#roach gave my cat a tapeworm once

[moralocdfromhell]

I should point out before I write a paragraph that I don’t take your argument in bad faith. You didn’t say this to piss people off or whatever, you said this so you could offer your viewpoint. However, I do think you misunderstand my point here and how these sorts of phobias work. If you don’t mind, I would like to clarify my stance:

Yes, bugs are a very large and diverse group of animals. Being afraid of so many animals could be problematic, but to whom? The bug has no idea you’re afraid of it. It probably thinks you’re just some weird creature. If you don’t kill bugs, which I didn’t encourage anywhere in my post btw, the only person that being scared of bugs will hurt is the person who’s afraid. And we know that- We know there’s no rational reason to be afraid of them.

But phobias due to mental illness don’t run on rationality. I know my fear of bugs is pretty much irrational. That’s not what mental illnesses really care about, though. Speaking from personal experience, the root of my fear of bugs is not even the bugs themselves. It’s the dirt and other ‘dirty’ areas that they live in, the parasites and bacteria they might carry (not to be a nerd BUT depending on the species ofc not all of them commonly carry parasites or even harmful bacteria), and the fact that they could carry this perceived dirtiness to me or my personal space. (I should mention that my OCD also doesn’t care about my nerdy facts. It doesn’t care that not all of them carry something dangerous)

For people with trauma, it could also be because the bugs are associated with bad memories, not just because of the bugs themselves. Which brings me back to my point of why I think treating a fear of bugs as an inherently evil thing is not okay. My other point was how it’s worse online, in these bubbles where people give a flying fuck about wildlife. But it’s also necessary to note that I’ve experienced things like this in real life too. The core message of this post was that mentally ill people get a lot of shit online for having phobias or symptoms deemed as ‘evil’ by at least some part of society, and that it only adds to the suffering that mentally ill people experience.

I feel like that message was missed and interpreted as something different.

Additionally, phobias as a result/symptom of a mental illness generally cannot be ‘unlearned’. Phobias that aren’t caused by a co-morbid condition like OCD or trauma can be unlearned, but with mental health conditions the process of ‘unlearning’ can be a lot more complex to navigate.

Most mild fears can be unlearned without any help. I’ve seen many people get over a fear of bugs on their own, which is great. But for many of us, it requires medical intervention that some may not have access to. And even then, it may not get to a point where it is properly ‘unlearned’. You can’t unlearn a symptom of a mental illness, you can only manage and treat it. In this context it comes off as you saying ‘hey unlearn your OCD your life will be so much better without it’ which? Sounds a little strange?? If you ask me. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way, because it seemed you were addressing how society in general feels about bugs and how badly they treat them, when that’s not what this post was about.

thank you for coming to my presentation

People acting like you’re completely evil for simply not liking bugs sets my OCD off a little bit

You can’t say anything about being terrified of spiders online without someone going “but the spider didn’t do anything to you!! Why do you hate them?! It’s unethical to kill them!!” And they’ll start referencing that one poem even if you never said you killed a spider in the first place

Some people literally treat it as a moral fault if you’re afraid of bugs. I saw a comment on Facebook where the conclusion was basically “if you’re scared of bugs, that’s Bad and you need to work on that and learn to be Completely Okay with them or else you’re Bad” like some people don’t have an uncontrollable fear of bugs

A fear of bugs is also an OCD thing. My contamination OCD really doesn’t like them. And some people with trauma who lived in infested/dirty homes also do not like bugs- So acting like being scared of bugs is an inherently bad thing leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

But I always have a nagging thought at the back of my mind now when I see a scary bug. “Why are you scared of it? You’re a bad person if you’re scared of it.”