Begging for an arachnophobia filter

[BlisteringFrost]

That's quite literally what a "phobia" is. Despite the extensive watering down the term has been subjected to over the last forty years so that people are now convinced that anything short of enthusiasm is -phobia...an actual phobia is an intense, completely irrational fear. I would expect someone with serious arachnophobia to find pixel spiders to be scary. BECAUSE it's completely irrational to fear pixel spiders along with real ones, it's a phobia! Like...that's one of the ways you'd know you had a phobia rather than just a run of the mill fear that a lot of people have, you're intensely afraid of them in the most ridiculous manner possible, that you KNOW is irrational, such as when they're just colorful pixels on your monitor.

Only way to get over it is to challenge it I'm afraid.

[Astronis]

Only way to get over it is to challenge it I'm afraid.

I don't know what the steps are to successfully treating phobias, since I don't have one. Doesn't change what a phobia is, which was what I was addressing.

[Llamalass]

You know they're just polygons on your monitor right? They're just a bunch of 0's and 1's with a hissing sound effect, they can't physically harm you, they can't touch you, and they can't jump out of the monitor and attack you.
You're aware that a fear is just an irrational mindtrick right?

Remember, you're several thousand times larger than ANY other spider species in the world, and it's probably more scared of you, than you of it.

I can't facepalm hard enough.

[Sunhwapark]

You're aware that a fear is just an irrational mindtrick right?

Dang, I didn't know all this time.
Arachnophobia cured, thanks love.

[Ankhira]

You know they're just polygons on your monitor right? They're just a bunch of 0's and 1's with a hissing sound effect, they can't physically harm you, they can't touch you, and they can't jump out of the monitor and attack you.
You're aware that a fear is just an irrational mindtrick right?

Remember, you're several thousand times larger than ANY other spider species in the world, and it's probably more scared of you, than you of it.

Phobias aren’t cured by condescension. Telling someone their fear is ‘just a mind trick’ ignores the reality of how trauma and neurology work. You don’t get to decide what’s irrational for someone else’s brain.

[Iscah]

To me they are. It’s easier for me to call them things like that because genuinely the word can trigger me if I’m talking about them. I know I’m weird, especially if I can talk out the superhero. I don’t get how it works but it’s just how I see them and it helps to call them creepy or evil things.

But by calling it a "creepy evil thing" you reinforce in your mind that it is a creepy and evil thing, further associating it with negative feelings.

Call it a thing, call it a bug, call it something neutral – and maybe it will become easier to think of it as something that means you no harm.

[Ankhira]

But by calling it a "creepy evil thing" you reinforce in your mind that it is a creepy and evil thing, further associating it with negative feelings.

Call it a thing, call it a bug, call it something neutral – and maybe it will become easier to think of it as something that means you no harm.

This isn’t how phobias work. Telling someone to ‘just use neutral language’ doesn’t undo a deeply wired fear response. Phobias aren’t maintained by words, they’re triggered by sensory input and past trauma. You might mean well, but minimizing someone’s experience by suggesting it’s just a matter of word choice is not helpful. It’s not that easy, and pretending it is only adds shame to fear.

Phobia's are survival systems misfiring and just like anything to do with brains, we have very little control over it. I don't have arachnophobia so I have no stakes in this, but the amount if dismissal OP is receiving for having a condition that they can't help is upsetting to see. I hate spiders, they freak me out, that doesn't translate to me in a video game, but it does to OP and they are valid for that. Can you imagine the worst thing you're scared of, and that fear coming to you in the form of any entertainment even though you KNOW it won't hurt you, the fear is still real, its NOT a good feeling.

Just have some empathy for OP's situation instead of pretending its "so easy" to get over it. It's not.

[Valence]

And another one that doesn't understand what a phobia is. This thread sure has been a gold mine so far.

[Alicat]

Thanks everyone that has supported me. I have just finished running weeping city. Was my alliance roulette today. I was lucky I had an understanding group but I’m not always that lucky. Sadly with having a SCH in my party I was unable to die. Which did mean I saw the mech that ‘sucks’ you in towards it.

I wish my brain would understand that it’s just pixels on a screen but it’s irrational so I can’t. To this day I’ve never seen and will never see the full movie of Return of the King, I have never and will never read for example the full book Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. When I did I skipped that whole section as kid and that’s in a book. This little bit here really does show that even in book form I freak out. The newest hunger games book mentions in passing about a web and even that sent a shudder down my spine. It’s stupid but sadly we all know how difficult it is to get mental help not matter where you are in the world. Maybe therapy that’s not exposure could help maybe it won’t but it would be a long wait. Probably the same for getting it in XIV but I wouldn’t get locked out of content if we had something that could make a common phobia less scary in game. It’s funny I see my WOL as not being scared of them but I am

[Alicat]

Only way to get over it is to challenge it I'm afraid.

And how do you suggest that when I’ve already mentioned how deep this goes and not to mention how getting help is not just difficult but often expensive or an extremely long wait