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Phobias: More insurmountable when autistic?

Shardovan

My entire life I have been terrified of flying insects (or at least any of the ones with heft and that are noisy: wasps, bees, bluebottles, larger flies), especially if they invade the sanctuary of one's home. Twice in the last month I have again been reminded of how debilitating this phobia can be, and last night (the second of the two instances) for the second time in just a few weeks I slept on the sofa having had my bedroom taken over by a loud and buzzing thing of some kind. I had only opened the window in there by half a milimetre, precisely because of this sort of thing but they somehow squeeze through and aggressively take over anyway. Last time it was definitely a wasp - I found it dead when I dared to open the door again (covered head to foot in protective gear) and did an inch by inch extremely slow and tentative exploration from the door inwards. The relief of the ordeal being over felt just as immense at the age of 46 as it did at 7, 15, 29,38, 41, or any other age I've ever been. 

Now, when this occurs, some tiny part of me remains rational - let's say 10% - but it has retreated so far into the background of fight or flight that it has no hope for the duration of the experience of reclaiming the lost 90% and taking the wheel with logically overriding statements like 'You're so much bigger than it is' and 'The worst it can do is lightly touch you or sting you'. I have lost count of the number of times from childhood to adulthood when my dad would roll his eyes at my extreme reaction and say 'what in the name of...?' like this fear was somehow a fresh revelation to him. There might then be follow-up comments ('Big fly.... gonna eat you') which were sarcastic/humorous attempts to make me get hold of a logical perspective in what felt no less frightening to me in that moment than undergoing a mugging or a car crash. I have made such attempts over the years, never ever successfully. 

But what I'm wondering now is.. just as the autistic brain and nervous system is more resistant to (or entirely immune to) CBT methods of combatting overwhelm, is that equally true of the individual phobias we have? Post-diagnosis I realise that it's the unpredictabilty (all that chaotic ricocheting and careering from wall to wall, room to room, person to person) and the volume of noise being scarily disproportionate to the size of the insect that is what truly scrambles my logic circuits and amplifies the fear beyond reason. I can't inuitiively track their path maybe as readily or intuitively as a neurotypical person might? Not sure.

Does any of this chime with your own experiences of phobias? Can you anecdotally relate? I know that any tangible stats would be elusive/non-existent, so I suppose 'I know exactly what you mean' is the best I can hope for! Though 'Er, no, you headcase' might be just as enlightening! 

Parents

  • Recently I've been having a think about the largely unbalanced amount of nursery rhymes dedicated to spiders. AS IF the human population developed a strange fear of them when moving from farming to a more modern world... hmmm... 

    I've thought a great deal about how unnatural it is for insects to be inside the home. Outside, I might be quite interested in said spider or moth. But in doors, they're trapped and it's a different story. Do we pick up on their frustration and assume it our own? Is the mismatch in surrounding a bit like the idea of 'the undead'?

    CBT doesn't work when coupled with Neurotypical motivations and drives. But technically, it should work from an Autistic therapist where there's no loss in translation, when they understand the differences in motivations and are able to clear up misperception and provide practical and sensible principles which one can re-build on. 

    As for bugs, I keep trying to envision a mesh net design for our windows. The paint in this rental is cheap and the sticky end of a net velcro doesn't stay.

  • in reply to JuniperFromGallifrey

    We have a mesh blind thing for our back door that closes with magnets, and pins to the wooden door frame.

    I suspect that could easily be adapted for a window. As designed, the magnets don't always close the thing properly, BUT if you add some springiness pulling the centre join upwards at the top (I used a wire spring with the looops on the ends, and a nail) then they become wonderfully, and reliably, self closing.

  • in reply to I Sperg

    Might well be necessary, especially after the culprit (once I found it dead on my bedspread) turned out to be a mosquito. Explains that really itchy bite as well. Never encountered them this far north of the equator! Climate change, I suppose. What's super weird is how low and loud its buzzing was. It sounded like a giant hornet, not a 1 cm in length little pest. Though I won't pretend it wasn't going to be two nights on the sofa either way. 

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  • in reply to I Sperg

    Might well be necessary, especially after the culprit (once I found it dead on my bedspread) turned out to be a mosquito. Explains that really itchy bite as well. Never encountered them this far north of the equator! Climate change, I suppose. What's super weird is how low and loud its buzzing was. It sounded like a giant hornet, not a 1 cm in length little pest. Though I won't pretend it wasn't going to be two nights on the sofa either way. 

Children
  • in reply to Shardovan

    Until the year before last, I lived in harmony with the wasps (and I think some bees) who nested in our cavity wall which separates the garage from the end of the house.

    I get plagued periodically by small flying biters (Gnats?) who seem too small and stupid to respond to my animal whispering, "don't mess me, and I won't mess with you" deal which works well with most mammals and colony type insects. 

    Eventually when the bites at the back of my neck were becoming too numerous to bear, and the bloody things settling on my screen or disctraing me by buzzing in my ear etc, I lost my patience and deployed "the chemical weapon"...

     Teh chemical wepoan was purchased in greece back in the early 1990's IIRC and is a little plug in heater that you load a cardbaord lozenge onto and it makes the air smell slightly odd (pleasnat, but odd) and slaughters insects up to SIX INCHES IN LENGTH, whch impressed me greatly in Greece back then.

    Oh yes, it soirted out my midge or gnat problem licketty split, but later on I noticed something missing from my life. A vague susussuration that I used to hear lying in my bed when the traffic and noise of the day was not there...

    Yes there are small rectangular holes in the garage wall it seems, probably for ventilation or damp control purposes. My attempt to fight the midges cost me my wasps.

    I really came to like "my" wasps, they didn't come in the house, went about their business without bothering me including when I was working up on the staging next to their entrance / exit hole.

    I'm quite guilt struck as I feel we had a happy co-existence which I accidentally destroyed.  

  • in reply to Shardovan

    I once remember invasion of the daddy long legs. It was something like 23 in one sitting. There was nowhere to hide.

    I was much younger then. They don't bother me now. Although I wouldn't want one dangling in my face in the small hours.