a moment that tipped their muted dislike, or even indifference, into react-like-you’ve-just-been-tasered terror. This is mine.
While studying at Birmingham University, I moved into a house that had previously been empty for years. It was cold, draughty – and home to a family of wolf spiders.
Wolf spiders are simply the worst things on earth. (Australians, please allow me this for now.) They are massive, black, fast, they bite and – *swallows down sick* – they can jump.
They’re ‘proper’ spiders. The kind that look back at you. That take up residence in your bedroom and say, “You think I’m more scared of you than you are of me? DOES IT LOOK LIKE I BLOODY AM? PISS OFF.”
And you know what you do? You piss off. That room is theirs now.
Why did the spider cross the road?
I had numerous interactions with these chaps.
One time, I unlocked the front door and was immediately confronted by a specimen the size of a rabbit loitering on the wall at eye-height, inches from my face. I reversed straight back out and asked the ratbag kids next door (who’d later go onto rob our house, FYI) if they could get it for me. They collectively refused to go anywhere near it. A dad was summoned who tried and failed to fit a pint glass over it. Much screaming and whooping ensued as this mobile nightmare unit (as Charlie Brooker once described them) dropped to the floor and skittered madly towards us.
One time, I suddenly woke up… but didn’t know why. Call it intuition. I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, and watched as big black legs curled slowly over the top of the headboard. (My skin prickles now just remembering it.) 10 minutes later, my flatmate and her boyfriend had almost convinced me that I’d obviously dreamed the whole thing up, when suddenly the boyfriend shouted, “Holy shit!” opened the window, bundled up my duvet and hurled the whole thing outside.
We all rushed to look and – I swear on all things non-spidery – we saw it cross the road. That’s how big it was.
A year after that debacle, I dreamed that one bit me on the face. Waking up, I immediately spotted a spider on the wall and realised my eye hurt. During the day, my eye swelled up until I couldn’t see. A doctor had to drain fluid from it, explaining how I’d had an allergic reaction to a spider bite. She had found fang marks.
So, yes. I had my reasons.
Along came a spider
Cut to London Zoo’s ‘Friendly Spider Programme’ in 2012: an afternoon with a zookeeper and therapist based around providing information, debunking myths, some cognitive behavioural therapy and, finally, group hypnotherapy.
First, about 20 of us were ushered into a lecture hall where we were told how the room had been swept for spiders (literally) and also that there would be no images of them shown during the presentation. I hadn’t even realised that I’d been checking the room for spiders until they said that, which made me wonder if I did it in every room. Survival instinct.
Asked to share how this fear had affected our lives, I quickly realised my story was small fry. One woman had called the fire brigade four times just to catch spiders. Another had moved house after finding a nest of dead ones. One man had smashed his boyfriend’s watch to smithereens with a shoe thinking the curved straps were legs. Another hadn’t visited his family in Australia for 15 years due to the spider sitch out there. (Reasonable, we all nodded).
The therapist explained what phobias are, which parts of the brain they affect, and why all rationality goes flying out of the window when you see what you’re scared of. He explained how arachnophobia is particularly unfair (sucks to be you, other phobias!) because spiders are present in daily life. Many phobias can be avoided – not so spiders, seeing as they live in our shoes.
Repeat after me: they’re not ugly
Next, the resident spider expert explained why spiders do what they do. For example, when they run straight for the sofa you’re sitting on, they’re not trying to gnaw your feet – they’re aiming for the dark space away from the TV as they don’t like noise.
He also explained how they’re not actually ugly (yah, sure), but perfect evolutionary marvels. Their webs make us humans look like useless turds. And they’re good for the environment. And pest control. Finally, he said that they never want to be up in your face. It’s always an accident. They just want to be left alone.
“Yeah, but one bit me on the face when I was asleep,” I muttered.
Hypnotherapy and house spiders
During the group hypnotherapy session, I remember lying on the floor next to someone’s feet thinking, “This is total tripe and soon I’m going to have to hold a sodding tarantula.”
‘Hypnotherapy is a heightened state of concentration and focused attention in which you’re guided – via verbal cues, repetition and imagery – to modify or replace unconscious thoughts that drive current behaviour.’ I was sceptical, I’ll be honest. Mainly because I was terrified. The stakes were high. Without this photograph of me holding the sodding spider, the feature would be ruined. Even though it was meant to be a true account of whether I overcame my fears, I wasn’t a fool – I knew a pic of me holding a massive hairy spider would look much better than a pic of me sprinting out of the zoo.
So, while the therapist was repeating calming mantras and visualisations of clouds (I definitely remember something about clouds), I genuinely believed that it wasn’t doing what it was meant to be doing.
I felt sick during the slow walk to the invertebrate section of the Tiny Giants enclosure, where, to pass the course, we’d have to place a container over a British house spider, slide a piece of card under it and lift it up, proving that we could deal with spiders in normal life.
By this point, the chirpy photographer had arrived. “Ooh, you're brave!” she said. “Wouldn’t catch me doing this!” I did consider biting her on the face.
Once in the spider building, a man directed me to, “Put your hand in and let the spider run over it,” indicating a clear box holding a rabid house spider. “Absolutely not,” I snorted.
Then I calmly stuck my hand in and let the spider run over it. “Brill, now with two,” the man said, moving me to the next box. And so I did. I casually stuck my hand into a box in which two huge house spiders were scuttling about like they were on acid.
When he released a spider on the table, I calmly put a container over it, slid a piece of cardboard under it and lifted it up. Just like that. “Witchcraft,” I gasped.
Every single person on my course passed. Some cried and shook as they put the container over the spider – but they all did it. It was extraordinary. Then, as a ‘treat’, you were allowed to hold a Mexican red-knee tarantula and I was first in line. It was weirdly cute. Like a proper animal. The house spiders were much scarier.
Call me Spider-Woman
I have absolutely no idea what happened to me during that afternoon at London Zoo, but it changed my life. 11 years on, I still don’t like spiders, but I can deal with them. They don’t stop me from doing things.
Sure, I’ve had blips. Once, in Margate, a spider was hanging over my bedroom door and I couldn’t leave the room. A friend had to come over (I think I dropped the house keys out of the window) and remove it for me. But that was because I felt trapped. If I’m not cornered, I can catch them and throw them outside.
Without doubt though, the biggest change is that I don’t dream about them anymore. I went from having night terrors about spiders to not having a single spider dream in a decade.
It’s a goddamn revelation.
Just One More Thing…
The therapist said something that stuck with me: seeing a spider is nearly always a surprise – a spider is not ‘meant’ to be in your sink, your bath or your shoe. Therefore, feeling a jolt of surprise is a totally natural reaction; it is how you respond to anything that suddenly occurs which is out of the ordinary. However, surprise is not always a precursor to fear – nor is it always negative. It does not always lead to the fight, flight or freeze response. “Do not mistake the feeling of surprise for fear,” he said. “It is your body’s way of working out what’s happening and how to react. You haven’t ‘failed’ this course if you’re surprised. You’d be inhuman if you weren’t, so cut yourself some slack.”
I feel like surprise is one of the least talked about, but most interesting physiological responses, so I’ll definitely be chatting more about it in the future. But for now, it’s a good note to end on, I reckon.
If you enjoyed this article, I’d massively appreciate it if you’d subscribe or share (or both!). It really helps. Also, do you have a phobia? Have you ever tried hypnotherapy? I’m incredibly curious to know how other people have dealt with theirs. Let me know in the comments!
Until next time, sweet dreams, campers!
I LOVED this, Jo, excellent writing with a genuinely inspiring message!