Woman Finds It Hard To Believe That Spider Is More Scared Of Her Than She Is Of It

TRACEY BENDINGER | Society | Contact

For the last 34 years, Cassandra Wait-Pughes has been deathly afraid of spiders, and for 30 of those years she’s been hearing the same old “bullshit” that “they’re more scared of you than you are of them”. 

“It’s just not possible,” Wait-Pughes said to The Advocate at an undisclosed location. 

“I’ve got a good three decades worth of fear built up..” 

“They’d have, what, max 2 years of fear?” 

“Come on.” 

It’s understood that people often repeat the adage in an effort to alleviate fears for arachnophobes, which understandably has about as much success as telling someone with anxiety that there’s nothing to worry about. 

Some evolutionary psychologists believe the phobia evolved due to the threat of venomous spiders, however there is some debate because the size of the creatures poses no real threat to a full sized human who could smoosh it with their foot.  

Wait-Pughes says she’s not sure if a particular event triggered her fear or if she was just born that way, but one thing she does know is that “a good spider is a dead spider.” 

More to come.