Tag D&L. (Part 1) hello I used to have bad arachnophobia which was made worse by my general anxiety at the time. If I saw a spider outside my house then I would stay at my bf's house for a week. I couldn't even say the word spider out loud. After I had CBT for my anxiety, the phobia subsided and although I still couldn't touch one, I could now look at them. Recently, I've been having dreams and thoughts again about spiders being around me and just generally scaring me....
...(part 2 D&L) Some nights I can't sleep because if I close my eyes then I see images of spiders and I freak out. My anxiety hasn't come back though, unless you count being scared of the spiders as being anxious. Now that winter is coming, I am constantly on edge because they'll be in the house. I don't want to live the rest of my life with this ridiculous irrational fear. Help? Thank you for listening
I am sorry that you are experiencing these negative thoughts again, but I am really glad to hear that you received treatment for your anxiety and it is not as severe as it once was - that’s such good news!
It is important to remember that when experiencing things like anxiety and phobias, there will always be periods when the fear returns - that doesn’t mean the progress you made is wasted! You’ve done so well to come as far as you have so you should be really proud of yourself <3 Something you may find helpful to remember is that having an anxiety about a creature like a spider is rooted in our survival instincts - not wanting a creature to attack you or even be near you is completely normal because it goes against our natural instinct to survive. You are not bad or wrong for having this fear, lovely.
I think that it is important to try and keep applying some of the techniques that you developed in CBT, these will be individual to you, but try and focus on the things you found effective previously and try to incorporate them back into your life. Here are links to our self-help and calming down pages. Grounding techniques may also be useful for when your thoughts are escaping you and panic is taking control. I recommend something physical like running your hands under ice cold water, but you could try something non-physical like saying the alphabet forwards and then backwards slowly; these techniques help to bring your thoughts back to reality and away from some of the bad things you might be thinking. I also think it’s important to note that if this is something that you feel like you want to work on, you always have the option of returning to therapy or trying a new therapeutic approach - I have no personal experience so cannot comment on the effectiveness of it, but I have heard that the use of hypnotherapy has really helped people with phobias, maybe you could have a look into something like this?
To help you to keep spiders out of the house, I have a couple of tricks that you could try. Firstly, conkers! I’m not sure what these are called in other countries, but i’m sure google will be able to shed some light. Conkers appear to deter spiders so in Autumn if you able to go out and collect some conkers, you can then put them in the corners of rooms in your home and on windowsills and it will decrease the amount that enter your home. Also essential oils like peppermint are great for deterring spiders because they hate strong smells - again if you can place this around your home it will hopefully help to keep some of the spiders away!
I hope this has been of some reassurance for you, lovely. Please don’t hesitate to get back in touch if there is anything else that we can do for you. Take care,
