Getting Over My Fear
Essay 2
Aleksandar Radoičić 145/11
My Childhood Fear
Why do people have fears? Why do we let fears control our lives? I never thought I would ever get over my own fears. These fears made my childhood very difficult and hard to deal with. When I was a kid, I was scared of spiders. As great as my parents were about letting their kids explore the world and letting us develop our own opinions about the organisms we encountered, I think my fear of spiders was largely my dad’s fault. He still tells me stories about how our house would have been “overrun with black widows – overrun!!” if he hadn’t hauled a can of Raid out into the backyard and sprayed the heck out of every black widow he found once a week.
He talked about the sun spider (not a true spider, but still an arachnid) in the laundry closet with a hint of fear and has told me the story with a spider several times. It goes like this. One night, I called out to my dad, telling him that there was a spider in my crib. He looked around and didn’t see anything, so he told me I was dreaming and should go back to sleep. A few minutes later, I called out again, saying that there was a spider in my bed. He looked again and still didn’t see anything. I kept insisting there was a spider, so he eventually started pulling off blankets to prove that there was no spider. Of course there was a spider, THE BIGGEST BLACK WIDOW OF ALL TIME! Or at least that’s how my dad tells it. You’d think this spider was about to devour his beloved firstborn, that I was lucky he was there to save me and vanquish the black widow foe. He wouldn’t ever admit it, but these sorts of stories have led me to believe that my dad might have a touch of arachnophobia.
When my dad, who is rather fearless and tells stories of brave encounters with rattlesnakes and an angry swarm of yellow jackets, actually showed any sort of fear, it sort of rubbed off on you. So, I was scared of spiders too.
Aleksandar Radoičić 145/11
My Childhood Fear
Why do people have fears? Why do we let fears control our lives? I never thought I would ever get over my own fears. These fears made my childhood very difficult and hard to deal with. When I was a kid, I was scared of spiders. As great as my parents were about letting their kids explore the world and letting us develop our own opinions about the organisms we encountered, I think my fear of spiders was largely my dad’s fault. He still tells me stories about how our house would have been “overrun with black widows – overrun!!” if he hadn’t hauled a can of Raid out into the backyard and sprayed the heck out of every black widow he found once a week.
He talked about the sun spider (not a true spider, but still an arachnid) in the laundry closet with a hint of fear and has told me the story with a spider several times. It goes like this. One night, I called out to my dad, telling him that there was a spider in my crib. He looked around and didn’t see anything, so he told me I was dreaming and should go back to sleep. A few minutes later, I called out again, saying that there was a spider in my bed. He looked again and still didn’t see anything. I kept insisting there was a spider, so he eventually started pulling off blankets to prove that there was no spider. Of course there was a spider, THE BIGGEST BLACK WIDOW OF ALL TIME! Or at least that’s how my dad tells it. You’d think this spider was about to devour his beloved firstborn, that I was lucky he was there to save me and vanquish the black widow foe. He wouldn’t ever admit it, but these sorts of stories have led me to believe that my dad might have a touch of arachnophobia.
When my dad, who is rather fearless and tells stories of brave encounters with rattlesnakes and an angry swarm of yellow jackets, actually showed any sort of fear, it sort of rubbed off on you. So, I was scared of spiders too.