How I Lost the Fear Factor
Spiders.
They have always been my nemesis. No matter how tough or valiant I feel, a spider (even a money spider) turns me into a quivering bowl of cowardy custard! It’s the loads-of-legs thing, and the scurrying thing, and the black silhouette against anything white thing. But after yesterday, I’m afraid I’m not afraid anymore.
Yesterday I picked a medium size spider out of the bath with a tissue (yes, sorry sorry, I have its death on my hands) and flushed it down the loo. Just like that, without a second thought.
1. Whoa!
2. Why?
Am I officially no longer arachnophobic?
Looks like my last heroic act has finally sealed it for me. It was the last thing left for me to do to reach my zenith – my fearless nirvana. I am no longer scared of anything. There, said it, nothing!
Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look…
Rats?
Nope.
I lived in London most of my life where you are never further than a few feet from one…in fact I even once had a rat in my (very clean and tidy) kitchen eating left over scrambled egg from my frying pan while my cat slept in the room next door. Honestly, I love cats, but they are selfish bastards.
Snakes?
Nope.
My husband is shit scared of them, but I have more than one photo of a big scaly whopper hanging around my neck. Statistically more men are scared of snakes than women are, apparently. In my opinion it’s either an Adam and Eve thing or a phallic thing (yeah, I know, I would think that).
Cockroaches?
Nope.
In my house roach removal is my job, because my strapping huge beast of a man ‘can’t deal with them’. In fact I have a cunning way of catching them involving kitchen roll and plastic bags turned inside out. I live in a hot country, everyone gets them (my house is clean, you cheeky buggers, contrary to what this article is telling you). And in this part of the world they are bloody huge, the size of my middle finger (which they see quite often), and they fly, and the little hooks on their legs get stuck in your hair. Did you just shudder? Well spare a thought for me…
Huge moths and bats?
Nope.
I lived in Australia for a year where moths are bigger than your two hands put together. I’ve seen bats the same size as my cat. And neither bother me. I even had a humongous cricket/locust/whatever-the-fuck-they-are thing fly in my face once. They are huge, and they fly en masse. If that’s not disgusting enough, when I went to Cambodia they were frying them and eating them. I politely declined. I’m generally not too fussed what I put in my mouth but that? No way!
Wasps?
Nope.
No one likes the useless fuckers, seriously, they don’t do anything of any importance except bash against closed windows and hide in your sugary drink so you can get stung in the mouth…but they don’t worry me.
What’s left?
Heights, enclosed spaces, needles, public speaking, clowns, pain…
Nope. I can deal with any of those things. Don’t get me wrong, I have no intention of getting my kicks jumping out of a plane, getting into a fight or dangling from a bouncy rope, I do have a problem with coming close to death, but I no longer have any weird phobias.
And as for pain and needles? Pah! Get out of it!
I gave birth to both of my girls with no pain control at all, not even a whiff of oxygen, and to top it off the bastard midwife sewed my nether regions up with no anesthetic. Yep, you don’t want to cross me in a dark alleyway.
I’ve been thinking long and hard lately about when and why I suddenly became so brave – and it dawned on me – it has everything to do with being a mum.
As soon as I got pregnant with my first child the silly, trivial manias I had evaporated into insignificance compared to the biggest fear I could ever have. Losing my children. THAT and that alone is what my nightmares are filled with. I would cross shark infested waters, eats live cockroaches and fight three headed dragons just to make sure my girls stayed safe. Nothing can hurt me, nothing can scare me and nothing will get in my way…as long as I am their mum and I can protect them.
Every day my energy, which was once wasted on worrying about bugs and uncomfortable situations, is now focused on my one and only job that matters – being a lioness to my two little cubs. And my husband? He’s chuffed to bits…because his one job, ONE job (except for passing me things from high shelves) was catching the scary spiders. And now he doesn’t need to. Plus I no longer run from rooms squealing ‘Geeet iiiiit! Geeeet iiiiit!’
I AM Supermum. I know no fear. Hear me roar (as long as my kids don’t let go of my hand)!
