22. Touch a big hairy spider (31 x 31)

There's something called desensitization treatment. It's used to help people overcome their phobias. It starts with talking about the object feared in a calm environment. Then you start talking about what it is about the object that causes the fear, the anxiety level of the phobic is heightened purposefully and then lowered by relaxation exercises. Then you introduce pictures which will heighten anxiety and then relax again.

Then you go to a place where the phobic can see the object but is far enough removed where the anxiety level is heightened but the phobic does not reach the point of an anxiety attack (hyperventilation, the rapture). Then the anxiety is calmed again by relaxation exercises.





Then you move closer,



relax,



closer,



relax,



Then you get to a point to tactile desensitization.
The phobic touches the object,





and again relaxes.



Then the phobic picks up the spider and doesn't faint.



Or with someone afraid of flying: aural stimuli, visual stimuli, then tactile stimuli (sitting in the plane without moving), then active stimuli (flying with Xanax).

And this is how I managed to touch and hold a big hairy spider with really big fangs. First, I put it on this list and started talking to people about my arachnophobia. Then I went to the insectroplis and looked at pictures of spiders (after a failed attempt to go touch one at a pet store in Baltimore). Then I looked at all of the spiders in their glass tanks. They sit very still so that they a) do not attract predators and b) so they do not alert their prey; they also do not metabolize energy well. At 2:09 pm the Insectroplis holds a "Touch Presentation" of a tarantula, empire scorpion, hissing cockroach, and a millipede. I declined to hold any of the other insects and focused on not getting bitten by the rose hair tarantula, lovingly named Rosie.