Spider phobia

Every blog has its interludes from time to time, when there's a feeling in the air of "where am I going? what's this blog for?". I've had mine, and now I'm back.

Daughter is scared of spiders. I understand. When I was a child (and still now), I had (have) a snake phobia. I never saw a real snake, but that didn't matter. I remember seeing a picture of a snake in a book or on the tv, and the back of my neck would constrict, there'd be a jarring, ringing, grating noise in my ears, and I would feel frozen. It was a visceral reaction. I expect it saved my ancestors from death by anaconda, and was handed down in the DNA as a useful evolutionary tool.

Logic, reason, understanding... they didn't come into the phobia. My brother had a toy wooden cobra, made of a long series of wooden Vs, and I hated it. I hated the way its many joints would allow it to move from side to side in curves, like a real snake. I knew it wasn't a real snake, of course, but I still hated it. He would occasionally silently nmanoeuvre it round my bedroom door, and I'd turn round from doing my homework at my desk and see it, and feel petrified. Turned to stone, is what the word petrified means, and it was like that. The jangling noise in my ears and the freezing sensation in my body. He stopped doing that trick (he was a kind soul), and sometimes I would go into his bedroom, and make myself touch that wooden cobra, and pick it up. Logic must triumph over irrational panic, I would tell myself. But I'd only do that when no-one else was around.

I would only go to a zoo if I knew I didn't have to go into the reptile house. Snakes were the worst, but I didn't like lizards either. I did used to go to Tring Museum, where there was a large display of stuffed animals, collected by one of the Lord Rothschilds (he who had zebras to pull his trap instead of horses). There weren't any stuffed snakes, but there were snake skins. Trouble was, they were opposite the dogs. I loved the stuffed dogs. So I would go round the first few galleries knowing that I had a choice ahead (Tring Museum was a regular holiday treat), and trying to gather my courage. I could avoid the snake skins, but that would mean missing the dogs. I remember the fear, and how only facing it would mean I could manage it. So I would sidle along, looking at the dogs, and then when I felt brave enough, I would turn round, look at those dusty old snake skins, pinned out in glass cases, and prove to myself that I had nothing to fear.

So I understand 11-yo's fear of spiders. I know that saying "it won't hurt you" or "it's probably more frightened of you than you are of it" doesn't help. What I want to do, is to find out how to help - not just for the here and now, because we deal ok with each episode, but for the future. Is it best to help a child root out a phobia like this? Or is it best to live with it, until your chid is a young adult and can make her own decisions about what she wants to face and what she wants to put up with? I don't want to risk making it worse. If I've ever suggested doing anything about it, 11-yo, predictably, meets the suggestion with an emphatic "no!".

The difference between a snake phobia and a spider phobia is this. The snake phobia was unpleasant, but not significantly life-limiting. It would have been problematic if we'd moved to Australia, presumably, or gone on exotic holidays, but we didn't, so it wasn't. But if you live in the UK, and you fear and hate spiders, it's something that you have to deal with fairly frequently. I can see that 11-yo manages very well, and as far as I'm aware, it isn't something that hangs over and colours her daily life. But she'd still be better off without the fear, and I'd like to know what I can do to help.

I was going to put up a picture of snakes and spiders, but if you type that kind of thing into Google images, it really spoils your Wednesday evening. Go right ahead on your own, if you would like to see some. You don't need me to pick one out for you.

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Old Bloggers Award

So, as I said in my previous post (notice how I didn't say "my last post" there), I was reading Expat Mum's post about old bloggers, and she gave me an award. Just like the old days. The award is the Dragon Award for Loyalty, and it's only for people who've been blogging since 2010. I don't really get it. Are dragons known for their loyalty? Or just for being old? Anyway, here it is, and thank you very much.

I then have to tell you seven things about myself that you may not know. Here goes:

I like listening to The Archers, but I'm not obsessive. If I miss it, I miss it.

Husband has the masculine version of my name (think Paul and Pauline, Richard and Ricarda, Justin and Justine - that kind of thing). I like it, not least because it often provides a really easy conversation opener at a social occasion.

I always hated being tall, and seldom wore heels in my teens and twenties. Husband is my height, so when we first got together, and for many years, that "seldom" went down to "never". Then I bought a pair of heels for a fancy-dress do, and really liked them. The next time I was thinking of wearing them, my daughter (aged about 9 at the time) was watching me dress. I made some comment about not wearing the shoes because they made me taller than Daddy, and she said she didn't think that mattered and I should wear them anyway. That comment completely changed my attitude. I now wear heels if I want to, and I enjoy them. It's not just that I want to model to my daughter a more confident attitude than I have had (it looks like she is going to be tall too) - though that is true. Something in me just shifted, the moment she said what she said.

I don't have lots of favourite films that I can watch over and over. I'd always rather watch something new, because there is so much good stuff out there. However, I do have a very few favourites... Hang on a minute, I think I've shared this in a blog post before... that's the trouble with being an old blogger... you're bound to repeat yourself... but in case you missed it last time, my old favourite dvds are Billy Elliot, The Blind Side, The Full Monty, and Elf (but only the first half where it's just ridiculous and politically incorrect, not the schmultzy second half, and I know you'll disagree with me, Potty Mummy, because you enjoy Zooey Deschanel singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town).

I am a big advocate of the split infinitive, because it's only pedantry that has made it unacceptable over all these years.

I have a colleague at work who shares my taste in names, and we have lots of conversations slagging off other people's choices. We always pre-fix what we say with "of course taste is very personal, but...". I realise this is going to end horribly badly, because one day we're going to be in full raucous humour about a name, and someone is going to come into the room and be offended.

That's six, not seven, but quite enough.

Now I have to name some old bloggers to pass the award on to. Very hard, given that Expat Mum has picked lots of the ones I would pick. But here goes. It's awarded to you, Paradise Lost in Translation, Reluctant Memsahib, Happy Homemaker UK, Motherhood the Final Frontier, Rosie Scribble, Is There a Plan B?, Kelloggsville, Sticky Fingers and Pig in the Kitchen. Blimey, I didn't realise I knew so many old bloggers. Maybe some of you could emerge from blogging mothballs and manage a post.
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Old bloggers never die, they simply write the last post

I was feeling nostalgic about blogging this morning. I think it's autumn that does it. I often feel nostalgic in autumn. I was reflecting on how big a part of my life blogging was when I started in 2007, how intense it felt, how much fun I had. I was thinking how much I miss it, and how I've often thought I would love to carry on writing in some other forum but haven't found the right thing (or even looked very hard).

I also confess to a feeling of failure. My blogging world seems littered with bloggers who have gone on to do great things. Great writing things. They've written novels, or columns for websites of world-respected newpapers, they've continued journalist or writing careers, they run websites that mean they and their family travel the world having lovely holidays, they appear on tv and radio. Me? Not so much. What happened to me?

In my defence... and here followed a list of stuff about my life that I chopped out, because yes, I have a busy life, but that's life, and the point is in the final sentence which is... But I often have moments when I lament to myself that I'm not writing, and I feel like I'm making excuses.

I started doing "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron, getting another blogger to do it with me (always good to be accountable to someone). We didn't even last a week. I have vaguely researched local writing groups, but have never been brave enough to put my joining toe in the water. I've kept this blog ticking over, a slow drip that has almost dried up. Though frequently I do still think of ideas for posts, and craft them in my head. Only yesterday, shopping in Morrisons, I was mentally penning a piece on why sweetcorn tins are sold in shrink-wrapped packs of three, when everything else is sold in packs of two or four, and whether perhaps the person behind the decision had middle child syndrome (things in threes, you see), a working hypothesis which is rather borne out by the Green Giant marketing schtick. If that doesn't speak of sibling envy and an inferiority complex, I don't know what does.

Anyway, where was I? Finding excuses for why I haven't gone anywhere with writing. I mean, I was runner-up for a couple of awards at one point, for heaven's sake. Blogging, for me, changed significantly when it all got social media-ised. It's not possible (I don't think) to run a very successful blog these days, unless you're joined up with Facebook, Twitter, and whatever else might come along. That means it's all a lot more time-consuming, and (here's the nub) you can't be anonymous. I found my writing feet, and flourished, when I could do so secretly behind a computer screen. Thinking back, there is so much that I just couldn't have written, if it hadn't been not only that I was anonymous, but that the whole blogging world was largely anonymous, or at least that it all started out that way. (Remember the boob cake?)  I can't get that back, and I'm not sure how to find the freedom that I felt, without it. Though I still feel like I'm making excuses.

So this is what I propose. To remember that it's not a competition. That it doesn't matter what other people have or haven't done from their blogging platforms. That it's not a question of success and failure. That, actually, writing for the sake of writing is ok, even if doesn't go anywhere. And not being anonymous is ok. It makes things different, but not wrong. Just different. So, I will promise myself to write a little each week. I will investigate the group of Blogging Nostalgiks that my old china Expat Mum has told me about. I will investigate another group of "Writers Over 40" that I came across on Britmums recently (though I would have qualified a decade ago, but they're probably flexible on the upper end of the age bracket). Baby steps, I know, but if I'm to get back into writing, I've got to start somewhere. Because I don't want any post to be my last post.

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