Spider pictures, I need thousands

Ok.

No hair pulling though.

Or Tickling.


Anyways,



Am I doing it right?


Just kidding.

Here's a fun guy to play with. He looks like he wants to be petted.

That's a camel spider, not a true spider.

If Camel Spiders are allowed, I invoke THIS:







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After seeing some of these pictures, I can totally sympathize with arachnophobes. As long as they live in the areas that have these monstrosities.

But really, what is it about spiders that makes them so... I hate to be cliche and say "lovecraftian", but I'm going to. Even in other insects, the weird/scary ones get more of a "ew gross" reaction, but with spiders, it's straight-up "omfg get it away from me" and nightmare-inducing.

I can understand being afraid of creepy crawlies as an evolutionary advantage so that you don't pet poisonous spiders and stuff, but then why isn't it like that with all insects? There are tons more harmful insects than simply spiders. Is it just because they get so big?

The features which cause your brain to instinctively scream "CREEPY-CRAWLY" are exaggerated on a spider - the legs are proportionately larger, the supernumerary eyes are more distinct, the mouthparts are larger and even less familiar. Additionally, they're often larger, AND slower, due to their usually sedentary predation methods. Where an insect generally gets the fuck out of dodge if it even suspects you're looking at it (and can often fly - nearly every insect order is named after the sort of wings it has), a spider can only shamble away at a modest pace, giving you all the more time to soak it in.


Of course, all this only endears spiders to me. <3

The picture, dummkopf. If you had actual arachnophobia, you would have had a panic attack as soon as you saw that someone made a thread with this title.

Actually, it's a fishing lure.

Leesamfish....take a biology class. >___>

So why would the Latin for "spider" scare the guts out of me? Or, while we're at it, close ups of spiders where they look nothing like my image of them? I may be arachnophobic, but not clinically. In fact, most people with phobias are able to control their fears in public. And in this case, you don't even know what was my initial reaction.

True enough. I've been afraid of heights throughout my life, but the intensity of that fear has varied.

Tall places are really high and vertical and I would die if I fell off.

Of course, all this only endears Tall places to me. <3

I uplink my mind to the internet and can see everything that happens at all times through your screen.

It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when people wantonly claim to have a serious problem as if the condition is no big deal. A phobia is radically different from a dislike the same way suicidal depression is radically different from being unhappy. I am making an assumption about you, but I figured it's more probable that you're exaggerating than that you've mediated serious anxiety easily enough where you could participate in our discussion in spite of all the pictures you've had to scroll through.

The part about arthropods having alien biology aside, many people fear/hate/etc spiders for no reason other than because they were conditioned to while growing up. I was scared when I was little, but now I'm an avid tarantula hobbyist. is it because I became educated and cured myself, or because spider overlords have brainwashing pods they use to convert abducted people to their noble cause?

So when you say that pictures of spiders don't scare you since they're different from how you imagine spiders, yet you have arachnophobia, which am I more apt to believe: That you have a miracle therapist, or that you're an ordinary Joey McBumfuck who got read "Little Miss Muffet" too many times when he was little?

Every time I was conditioned to be afraid of an animal, I overcame that fear pretty much the instant I got to hold that animal myself. If it can't, or likely won't, fatally/painfully sting/bite/provoke an allergic reaction in me, I'll hold it.

Incidentally, my allergies mean this excludes more cuddly, furry animals than any other kind.


Plants hate me, too.

Hey, but most phobias are literally no big deal. About one fifth of all humans suffer from various phobias and only a tiny fracture of them - or should I say 'us' - are unable to keep their fears in check. There is a difference between common and clinical phobias, you're definitely speaking about the latter, which are often grouped together with panic disorders. Thankfully, mine is nothing like that 8) But if you're under the impression that I diagnosed it myself, you're wrong - a long while ago I visited a psychiatrist and he concluded that my irrational fear of spiders was not just a widespread disgust, but a genuine phobia.

This topic needs more spiders.

THAT SPIDER PICTURE IS ALREADY IN THIS THREAD.