This has actually eliminated much of my arachnophobia, since I find myself studying the spider, safely confined inside the glass before letting it out. (This is actually one way they treat phobias clinically, a kind of desensitization exercise)
Anyway, one day, I was hiking with friends, and someone pointed out I had a bug on me. I picked it up and realized it was a spider -- and then it dawned on me that I wasn't afraid of it at all. It was one of the most thrilling moments of my life to hold a spider without any fear at all. I started seeking out spiders to handle them. Even after I stopped taking that medication, the effects lasted. Nowadays I love spiders.
I learned years after stopping taking it that this medication has been studied both for PTSD and phobias -- specifically arachnophobia.
Your comment made me think to tell this story because I pretty much always attempted to bring spiders outside rather than kill them despite my fear. My rational side knew that most spiders are harmless, sensitive, and highly beneficial creatures. Plus I always hated killing anything and still do. But the exposure didn't actually reduce my fear of them noticably. And that experience is borne out in the research -- exposure therapy doesn't seem to be enough for most people
Apparently propranolol is effective because it works on memory consolidation -- more or less it helps with overwriting old negative memories (more specifically the emotional charge that accompanies the memory) with newer positive ones.
https://youtu.be/uO8pXtvxAA0?t=1893
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/opinion/sunday/a-drug-to-...
It’s more the erratic, jittery movements of spiders and their multitude of fast legs that’s off-putting.
Especially when you’re taking a dump in a dimly-lit outdoor toilet and notice there’s a hand-sized huntsman spider a few inches from your knees. I have never sprinted so fast.
https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(97)70944-X/pdf
So I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
My understanding is that most people never see a brown recluse, even within their natural range. Those who do see them probably don't recognize them most of the time, because they're not especially big, because from a distance they look pretty much like any other brownish spider, and beause neither the human nor the spider generally want to get close enough to make a positive identification possible.
But it so happens that I've seen a lot of them, so I offer some trivia about that.
I saw hundreds when I was 12 and my father and brother and I were hired by a neighbor to tear down a shack on his property. It so happened that there were hundreds of recluses in the shack. I know because I was nerdy twelve-year-old with a fascination with wildlife and field guides, and I had a pretty nice little field guide with a good image and description of brown recluses.
I've seen many more of them in the house I live in now. I've been in this house for about fifteen years now. There are a lot of brown recluses living in it. I've seen many dozens of them over the years. The last time my daughter came to visit us, she found four or five of them during the week she was here. She's a little arachnophobic, but not too badly, and the experience hasn't diminished her enthusiasm for visiting We expect her to be back in a few months.
According to Wikipedia and other sources I've read, they rarely bite--generally only when they're being mashed against someone's skin hard enough to frighten them but not hard enough to kill them. When they do bite, it rarely causes any symptoms. When it produces symptoms, they're usually minor--most often sores on the skin; less often some necrosis of the skin.
The bite _can_ cause much more serious symptoms, but that's rare.
I had a bite once living here that might have been from a brown recluse. My doctor was skeptical, because the bite didn't look quite right. It produced a small, tender sore and a really large inflamed area around it. I didn't notice it at all until a relative noticed it on my back. That's consistent with reports of brown recluse bites: most often people don't feel the bite when it happens. Their fangs are quite small--usually they aren't able to pierce fabric--and the venom itself is painless; it's the later effects--if any--that become painful.
At any rate, I and my relatives seem to have reconciled ourselves to living with a large infestation of brown recluses.
With that I can easily pick them up and drop them out the window or whatever. You can do it at well over arms' length too. It doesn't seem to harm them, as there's a space within the grabbing cage that they get directed to. Small spiders can crawl out between the cage bits but usually stay on the end long enough to move them elsewhere. Big spiders are fully caught.
> "It's fast, easy and eco-friendly!"
It's a piece of plastic that will be shipped halfway around the world, to do what could just as well be done by a glass and a bit of cardboard.
It might be fast, easy and particularly convenient, but "eco-friendly" it most certainly ain't.
Wait until the spider is stationary. Put the glass on its side with the mouth directly in front of the spider. Then - tickle the spider's behind. Invariably the spider will panic-run forward, right into the glass. Lift the glass and there you have it! Spiders can't climb the smooth sides so no lid necessary.
I have found that persuading the spider to enter the glass without tickling its behind to be much more challenging for some reason. They sense the trap, or at least that it's a sterile dead end. But startle them, and they'll always run forward in a straight line.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Carson-Quick-Release-Catching-Magnifi...