How do you know if you arachnophobic?!
Question: Every time I see a spider I literally get shivers and run. Am I arachnophobic?
Answers: Every time I see a spider I literally get shivers and run. Am I arachnophobic?
Maybe, but not necessarily.
Some of your response is reflexive, some is learned, and some is the result of conscious thought.
It's natural to reflexively avoid certain perceived dangers (e.g. jerking your hand 2 feet away from the hot stove -- it would have been just as effective to calmly put your hand in your pocket, but you reflexively jerked it way back -- that doens't mean you have thermophobia, the fear of heat).
It's also natural to perform socially acceptable learned behavior. In the old movies, the sterotypical woman is supposed to scream and jump on a chair whenever she sees a mouse. You'd think by watching old movies that every woman had musophobia, the fear of mice. In actuality, any individual woman may or may not have been afraid, but they were performing a socially acceptable response to demonstrate their womanhood.
It's also natural to make conscious decisions about what to do in certain situations. If you decide that it helps you in some way to maintain your own identity (for yourself or those around you) by shivering and running from spiders in certain circumstances then that doesn't make you arachophobic.
A true phobia, must among other things, be something that disrupts your normal life. Shivering and running from spiders, in and of itself, does not qualify. However, if you were a champion golfer and your response to spiders on the course caused you to miss shots and lose money then that might qualify. Or if there was a spider in your car and you responded hysterically by crossing the median and colliding with another car, then that would qualify. The disruption need not be as significant as that, but it truly needs to be disruptive in order to qualify as a phobia.
Yes!
Yup. Arachnophobia is an irrational fear of spiders. If the sight of one sends you running, that seems a little over the top. As long as your otherwise functioning fine, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
yes
I think so.
but is it because it's a spider or because of the number of "legs" ?
Could you sleep knowing that there is a big one in your bedroom ?
Could you hold one in your hand if it was to save your life ?
yep
Yep, so am I. I freak out and run and scream. I put on quite a show actually, my family laughs. I don't find it funny. They play jokes on me with fake spiders... grrrr
when im checking my shoes and clothes before i use it just to make sure that there is no Spiders! when i felt something walking on my hand,i immediately jump and try to cahse that things away cause im afraid it is spiders..
I think you run because you know they can bite and some can be poisonous.
I can't even sleep at night because I'm scared of spiders. If I think of them I have to quickly think of something else. I always have to check corners of rooms, inside cars and i jump if anything brushes against me.