NO. Just no.

[cupcake_goth]

Xanax is my best friend. While going up the front stairs after getting home from the spa, I apparently walked into a spiderweb. Spider. Hanging from my hair. In front of my face.

My phobia? Have I mentioned my near-crippling phobia?

So, almost fainting earlier tonight, 0/10, would not recommend.

And THEN: went down into the basement to check on the cats' food and see if there was another tube of Laxaire in the cabinet for them, and a spider the size of a quarter was slowly crawling on the ledge by the cabinet. I turned and fled.

To distract myself, I am going to read some relevant-to-my-interests Hannibal vampire AU fic (whoo, both Will and Hannibal are vampires in this one!), then reread some of one of the Vampire Chronicles books when I eventually go to bed. Times of stress and anxiety call for vampires.

Comments

[staxxy]

I had a long talk with my little brother (the rabbit) this evening about how lovely xanax is in times of stress and crisis and that it is not an SSRI that will mess with your brain chemicals, but just bring down the stress response in your body so you can fucking cope.

I am eternally grateful to have a Dr that is completely fine with me needing to have a regular supply.

that said, YIKES for having your phobia tripped twice in one day so hard! I am glad you did not fall and hurt yourself.

[carmenbeaudry]

Reading this gave me a case of the skin-crawls. I was doing ok with my version of this phobia, and then a nap in my tent at a particularly stressful SCA event ended with a spider dropping onto my face, and I’m now back to them reducing me to a shuddering blob.

[tura]

Getting to my trash can today involved an alarming number of contortions as I tried to avoid the multiple webs that are strung everywhere. Fortunately my phobia is only triggered by big spiders - the little ones don't bother me too much. The quarter sized one in the basement would have terrified me too!

[m_cobweb]

The giant spider where I was catsitting did not reappear. But I will be talking about it for a long time, I can tell.

I've got Ativan for our upcoming trip because I'm worried that my claustrophobia* is going to one day be bad enough to keep me from flying, and I do not need that suddenly happening while I am in a big metal tube. Xanax makes me horribly queasy, as I was reminded when we traveled in May. Ugh.

*Apparently it's actually cleithrophobia, which is the fear of being trapped. I don't know why airplanes haven't set this off before (other than the time we were in the row with no window, oh dear god) but thinking too much about it is probably not going to help.