I am still shaking after having a near-death experience while driving my mother and myself home from visitation with my uncle this morning.

I was near the house, on pretty much THE major highway in Pensacola, Hwy 29, when down from the ceiling of the car, a spider begins its descent.
I am arachnophobic. Severely arachnophobic (fuck you, spell check, it IS a word).

Now, a word on phobias. Most people hear the word "phobia" and think "fear." A valid reaction, one I made myself many times before I experienced a phobic attack myself. But the word "fear" fails so deeply to describe a phobia. "Terror" is the better word, though no word can truly adequately describe it. To a non-phobic "terror" and "fear" are synonyms. They mean the same thing, maybe to differing degrees, even a non-phobic can understand that "terror" is a more extreme version of "fear." But a phobic treats a fear as a vicious or mean cat. In an "avoid it, and we have no problem, but if it attacks me, I'm not gonna have any trouble defending myself" sort of way. A phobia is so very far removed from that reaction, that to call a phobia a "fear" is almost comical.

A phobia is something that haunts you. You don't just "avoid" the phobic reaction, you actively work towards removing yourself from any imaginable interaction with it. If I see a spider, I can't walk over and kill it. To a phobic, there is a major trigger absolutely missing from their minds. Fear results in a fight or flight response. A phobic attack...there is only one response. Flight. There is no fight reaction to a phobia. This brings me to my situation today, and sorry for being so long-winded, but so few people understand what a true phobia really is, and how it affects true phobics.

I see the spider crawling down, and my mind goes into flight response. Remember, I'm driving, on a major highway, and the only exit from the vehicle, my door...is through the spider. This is how a phobic reaction can turn deadly. I nearly lose control of the car as my mind loses grip on reality, and everything I am, everything in my being tells me to kill the spider. I try, I really truly tried, I couldn't do it. This is when the shit really hits the fan. My mind, having no exit, and no fight response, begins to enter panic mode. I am able to see the turn lane ahead, and, nearly jumping the curb to get to it, I am able to stop the car. I realize that my arms have completely frozen stiff, I'm able to force my foot onto the brake, and bring the car to a stop, just before we go into oncoming traffic. The whole time, I've been screaming, crying for my mother to kill it. She is finally able to get over to it and kill it before it touches me. If it had touched me, I would likely have had a heart attack, and I'm not exaggerating. The thing about a phobic attack is, the attack isn't over once the phobic object is removed. It continues. I am in the middle of the turn lane on a major highway. I know I need to get off the road before I can't hold the brakes anymore. I try to calm down enough to get off the highway and onto the smaller street leading to my road. I get there, pull off to the side and have a complete meltdown. My heart is racing faster than I've ever felt, my breathing is labored and painful, my mother thinks I'm actually having a heart attack right there, and is trying to get me to respond, but without being able to really hold onto my breath, it's hard to voice a response. After about five minutes, I'm finally calming down a bit. That's when the nausea starts, I have to lean out the door, and I'm millimeters from vomiting. The whole time my arms are stiff as a concrete slab, and yet shaking crazily. My arms have finally stopped shaking as I'm typing this, but now they're sore from being flexed so hard for so long. My stomach still hurts from the labored breathing, and my lungs are burning. My legs feel like jello. My eyes are red, my heart is still beating fast, and my head is starting to hurt from the lack of oxygen.

To anyone who has never really truly understood what a phobia is, maybe this will help you a little bit. It is so far beyond a mundane concept as fear, it might as well be love.