Arachnophobia Case

Today I am going to talk about my biggest fear, spiders, a.k.a. arachnophobia. I will talk about my family history, some facts on arachnophobia, and how to get over this fear. While being afraid of spiders is common today, my family and I seem to be able to take it over the edge at times.

Transition: First, I will talk about arachnophobia in my family.

* Family History

In my family you are either deathly afraid of spiders or snakes, for my 27 year old cousin, 20 year old brother, and I, it's spiders. For example, one time when my cousin, Brooks, was driving he saw a spider of his windshield, freaked out, and totaled his car by driving it into a tree in a park. Or the time when my brother, Jack, and his girlfriend, Emily, were at his apartment and found a huge spider in the corner of a shelf, instead of being a man, Jack decided to make Emily get down with a mirror and make the spider come out so he could then trap it. Little did Emily know once she got the spider out Jack was running down the hall, leaving Emily to kill the spider and get rid of it. My example would be when Megan dropped Sam Sutton's fake huge spider on a table at lunch and turned it on so it would move, causing me to jump up, scream, run away, and probably almost cry. In the words of Megan "It was so worth it!" For my personal arachnophobia, if I see a spider or hear the word spider, I will have nightmares and starting kicking at night. Also just the word freaks me out, so I have my friends call them ladybugs. Sometimes my friends like to prank me with spiders, or even Coach Kruger, like when he threw a fake spider at my desk in English one time, not knowing just how afraid I was. He soon almost regretted it when I freaked out and starting spazzing on the floor. To help you visualize my fear of spiders, think of a million tiny spiders crawling on you. This is the feeling I get by just seeing a spider. While I am afraid of all types of bugs, spiders are the worst to me. Technically not all spiders are poisonous, but most are, and most to me means all.

Transition: Now for some facts on arachnophobia.

* Facts:

Arachnophobia is one of the most common specific phobias. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines arachnophobia as a pathological fear or loathing of spiders. People who are afraid of spiders will go to great lengths to ensure that they are not anywhere close to a spider. Such as, not participating in activities that have a higher risk of being close to a spider. Some of the symptoms of arachnophobia include: sweating, rapid breathing, a quickened heartbeat, nausea, and dizziness. This description of what people with arachnophobia do, describes me well: "Either screaming and running away or freezing in place. You may be unable to kill or trap the spider yourself,