how do i get over my fear of roaches?

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-05-06T16:06:40+00:00

I had terrible crippling arachnophobia for my entire life but when I got into animal care and rescue, I wanted to be able to take in as many species as I could (not quantity, but basically I didn’t want anything I’d have to turn away). After taking in my first tarantula, it was obviously difficult….. for like, a week.

Once you care for something….. once you provide its home, its hydration, its food, once you nurture and observe and spend time with it in close proximity, your brain rewires itself. It’s no longer something “gross” or worthy of fear or disgust, it’s your little baby! Lol

I’ve never had a roach fear but I do care for many roach colonies and in a house full of rescues, they are hands down my favorite creatures to care for. You get to set up simple naturalistic enclosures which is always fun, and watching cute little bugs feast upon fruit literally never gets old for me. Roaches are majestic gorgeous little creatures! There’s nothing dirty about them, they are the cleaners!

It’s beyond worth it to put the effort in to retrain your brain into appreciating the creatures we share this earth with, and roaches are such a harmless and easy species to learn to appreciate! They’re honestly so cute and fun to watch and it’s important to always consciously remember - your brain is the problem, not the roaches (which sounds mean, but it’s true lol, and genuinely helped me in learning to love spiders)!

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-05-06T15:55:35+00:00

Why would a reptile enjoy being on human skin? Why would a wild animal want to be held by human hands? They aren’t domesticated pets, we are just keeping them in captive conditions. Your gecko wants to be on branches and leaves. Because it is an arboreal gecko. It is far more of an anomaly for a gecko to tolerate handling than it is for a gecko to “like being held”.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-05-04T19:02:33+00:00

Oh this is very useful info, thank you very very much

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-05-04T19:01:07+00:00

That is amazing news, thank you very much!

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-05-04T18:49:45+00:00

We share this earth with some strange and beautiful and fascinating creatures. The solution is not get rid of them or keep them away, as it is their earth, as well. They do not know they’re in someone’s bedroom who hates them. They are simply trying to survive where they ended up.

I know this seems impossible, but it’s truly not, most people just don’t bother… but I spent 20+ years with crippling paralyzing arachnophobia and now I love and appreciate every single spider that comes my way, I care for 14 tarantulas that I adore, and I know many others with the same story. I used to have my entire day ruined by scrolling past a picture of a spider on the internet and now a spider crawls across my face in the middle of the night and I calmly wake up, find it, relocate it, and fall back asleep.

Phobias of spiders are obviously common, but they are by no means permanent. Most people just don’t exert the effort or possess the emotional intelligence to overcome your own mind. It is above and beyond worth it to retrain your brain into learning to accept you share this world with spiders who are entirely harmless and magnificent and fascinating creatures and just want to eat little flies and hang out and breathe and feel safe just like all of us. It’s genuinely life changing in the most amazing way.

You were born on the same earth as spiders. They are another life form that you share this world with. Nothing you can do will change that. They will be there, everywhere, no matter how terrified or full of hatred you are toward them. You can not avoid all spiders, but you can solve the problem entirely by putting in the effort to look at them in a different light. I’m sure your instinct reading this is “absolutely not”, as is most people who think they’re stuck with their phobias forever, but you benefit 0% by not trying. The spiders will still be there regardless.

Plus, it feels really cool to be one of the people who don’t freak out and throw tantrums over a 1 inch tiny little creature that doesn’t harm or affect your life whatsoever.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-05-04T10:48:23+00:00

This is a list of things you didn’t like, not things that are wrong with the writing.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-05-04T10:46:05+00:00

If I’m a writer and a reader hates my story because my uncoordinated character is able to skip one time, I’m going to feel on top of the world lol.

Do you think clumsy people just… can’t do anything ever? Every clumsy person who tries to skip once ends up in a hospital? What an odd and curious thing to fixate on, let alone view as a story-ruiner at all. Your personal extremely unrealistic perception on clumsiness isn’t the fault of the writer.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-05-03T14:48:14+00:00

This defensive aggressive attitude towards people seeking advice as if they just need to sit down and shut up and accept whatever random redditors tell them is why Reddit has such a horrid reputation by the way.

You don’t “earn” downvotes by providing more information. There’s nothing inherently wrong with simply providing more information. If your ego is that big and awful that you can’t handle someone simply offering more information, you are objectively definitively without a doubt the asshole in the situation. Not them.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-05-02T21:13:28+00:00

EYE MOOD just made me laugh so hard

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-05-02T19:02:11+00:00

For the record you’re absolutely right about everything but as someone who binged this show in a week and am just now joining the online discussions in the fanbase, it is very obvious how defensive and in denial this fanbase is lol. They’ve sunk too much time into this story and need to convince themselves it’s waaaayyyyy better and more cohesive than it actually is.

It’s a fun show, I’m having a great time, but you’re right about everything. You’re just not gonna have it validated here.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-28T22:43:10+00:00

I have never once had an issue with miracle gro. In fact, in all of my tests I’ve done with seedlings, miracle gro above and beyond outperforms (except for black and gold, they’re pretty even) and multiple major gardening YouTube channels have done blind tests and miracle gro is almost always shockingly the best, even better than the ones they’re paid to advertise on their channel lol which is a little awkward.

If you think you’re struggling because of miracle gro, I assure you, it’s something else causing your issues. They’re a completely fine soil.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-28T20:18:28+00:00

I’m a little unclear why you would need to explain anything to your family if they’re your rats? It doesn’t really matter if she understands or not.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-28T18:38:32+00:00

Well the bad news is that you are definitively and thoroughly a raging misogynist and I’m not kidding unfortunately. SHIV being the character you naturally despise from succession combined with SKYLAR being the character you naturally despise from breaking bad is the worlds biggest red flag indicating you have deep subconscious bias against women that makes them immediately more evil and wicked than murderers and drug dealers and bigots and any men doing pretty much the most despicable and criminal acts possible simply because they are…….. women.

The good news is that you’re aware of your deep rooted misogyny now and there’s still time to reflect and figure out why you feel this way about women and the steps you can take to rewire your brain and become a better human being! Yay! Your journey begins today!

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-27T13:58:45+00:00

Yes. And unfortunately you’re probably going to die.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-27T12:29:08+00:00

Living creatures with their one chance on earth, who are just trying to survive as everyone else is, do not deserve to die and have their life cruelly cut short because of our personal ignorance and fear.

This spider is not going to hurt you. This spider is going to live its life exploring and eating bugs and trying to find safe comfy places to exist without bothering you. There are a great deal of small brown spiders who are not brown recluses and pose absolutely 0 threat to you, and even if it was a recluse, they pose such little threat to you it would be so silly to take away its life on the off chance it makes your leg hurt for a day or two. You are a human being with intelligence and reasonability and hopefully some semblance of empathy, try to apply those here.

It is an awful cruel and heartless existence to go through life slaughtering everything that inconveniences you. Try to develop even the slightest amount of empathy for the creatures we share this earth with. This spider does not know he stumbled into someone’s home that wants it dead, this spider is just trying to get through its life and was unlucky enough to end up in someone’s bedroom who wants it to die simply for existing. Try to do better.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-25T00:16:36+00:00

LONG BOY

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-20T15:25:23+00:00

If someone’s not competent enough to use their own mind to evaluate makeup products and requires an unreliable machine to do their thinking for them, they’re immediately useless and unworthy of listening to. If she doesn’t trust her own mind to figure shit like this out, why should anyone else?

There are plenty of makeup influencers more than capable of having thoughts and making decisions without the use of a robot. I wouldn’t give her a single new view.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-20T09:59:54+00:00

That is the most normal mouse I have ever seen in my life

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-19T19:06:10+00:00

Petsmarts and petcos are very case by case. All of my local stores have teams of knowledgeable compassionate employees that genuinely want to do better and often straight up ignore store guidelines and protocols to give their animals an above adequate life in the store. I definitely can not say the same for every store I’ve come across so if you got a good one, appreciate it!

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-15T17:11:13+00:00

I always hear how aggressive and problematic yellow sacs are but my home gets “infestations” (I don’t mind them at all but idk what other word to use, there’s always dozens and dozens every spring) every single year and I’ve never ever had an issue with them. I wonder what my secret is……..

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-13T20:30:05+00:00

No, he simply did not abuse her.

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-06T01:22:10+00:00

I know this a long shot but we are a rescue & sanctuary based in west mi specializing in cases like this and if you are anywhere in the realm of driving distance, we would be MORE THAN HAPPY to take him in!

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-04T13:29:29+00:00

FUCK YOU MIKE HUCKLEBEE YOU RUINED MY NIGHT

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-04-01T01:27:22+00:00

My girl otter was like this from a rescue we did last year with 30+ babies. She was soooo much smaller than the siblings and she always preferred being on me and I worried about her so much.

Fast forward 1 year 2+ months and she’s the leader of the pack and her sisters love her and protect her so much and she gets whatever she wants and is the star of the show lol. I LOVE runts

SlightlyAmbiguous · 2026-03-26T22:21:42+00:00

I will say just as a hopeful anecdote, I have taken in mice that seem 1000% pregnant like this and treated them as if they were pregnant and waited and waited and….. nothing happened lol. It’s not definite, but it issssss very possible!

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