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When I had kids of my own and they were afraid something was under the bed, I would come in and turn the light on. Then, with a flash light, we would look under the bed together and then in the closet and every corner of the room. I don't remember having to do this very many times.
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I always did the same for my kids.
Arachnophobia?!!! Ugh! Still very much alive in me! That and heights! No thanks to either one!
I had both but was cured. I got both from my mother. I remember a road trip to California. On the return, as we were leaving Salt Lake City heading into the mountains, the highway my dad chose because it was a fairly direct route was extremely narrow, windy and with no guard rails. My mother was so freaked out (and to her defense, it was scary) she made my father drive back to Salt Lake, go to the highway department and have them find a route home that wasn't so scary. They did it.
I remember climbing a fire tower at Taum Sauk mountain, Missouri's highest point. It was fun till I got above the tree line and I froze. Grasping the hand rail it took me about 20 minutes to retrace my steps.
Learning to ski and being constantly on chair lifts and aerial trams cured me of acrophobia. I still freaked out one time on Aspen Highlands in CO. The chair goes up at about a 60 degree grade to a peak and then crosses over to another peak. The drop is about 300' and that is to the trail, if you were lucky enough to hit the trail. More likely you'd fall to the wrong side of the ridge below which was a steep slope and one would probably slide a few thousand feet before coming to a stop. I had a camera in one hand and my ski poles in the other. When I hit the peak, I froze, gripping the crossbar with my arms. I was too scared to stick the camera in my pocket so I could hold on with both hands.
I was on a high aerial cable car going from Ischgl, Austria with some Danish friends. One of the guys was afraid of heights and he put himself in the middle of the 40 person car so he couldn't see how high he was. His cruel friends kept describing the view to him till he was slumped cowering on the floor.
My first real attempt to deal with arachnophobia was when we bought our current house. The cellar was literally solid spider webs. If there was one spider egg sac there were tens if not hundreds of thousands. The previous owner had never gone into the cellar. It was virtually empty except for the spiders and spider webs so resembled the cellar in the movie. I knew I had to eradicate them. I took two days off of work wore long sleeve coveralls, taped the cuffs to my boots, sleeves to my gloves, collar around my neck and put on a bandana. There was little uncovered skin or hair. I took a shop vac down there and sucked up everything I could. It took two whole days to get rid of everything. I have to repeat every couple years.
That helped but by the time I had so many spiders and other bugs to deal with in Costa Rica, I was pretty much over it.
My DW saw a black widow making a web under a table on the front porch. It is my job to take care of them, so I grabbed the electronic fly swatter. I was sure to be certain that it was dead, so I snapped it 5 times.
Yep, it was a gonner and quite crispy too....
When I was a kid, it seemed like every time my mother would go to the bathroom at night she'd see a spider. She'd wake my dad from a sound sleep to kill it. He'd sleepily walk into the bathroom. Not seeing anything, he'd stomp and swipe his feet on the floor to satisfy her as she'd sit in bed to hear the deed. After a while, it always sounded exactly the same and at exactly the same amount of time from walking into the bathroom. She eventually demanded to see evidence which he could never provide.
Why am I so screwed up?
Brown recluse still make me wary. A workplace friend's son was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs. During training camp, a brown recluse had gotten into his equipment. It bit him on the bicep. Halfway through practice he collapsed. They thought he was overcome by heat and sent him home. He passed out in his apartment and was found by his girlfriend. They got him to the hospital but he ended up having severe necrosis of his bicep and never played football again.
Our spiders are luckily not poisonous, so I usually just leave them be. They catch the mosquitoes and flies that I despise.
Yes, they do have their place. Even non-poisonous spiders can leave a nasty bite. I was on a 3 day 45 mile canoe trip on the St. Francois river and there were times the overgrowth covered the river. There were always spiders dropping into the canoe. I had several big swells where I had been bitten.
