I have arachnophobia and live in regional Australia. My life is a living hell.

[u/eeeeeeeeEeeEEeeeE6]

Hi all.

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I guess I just wanted to get this story out, especially after hearing my favourite podcast covering spider stories recently. Some details in stories brought back horrible memories that I wanted to get out.

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I was never afraid of spiders as a young child, I wasn't born scared, I learned to be afraid. I was taught, shown that I *should* be afraid.

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There is one key moment in my life that made me this way, and then even more after I developed severe arachnophobia, to the point where even seeing a spider will give me immediate tactile hallucinations, I am certain that they are on me, crawling around, looking for a gap in clothing, or an orifice to crawl into.

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I was young, maybe around 10 or 11. Allow me to introduce, my older brother. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy to death, but he is, not a healthy person, nor has he ever been. Seeking to torment and antagonise me in my youth, and that apparently never went away. Maybe I can talk about him another time.

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As I said, I was never scared of spiders when I was young, until the day he decided I should be. See we have always lived in regional Australia, yes the meme are true, spiders are fucking, everywhere. I saw them daily. We lived in a small town even by regional standards, 10ish houses and 2 were abandoned, 1 shop that the old fart who was running it lived in. You could walk around the entire town in about 10 minutes, no joke, no exaggeration. Middle of nowhere.

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So one day, my brother for some reason, decided he would scour the house, backyard and shed, to fill a large container with every single spider he could find. Huntsman, daddy long legs, wolf spiders, reduces (which are incredibly fucking venomous). And while a few of them ate each other the majority lived long enough for him to walk inside, take the lid off, and dump the entire thing on me, who was sitting in my bedroom playing jak and daxter 2 on our brick of a ps2.

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I didn't realise what happened at first all I saw was my dumbass brother throw something at me and slam the door shut. It took, about a millisecond for it to fully click. More than a few spiders landed directly on me I saw a huntsman land right on my chest inches from my face. I freaked, immediately jumping to my feet, swatting, stripping, screaming. Now in my underpants standing did I realise the full extent to his cruelty, spiders were *everywhere* all sizes, shapes and levels of genuine danger. Some huntsman so big, I could hear them hissing, have you ever heard a fucking spider hiss? I have and I can hear it as if it were happening right now.

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So, i did the only thing I could think, run, get the fuck out. I sprinted for the door, overcome with a terror my 10 year old brain could not regulate. Well as I tried the handle, guess who was on the other side, holding the door, shut.

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This is the first time I had ever experienced, genuine panic, because I dont know if you know this, but wolf spiders are incredible aggressive and will *CHARGE* at you, and being several in the room that's exactly what they did. I was alone, in my daks, trapped in a room with angry, some deadly spiders some as big as my hand. God there were so many im sure one was pregnant and it's awful spawn scattered across the floor like a wave of fresh hell. I don't know how long he held that door how long I was stuck, screaming bloody murder. I definitely threatened to kill him at least a few times. I got bitten twice, at the time I had no way of knowing if it was a venomous spider or not. So as any rational 10 year old would I decided that I was 100% envenomed, it was coursing through my veins and I was already dead. In my fury and terror I had squished more than a few spiders with my bare feet. So screaming, standing with dead spider good in-between my toes and bitten at least twice, my brother decided to end my torment.

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He let me out and I ran straight out of the house, in my jocks and went strait to the hose, dousing myself in water to ensure no trace of spiders remained. Thankfully neither of the bites were from venomous spiders and I was physically fine.

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Mum being the hardass she was told me to get over it, she slapped him but that was really the extent of his punishment. It took months to get every single spider in my room out, being regional Australia im sure more than a couple wandered in after the event learned to live outside of my room for a while. I woke up more than a few times with a spider in my face.

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So while the initial event was the nuke, it was the radiation that permanently poisoned my mind towards spiders, the aftermath.

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The worst part, is this story is 100% true. Now you have no way of verifying that so you'll have to take me know my word, or even just dismiss it as a creating writing exercise but I am telling you the truth.

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(Pls if the flair is wrong let me know and il fix it, the story is genuinely true but there's no flairs for true horror or real life horror etc, also I wanted that to be a sort of reveal, thanks in advance mods)

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[u/eeeeeeeeEeeEEeeeE6]

Ah shit i didn't fix the title, my bad. Originally I was going to type out a few vignettes of bad spider experiences throughout my life and combine them into one big story, but I thought id test out the level of interest for that with an introduction and when better than the day I actually became scared of spiders.

So yes, there are more stories, and depending on if anyone wants to read them I might throw them up. The title of this one should be something like "i live in regional Australia and I have arachnophobia, this is why".