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shadowkatIt's October, which means everyone feels the need to decorate for Halloween. This normally would not be an issue except for one minor little problem - spiders. People like decorate for Halloween with Spiders. Plastic spiders. Stuffed Spiders. Paper Spiders. Why, I've no idea. Can't they use ghosts, globlins, and cats? There's some perfectly fine alternatives.
But no, my neighborhood is into spiders.
So...I am heading towards work bright and early on Tuesday morning. It's 6:45 am. The sun has barely woken up. Got all my stuff together, am a bit bleary eyed from lack of sleep. I walk down the two flights of steps to the front door. I live on the third floor of a brownstone. There's only one entrance. We have on outside door and an inside door, with a small foyer between the two, where mail gets dumped. Both sets of doors are wood with a window in the middle of them, with a big oval window above the top of the front door. As I reach the inside door, I glance up and there it is. A monster gray spider perched in the oval window above the front door, staring down at me - the window behind it serving as its web (which would look really cool, if you are anyone but me). I yelp and leap back. Take a few deep breaths. Look at it again. It's stuffed. It's gray. It has two beady red eyes. It's somewhat furry, but not overly so. In short, it is a fake stuffed spider that the downstairs neighbors have decided to put in the window above the front door, to greet everyone who leaves and enters, and to peer down at me as I pick up the mail. How sweet of them.
ME: Okay it's fake. Not real. Totally fine. Just a stuffed spider. You can pass under it.
It won't eat you. Think Charlotte. You like Charlotte. (As in Charlotte's Web). This will be okay.
And I manage finally to leave the building, trying not to worry about the spider peering down at me. Once I'm outside on the stoop, I turn around and discover downstairs neighbors have put another large stuffed, and far hairier spider on the outside wall on their bottom window, so that it looks like it is crawling up the side of the building. Which would also look really cool if you aren't phobic of spiders. And inside the windows, just parallel to the top of the large stoop and front door, are arched, wide eyed black cats and another large stuffed spider.
Okay, I think. Fake. I glance back up at the one in the overhead window. Again, fake.
On the way home, I repeat to myself, this is fake. It's not real. You are fine.
This I do every day this week. I did it four times yesterday. Yet, for some bizarre reason, my pulse races, my heart speeds up, and I get nervous every time I exit beneath the big stuffed spider. I know it is not real. I am well aware it is fake. It looks fake.
But I still can't quite convince myself that it won't come to life and grab me. This is silly I know. I'm aware of this.
It's also hilarious when you think about it. I've been cracking jokes about this all week long to people. In an attempt to convince myself that it is fake and to laugh at it. Yes, I'm trying not to be afraid of the big fake stuffed spider hanging in the window above the foyer to my building. A Halloween decoration. Can we think of anything more insane?
Spent twenty minutes discussing this with a friend last night. And the friend pointed out that I clearly had a suppressed memory of spiders that was bugging me and making it difficult for me to get past it.
Me: How can it be suppressed when I know why I'm afraid of spiders?
[1) When I was 6, someone dumped a jar of daddy-long-legs on my head. 2) We had to stop playing a game because of a wolf-spider that a friend almost put her hand on. 3) Various instances when people have either chased me with spiders, thrown them at me, put them in my books or in my bed, or threatened to. 4) waking up at midnight and having to vacume my bedroom ceiling which was covered with baby spiders.5) horror stories about spiders]
Friend: Well you may intellectually understand it. But you emotionally associate it with bullying and pain. And the original memories have become exaggerated over time and with repetition. As a result you have a suppressed memory or emotional response that is not rational but very real. You intellectually know the fake spider won't hurt you. But part of you is not convinced. Part of you still believes that the spider, fake as it is, could hurt you in some way. It's a phobia. They aren't rational. But hey, look on the bright side, they'll take the decorations down after Halloween.
Ugh. Is this going to be a yearly thing? Why can't the landlord find tenants who are more like him? There are days that I think life would be so much easier without other people. Which I realize is an odd thing, considering I live in a city.
This also may explain, why I've never been a huge fan of Spiderman.
But no, my neighborhood is into spiders.
So...I am heading towards work bright and early on Tuesday morning. It's 6:45 am. The sun has barely woken up. Got all my stuff together, am a bit bleary eyed from lack of sleep. I walk down the two flights of steps to the front door. I live on the third floor of a brownstone. There's only one entrance. We have on outside door and an inside door, with a small foyer between the two, where mail gets dumped. Both sets of doors are wood with a window in the middle of them, with a big oval window above the top of the front door. As I reach the inside door, I glance up and there it is. A monster gray spider perched in the oval window above the front door, staring down at me - the window behind it serving as its web (which would look really cool, if you are anyone but me). I yelp and leap back. Take a few deep breaths. Look at it again. It's stuffed. It's gray. It has two beady red eyes. It's somewhat furry, but not overly so. In short, it is a fake stuffed spider that the downstairs neighbors have decided to put in the window above the front door, to greet everyone who leaves and enters, and to peer down at me as I pick up the mail. How sweet of them.
ME: Okay it's fake. Not real. Totally fine. Just a stuffed spider. You can pass under it.
It won't eat you. Think Charlotte. You like Charlotte. (As in Charlotte's Web). This will be okay.
And I manage finally to leave the building, trying not to worry about the spider peering down at me. Once I'm outside on the stoop, I turn around and discover downstairs neighbors have put another large stuffed, and far hairier spider on the outside wall on their bottom window, so that it looks like it is crawling up the side of the building. Which would also look really cool if you aren't phobic of spiders. And inside the windows, just parallel to the top of the large stoop and front door, are arched, wide eyed black cats and another large stuffed spider.
Okay, I think. Fake. I glance back up at the one in the overhead window. Again, fake.
On the way home, I repeat to myself, this is fake. It's not real. You are fine.
This I do every day this week. I did it four times yesterday. Yet, for some bizarre reason, my pulse races, my heart speeds up, and I get nervous every time I exit beneath the big stuffed spider. I know it is not real. I am well aware it is fake. It looks fake.
But I still can't quite convince myself that it won't come to life and grab me. This is silly I know. I'm aware of this.
It's also hilarious when you think about it. I've been cracking jokes about this all week long to people. In an attempt to convince myself that it is fake and to laugh at it. Yes, I'm trying not to be afraid of the big fake stuffed spider hanging in the window above the foyer to my building. A Halloween decoration. Can we think of anything more insane?
Spent twenty minutes discussing this with a friend last night. And the friend pointed out that I clearly had a suppressed memory of spiders that was bugging me and making it difficult for me to get past it.
Me: How can it be suppressed when I know why I'm afraid of spiders?
[1) When I was 6, someone dumped a jar of daddy-long-legs on my head. 2) We had to stop playing a game because of a wolf-spider that a friend almost put her hand on. 3) Various instances when people have either chased me with spiders, thrown them at me, put them in my books or in my bed, or threatened to. 4) waking up at midnight and having to vacume my bedroom ceiling which was covered with baby spiders.5) horror stories about spiders]
Friend: Well you may intellectually understand it. But you emotionally associate it with bullying and pain. And the original memories have become exaggerated over time and with repetition. As a result you have a suppressed memory or emotional response that is not rational but very real. You intellectually know the fake spider won't hurt you. But part of you is not convinced. Part of you still believes that the spider, fake as it is, could hurt you in some way. It's a phobia. They aren't rational. But hey, look on the bright side, they'll take the decorations down after Halloween.
Ugh. Is this going to be a yearly thing? Why can't the landlord find tenants who are more like him? There are days that I think life would be so much easier without other people. Which I realize is an odd thing, considering I live in a city.
This also may explain, why I've never been a huge fan of Spiderman.
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-14 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-14 02:15 pm (UTC)I'm the same way. Can't look at pictures of Spiders. Buffy drove me nuts, because all pic books on that show - showed the spiders in the Nightmare's episode. So did the credits for the first two years. My way of dealing with big stuffed spider at the moment is by deliberately "not" looking at it. But every time I pass through the foyer, I live in fear the damn thing will fall and land on me.