Under Construction - MHWA Retreat

What things are you most afraid of? Shall we start with my phobia. I suffer from arachnophobia, specifically spiders. I have gotten to the point were I can kill a spider, if I have to. There was a time when I couldn't kill a spider, but I got over that when my mother and I had cats and a black widow crawled into the house. I didn't want the spider to bit Mom or the cats, so I sucked it up and killed the little bitch.

After I killed the spider, I managed to scoop it into a plastic bag, without touching the spider. I sealed the bag, put the plastic bag in a larger bag, sealed that, and put it in the bag in the trashcan. Next I sealed the trash bag (which wasn't full or ready to carry to the trash). I carried the half-full bag, with the hopefully dead spider in it, out to the garage. In the garage, I removed a full bag of trash from the trashcan that we rolled to the curb, put the trash bag with the spider in it on bottom, and placed the full bag of trash back in on top of the one containing the spider. I wasn't taking a chance in case the spider wasn't dead and decided to crawl back into the house after me.

To anyone who is laughing now, go right ahead and laugh. I'm laughing at what I just wrote, but someone with a phobia doesn't think logically. Fear causes weird and illogical actions.

How do you know if a fear is legitimate or irrational? I'm sure that the arachnophobia was irrational. I also suspect it came form being in a dark cellar during a tornado when I was in grade school. The fact that I already had a fear of anything that moved on more than four legs didn't help. When I was in that cellar I knew, without a doubt, that there were spider crawling around waiting to drop on me.

Another thing that didn't help my fear or phobia, was peeing down the cellar's drainage. I knew that there were spiders in that drain waiting to bit me when I peed. Another thing I never like to use was outhouses. My grandparent has a mobile home at a recreational area, and it had an outhouse we had to use. I knew or thought I knew that spiders in the pit waiting to bit me on my ass.

What can you do to control irrational fears? I suspect I may have other fears, which aren't as bad as the arachnophobia. If I do, I'm sure I will encounter them at some time in the years ahead. If I do, I'll just take one fear at a time and deal with it.

One way I deal with fear, is to say a prayer of protection. I say a prayer of protection ever day. The one I say was revealed by the Bab. If I leave the house, I say a prayer revealed by Baha'u'llah for journeys. I've found that the prayers help when it comes to dealing with fear.

How does fear play into your mental health? I'm not sure how fear plays into my mental health. This is something I'll have to investigate.