Mom jumps from car after seeing spider, 9 yo left in moving

[cattledogkisses]

Sept 21, 2015 16:22:43 GMT -5 saz said:

I hate spiders so much, and I hate them even more for not realizing that cars are sacred spaces where they do not belong. I didn't even realize it was possible for spiders to be in cars until a few months ago when I was driving and one started crawling down the windshield. I was really impressed with my ability to kill it fast.

Also there may or may not be a video of me killing a spider on youtube. There was this terrifying spider on the chair in my son's room, and it was in the middle of the day so DH wouldn't be home for a long time and I knew I had to kill it. I was so scared that I recorded a video of myself killing it - for some reason that made me feel less scared. I used a frying pan. I also didn't have a bra on so there's a lot of flapping under my shirt, and a lot of screaming. lol

Our master bedroom has a cathedral ceiling, and I woke up one morning to a giant wasp up too high for me to kill it.  So after fleeing the room, I duct taped a book to the end of a broom handle, and then crept back in and whacked the thing to death.  I wish I had recorded it.  Lol. 

[saz]

Sept 21, 2015 17:53:25 GMT -5 cattledogkisses said:

Sept 21, 2015 16:22:43 GMT -5 saz said:

I hate spiders so much, and I hate them even more for not realizing that cars are sacred spaces where they do not belong. I didn't even realize it was possible for spiders to be in cars until a few months ago when I was driving and one started crawling down the windshield. I was really impressed with my ability to kill it fast.

Also there may or may not be a video of me killing a spider on youtube. There was this terrifying spider on the chair in my son's room, and it was in the middle of the day so DH wouldn't be home for a long time and I knew I had to kill it. I was so scared that I recorded a video of myself killing it - for some reason that made me feel less scared. I used a frying pan. I also didn't have a bra on so there's a lot of flapping under my shirt, and a lot of screaming. lol

Our master bedroom has a cathedral ceiling, and I woke up one morning to a giant wasp up too high for me to kill it.  So after fleeing the room, I duct taped a book to the end of a broom handle, and then crept back in and whacked the thing to death.  I wish I had recorded it.  Lol. 

That is seriously impressive! 

[meshaliuknits]

Sept 21, 2015 17:16:27 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

Sept 21, 2015 17:04:22 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

YOU'RE WELCOME iammalcolmx!

You KNOW you ain't have to do that.

I was FINE until the damned clown.

[LeggsBenedict]

I saw 2 clowns driving down the freeway in los angeles once. we waved.

[Deleted]

I think spiders are pretty fascinating. As long as the don't completely surprise me while I'm half asleep or something, I actually kind of enjoy watching them.

Black wasps are a different kind of hell though. Our old office building was infested with them every summer and at least once a week there would be one in my office (shudder).

[iammalcolmx]

@majorwife. I am pretty sure H would say " Mere where is the Prius"? I would reply with "What had happened was...... "

[fuckyourcouch]

Sept 21, 2015 17:17:41 GMT -5 Dig Ophelia said:

Sept 21, 2015 17:02:05 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Still missing the point by a mile. I'm not saying anything about how people will react when they have a phobia. People know their phobias. They know their triggers. MW said in this thread that she will pass out if one touches her. It's not like they crop up in the middle of the night with no warning. (I say that, but there are some phobias that you may not know that you have, such a fear of heights or agoraphobia that crops up when you're in the middle of the ocean. Spiders are common, so people who have the phobia tend to know that they have it.)

You can't predict that you have disassociation until it happens.

They are two distinct mental processes.

No, again, I get your point.  Prediction.  But it doesn't change my position because it has nothing to do with my point.     

You can also figure out triggers to disassociation, as well.  I know many of mine, some which occurred from certain aspects of driving, actually.  Even when I knew that I had had panic attacks and flashbacks, in every other area of life, I didn't realize it would happen to me while driving until it actually did happen.  And it wasn't something that could be 'cured' and certainly not overnight.  You can't always predict how you're going to react when you're reacting out of instinct and fear.  Even if you know the trigger.  Any change in environment can change the severity or direct course of a reaction.  You can plan it all out, how you think you are going to react next time, but you never know.  That's why it was an accident.         

I said upthread that I wasn't excusing her behavior, because it certainly did harm her child and was negligent.  I just "get" the process of fear and phobias and how difficult they are to overcome.  

This is very true.
Spider in my bedroom? Scream and run away if my h is home. Otherwise he has stashed giant bottles of spray in every room for me just in case.
Spider outside? Scream and run away, but generally don't feel threatened because there's a lot of space.
Recently, there was a big spider on the ceiling in our garage and I had a meltdown. My h went to kill it and I freaked out that it would land on my car and crawl in. So he asked me to move my car and I grabbed my keys, but when I went to walk to my car, I completely freaked out and started sobbing and hyperventilating. I just knew it was going to fall on me. My mom actually came and picked me up because I couldn't calm down.
That is not a typical reaction for me. Because I did jump out of a car once, I do know my reaction in that situation, but if that hadn't happened, I would not guess that was it.

My family and my h go to great lengths to keep me away from them. My h perimeter sprays our house and yard, as well as my car, just in case. I do my best to manage my reactions, and it's better than it was when I was a kid, but it's not always the same nonetheless.

[lyssbobiss, Command, B613]

It's not so much the spider itself but if I find a critter on my body that I'm not expecting, I will likely panic and hit a wrong pedal or slam on a pedal or do something else insane. I'm pretty jumpy. I don't think I would've jumped out of the car, but I'm not going to sit here on my judgmental throne and act like I wouldn't have been an asshole slamming my own car into a school bus.

It's also somewhat counterproductive to declare "you should've known you were this scared before anything happened." I don't think any of us anticipate having extreme reactions to things we aren't expecting, and considering the degree to which most of society seems to fear spiders, she may have thought her level of fear was within the bell curve up until she leapt out of the car.

Eternal mom apologist, party of one.

[teflepi]

Sept 21, 2015 17:08:40 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

One last thing, anyone else reminded of Tommy Boy?

I keep seeing this

[anastasia517]

Jumping in on the strange reactions to phobias thing, my reactions to blood have been so varied over the years. I have fainted after seeing my cousin scrape her knee on a vent, but was okay when I saw my mother's broken nose bleeding everywhere in an car accident a year later. I was okay with my sister's bloody scar after heart surgery, but fainted after seeing somebody bleeding on Survivor and gave myself a concussion & messed up a tooth. I can usually handle fake blood on TV, but seeing and hearing about it has made me dizzy and nauseated other times.

I have deduced that I'm usually okay in a crisis with blood, but that's just the thing... usually. While my reactions are usually different for fake vs. dried vs. flowing, they are not always consistent. And yet for other phobias (ie. vomit) I am not okay in a crisis. Having heard my husband was puking after surgery I had to force myself to stay and not freak out when he had a barf bucket beside him, even though he was not currently sick. It's part of the reason I have issues with planes, being in the car with people who get carsick, or around kids who have been puking.

There's no guarantee somebody won't get a bloody nose or carsick while I'm driving, but I don't need another reason to put off getting my licence.

[blink]

One more reason we need self driving cars. Computers aren't scared of spiders.

[meshaliuknits]

Sept 21, 2015 18:12:22 GMT -5 LeggsBenedict said:

I saw 2 clowns driving down the freeway in los angeles once. we waved.

I assume there was a body in the trunk.