Emily Hess talked about how she overcome her arachnophobia by caring for Gretel, an Asiatic wall jumping spider. Hess noted that it took some time for her and Gretel to warm up to one other, but once they did, they created a very love bond.
Spiders have always been a source of terror for me. I knew I was the terrifying creature, and she didn’t want to touch me either… We were both scared and worked on it together carefully… So, after a time, I realized that I needed to let her come to me….it wasn’t terrifying at all, in fact, it was wonderful. She appeared to actually enjoy just sitting and hanging out with me after a while.
Gretel had a cage created for her by Hess that linked to her favorite green location. Hess fashioned open loop material to provide Gretel a better grip when she had trouble ascending to that place owing to her advanced age. Hess discovered that by caring for Gretel, she was assisting others in overcoming their phobia of spiders.
If we can understand more about the things we are afraid of, we can eliminate a lot of the mystery.
Gretel, a jumping spider, lived for almost a year and died in November 2021. Hess has now acquired a number of additional jumping spiders, including Panda, Peanut, and Sid, to mention a few.
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