How to Get Rid of Phobias [This American Life]

<p>Audio source: <a href="https://www.thisamericanlife.org/740/there-i-fixed-it">https://www.thisamericanlife.org/740/there-i-fixed-it</a></p><p><strong>Transcript</strong></p><p>As long as he could remember, going back to when he was a child, Sam was scared of spiders. But not scared in the normal way, where lots of us don't feel great when we see a big spider, or a snake, or a big bug, or whatever.</p><p><strong>Sam</strong></p><p><br>It invaded all aspects of my life at all points in the year. I was thinking about spiders all the time. Any room I walked into, I looked in the corners. I looked under the table, crouched down. Every night before I went to bed, I fully unmade my bed.</p><p><br>Walking down the street, I wouldn't walk under anything that-- I would try to avoid right angles to the best I could, because that's where a spider is going to make its web.</p><p><strong>Ira Glass</strong></p><p><br>But you were scared that one would fall on you? Or just because that's where they are?</p><p><strong>Sam</strong></p><p><br>Whether or not it would fall on me was really irrelevant. Just seeing a spider, not moving, moving, large, small, it just created a feeling in my body that was just-- I would shake. I would throw up. I would faint. And of course, if you're constantly going through your life looking for spiders, you'll find one.</p><p><strong>Ira Glass</strong></p><p><br>As a kid, he didn't do sleepovers, didn't do summer camp. Other kids made fun of him. People did not understand. People pitied him.</p><p><br>And when he grew up, it did not go away. His fear ruined dates. He once found a spider the size of your thumbnail in his car and sold the car that day.</p><p><strong>Sam</strong></p><p><br>I had went to psychiatrists for exposure therapy. I had went to psychiatrists to talk about it. I couldn't watch an image of a spider on a TV screen.</p><p><strong>Ira Glass</strong></p><p><br>Let me ask you, does this name mean anything to you?</p><p><strong>Sam</strong></p><p><br>Hmm?</p><p><strong>Ira Gla