Arachnophobia. The word sounds as ominous its feels. To be frightened of something or someone is a totally different feeling than to experience a morbid, intense, and sometimes paralyzing fear. The anxiety may or may not be irrational. Each person reacts differently. However, a phobia is an overwhelming and uncontrollable or irrational emotion or belief that is perceived to be a severe threat. It can be a fear of a certain object, situation, or activity. The threat may be real or imagined.
In my case, the threat was real.
It all about the age of seven, my family traveled home to the country. When I say "country", it was definitely not the city. Woods for your backyard. Outdoor toilet facility.
Clothing garments hung on a clothes lines stretched from one tree to the other, the wind gently drying them with that fresh outdoor pure breeze leaving your garments with a scent like no other that we will never experience again in our lifetime.
Upon arrival, us children were informed that we would be sleeping on a mattress pallet on the wooden floor. Of course, the floor's board were not compact close together. Cracks between the board allowed me to look down upon the ground underneath. I thought nothing of it.
That is, until I readied myself for bed and fell asleep. That's when the spider crawled up onto my face. Feeling funny, I woke to a thing with legs ten feet long and a massive body with eyes looking me in squarely in the face.
Or so it seems. Everything looms large when you are only seven years old. Needless to say, I let out a bloodcurdling scream that piled upon each other as the night wore on.
I woke everyone in the house.
"Oh, girl. It's nothing but a little spider. Go back to sleep." My mother was embarrassed as though she expected better of me. I got that look from my country cousins. That "who and where does she thinks she is" look.
I didn't care. There was no sleeping for me that night and many nights after that. I could still see the spider on my face looking at me. Crawling toward my eyes was the worse. I wouldn't stop rubbing, scratching, and covering my face and arms.
My parents finally took me to the doctor. Diagnosis: Arachnophobia. It remains to me this day. As an adult, my fear of spiders prevents me from gardening.
On several occasions, I woke to a spider on my bedroom ceiling. I froze, crying, thinking that it was waiting to fall upon me.
But dreaming of spiders became my nightmares. Humongous beings larger than an entire city with their rear body almost touching the clouds. A life of their own chasing me. Their webs weren't ordinary silken threads. Traps I couldn't escape from.
I'd wake in a sweat, panicking. It would take me seeks to shake the feeling. Then a different scenario next time. Ridiculous, others would tell me.
In my dreams, once bitten, the venom either would transform me two ways.
The first. I would turn into a female spider man, beautiful but deadly. In this version of myself, I would be all powerful. I feel it was a way to counteract my fear. In these dreams, I would be surrounded by spiders. No longer afraid after the initial bite, I controlled all arachnids. The moment they see me or my vibes sent out in all directions like a net catching and watching them do my biding by attacking others that either ridiculed me or someone I wanted vengeance upon. Satisfying to say the least.
Imagining this outcome was much easier in my dreams than the alternative.
The second. I would turn into a hideous monster, twisted and vengeful for having been bitten. Now my life would be taken away. No one would want to look upon my face. I wouldn't be able to work in a career. I would go underground in a cave to dwell.
Either way, I was doomed. But I had to overcome this fear that was eating me core, making me a difficult and gloomy person to live with.
I had to discover a way to distance myself from even the images of spiders. So my therapy was to use them in writing and art in any form. Control how they looked, the colors, and the tentacles, eyes. Reduce them to abstract and non-threatening beings in my life.
I have been able to manage my fear in the abstract to a certain extent.
But the fear is still underneath, smoldering, on the verge of tears, weaving its thin veil, waiting for me to turn and run headlong into its snare.
To create my "Worse Fear" theme, I wanted to portray the two versions of my phobia. In my dreams, I'm either bitten and proceed to threaten others.
For the different version of my reaction to being bitten, I was able to locate images that portrayed each. I also included pure fractals created by me in Apophysis 7X, an advanced fractal rendering program.
Below is my processes:
SPIDERS
Text input:
"Am I nothing in the future but a tangles mass of thoughts and eyes in this humanoid body with huge distorted red and black spider crawling over my body."
Style: Fantasy
Runtime: 50
Seed: 7437925876
StarryAI 4 Results:
OTHER IMAGES
"Turning into a black female monster spider with tentacles flowing after being bitten by a large red spider.
Style: Fantasy
Runtime: 50
Seed: 8133522406
Source
PURE FRACTALS:
Fractal entitled "Strings Of Red"
Fractal entitled "Spider Deluxe"
Fractal entitled "Alien Headdress"
To blend all images into the two scenes, I uploaded them into Canva. Numerous background removals and filters assisted in colorizing the images.
Below is my process:
Beautiful alien version.
Started with a blank canvas.
Added beautiful alien spider.
Filled in the background. Added fractal web.
Completed image by adding various spiders.
Monster version
Started with a blank canvas.
Added free-sourced female; applied distortion.
Added fractal to face for spider nests.
Added various spiders.
Below are my two completed versions of the effects of my phobia:
AND,
Thanks for taking the time to view my post. I hope you like my mixed media art project.
SOURCES:
a) JustClickindiva's Footer created in Canva utilizing its free background and images used with permission from discord admins.
b) Unless otherwise noted, all photos taken by me with my (i) Samsung Galaxy 10" Tablet, (ii) Samsung Phone, & (iii) FUJI FinePix S3380 - 14 Mega Pixels Digital Camera
c) Purple Butterfly part of purchased set of Spiritual Clip Art for my Personal Use
d) All Community logos, banners, page dividers used with permission of Discord Channel admins.
e) Ladies of Hive banner used with permission of and in accordance with the admin's guidelines
f) Thumbnail Image created by me in Canva.
g) "Flames." What is Apophysis 2.09. https://flam3.com/
1 What is Stable Diffusion? StarryAI.Com. Online at: https://starryai.com/stable-diffusion
Oh NO! And I thought you were my friend. Why you treat me like that! As long as it's sitting still, I can handle it, but not crawling!
Take care and have a good week.
!ALIVE
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The result is awesome, and a little bit creepy my friend.
!LUV !PIZZA
Yes, creepy crawler I dare say. Thanks for your visit @luhari and lovely compliment. I was hoping the result would affect my readers in this way. No one can truly understand this particular type of phobia. It also includes other type of crawling bugs, but especially spiders of any kind.
I appreciate your support. Take care and have a good start to your week.
!ALIVE
@luhari! You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE to your account on behalf of @ justclickindiva. (6/10)
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want, plus you can win Hive Power (2x 50 HP) and Alive Power (2x 500 AP) delegations (4 weeks), and Ecency Points (4x 50 EP), in our chat every day.
Well, it is true that we react to things differently and also, we are scared of different things and not the same.
Your artworks look very beautiful
I love them
It is a serious matter to have a phobia. This intense feeling of foreboding can affect one's livelihood. In all things, what makes individuals unique is their actions and reactions to different stimuli.
I appreciate your kind words for my mixed media art project. I wanted to portray my phobia in a simple way. Thanks for your support. Take care.
!ALIVE
@rafzat! You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE to your account on behalf of @ justclickindiva. (2/10)
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want, plus you can win Hive Power (2x 50 HP) and Alive Power (2x 500 AP) delegations (4 weeks), and Ecency Points (4x 50 EP), in our chat every day.
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