[Oabs] Something that bugs me.

[Emily Pennington via Oabs]

I think you're right; the buzzing is definitely a trigger for me. It's 
easiest for me when I'm in a pool with at least one other person because I 
rationalize that the bug is probably just getting a drink of water, as my 
mom used to tell me. I think one of the scariest situations for me is like 
the incident you described with the hornet; I don't feel or expect it on my 
skin, so when I discover it, I get really freaked out because I feel like it 
got past my senses and defenses. If it's on the window, I don't get as 
scared because I figure it will stay by the light and leave me alone as long 
as I don't come too close.
I would probably experiment with earthworms if I had to. All of those other 
bugs creep me out to no end. Before my neighbors cut it down, they had this 
tree in their yard which leaned into ours, and every spring, a whole bunch 
of those fuzzy caterpillars -- called bagworms -- would blanket our yard in 
a furry quilt. We could barely walk outside without one of those little guys 
landing on us. I also remember going to Camp Kern in Cincinnati with my 
school in fifth grade, and we did this nature activity which involved a lot 
of bug observation. The teacher running the activity had me touch water 
skaters and other such creatures, and I was tense and anxious the whole time 
because I would never have chosen to do that on my own time.
Spiders are an even scarier thing for me because they make no noise. I don't 
think we have many around our house, but the ones we do have hang from the 
ceiling in our kitchen because our main door opens into that room, so they 
get tracked in. I wouldn't know how to go about catching them either. Right 
now, I'm praying my future children have more guts than I do on the arachnid 
and insect front.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kaiti Shelton via Oabs" <oabs at nfbnet.org>
To: "Darian" <dsmithnfb at gmail.com>; "Ohio Association of Blind Students 
list" <oabs at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2014 10:52 PM
Subject: Re: [Oabs] Something that bugs me.


> Also, something else to think about is conditioning yourself to not
> freak out about the bugs so much.  I am still very freaked out by
> flying, buzzing insects, and my fear has come back a little more since
> I haven't been camping as much.  When I participated in girl scouts
> and camped more often, I could tell someone there was a bug nearby
> with almost complete calm, even if I didn't like it.  Today I will
> most likely cringe and ask what it is, but I do get pretty tense,
> especially if the bug doesn't sound like it is just a fly or a
> harmless moth.  The lower the buzz, the more likely I am to be tense
> and to try to get as far away from it as possible.
>
> For me, the fear of the bug and not knowing where it is is the worst
> part.  If I don't know it is there I have no reason to freak out.  A
> bout 2 years ago I was at a UD marching band practice, and when I got
> off the bus before practice a bug must have landed on my shirt without
> me hearing it.  I had my cell phone in my hand and was checking the
> time, and when I locked it I brought my hand down to my side so I
> could put it into my pants pocket.  I felt a really sharp sting on the
> inside of my wrist, and it was the worst sting I've ever gotten.  I
> knew it wasn't a bee, and it turned out to be a hornet.  Thankfully,
> someone else in the band was able to kill the thing before it flew
> back towards me to sting again.  I remember being more upset then by
> the pain and swelling that I experienced since I wasn't used to that
> kind of sting than from actually being afraid of the bug, but it's
> hard to be afraid of something you don't know exists.
>
> So, if buzzing is the trigger for you, condition yourself to not freak
> out so much.  Being around buzzing at girl scouts and not getting
> stung helped me.  The more I was around bugs without unpleasant
> consequences, the more calm I felt when I was confronted with them.
> If just feeling them is the worst part, try holding some harmless ones
> just so you can calmly pick the bugs you don't want on you off.
> Beetles, lady bugs, pill bugs, , and caterpillars are good ones to
> use.  Frankly, I wish I would have chosen to get over the touch of
> bugs with sweet little caterpillars rather than being forced to when I
> had to pry them off of me all the time during the cicada invasion, but
> at least that helped me get over picking bugs up and moving them out
> of my way when I wanted to.
>
> Spiders are another thing I worry about.  My cat used to be great at
> chasing after those as well, but she's not nearly as spry as she used
> to be, and our spider population has almost gotten back to what it
> used to be before we had her.  Thankfully spiders have never really
> been in the bedrooms or the family room down stairs, but we'll
> occasionally see one in our mud room or living room, where people come
> in from the garage or the front yard and might track in a spide with
> them.  The spiders we usually get around our house are the kind that
> hop, and of course they are silent.  I am unsure of how I would even
> be able to find one to grab it.  Sure, I can clean up spider webs, but
> when spiders just come in from outside it's a different issue because
> they don't have webs to indicate where they are.
>
> On 6/2/14, Kaiti Shelton <kaiti.shelton at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Emily and all,
>>
>> As someone who has similar bug issues, I can totally sympathize.  I
>> have been very fortunate that bugs rarely if at all have gotten into
>> my dorm room and apartment while I was living at college, but they are
>> a little more common in Cincinnati when I'm home.  This is partially
>> because we have an older house, and partially because the stink bugs
>> are much worse down here than they are in Dayton for some odd reason.
>> I have only seen one in my two years of schooling at UD, and that is a
>> really interesting story.  My poor roommate lifted her pillow to put
>> her cell phone under it (so she could wake up and physically feel her
>> alarm in the morning since she didn't usually wake up to the noise),
>> and found a stink bug sitting there.
>>
>> I think what Emily is saying more by her question is how to find the
>> bugs and get them to go away or kill them.  I know from seeing her
>> house, as well as from my own experiences, that bugs still manage to
>> get in regardless of whether or not your windows and doors are
>> screened in, and even when the house is clean.  Sometimes I find bugs
>> in the weirdest places around my house.  For example, a few weeks ago
>> I took my BrailleSense down to my basement to read, and after I had
>> been sitting there alone for a few minutes I heard a stink bug
>> buzzing.  Bear in mind that my basement has glass block windows which
>> only serve to let in a little natural light, and it is otherwise
>> completely underground.  There is an emergency door which goes out to
>> the back yard, but no one uses it on a regular basis.  The family
>> room, aside from the occasional laundr pile up, is kept pretty clean
>> since it's where we watch movies and have friends hang out in.  The
>> bug had to come in from upstairs, and there was no real reason for it
>> to be down there.
>>
>> Like Emily though, I had no idea where the bug was.  I knew it was off
>> to my left in a corner of the room, but I wound up going to get my
>> younger brother like I usually do so he could find the bug.  It took a
>> while for him to find it, and he almost thought I was just freaking
>> out for no apparent reason because he couldn't see anything.  He found
>> it sitting on the windowsill of the glass block window, so he thinks
>> it was trying to get out.  He was able to get a tissue and use it to
>> grab the bug so he could get rid of it.  I wondered how I would have
>> located the bug and done the same, and what if the bug moved in the
>> time I went to go get a tissue to grab it with?
>>
>> I will say that my cat used to be great at getting bugs, and sometimes
>> my dogs even chase after flies.  However, I've found as my cat gets
>> older she is more likely to ignore the bugs unless they fly close
>> enough to her.  She doesn't chase after them nearly as much as she
>> used to or bother to climb ontop of tables to try to jump for them.
>> She used to love it when a moth would fly into our house and fly
>> around the light fixture in our dining room, because it would become
>> her play-thing to try to catch.  She'd climb onto the dining room
>> table, follow the bug around with her eyes, and alternate between
>> stalking around the table and trying to pounc for it, or jumping up
>> into the air to try to catch it between her paws or with her teeth.
>> Now she'll lay right under the light with the bug flying around, and
>> only hiss at it and try to paw it when it gets in her way.  I think if
>> you want to have a cat for an exterminator, you need to make sure you
>> have one that will go after the bugs.
>>
>> For rats, I think mice traps are the best bet.  I know plenty of
>> sighted people, including my parents, who have caught field mice by
>> just putting out traps and waiting it out until the mouse gets caught
>> in one.  My dad caught quite a few by putting traps in places which
>> don't danger people living in the house, or inconvenience them.  For
>> some reason mice really liked to hide behind our couches, so that was
>> where he put the majority of his traps.  My dogs used to chase the
>> mice and got a couple too when they were young enough to be fast, and
>> a cat would also be a good mouse hunter.
>>
>> On 6/2/14, Darian via Oabs <oabs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>> Dear MS. Tim Brooke fellow (a.k.a. Emily)
>>> As you and everyone else knows, I am not from Ohio, nor do I live there
>>> (yet).
>>> Anyway, this is a great topic I wanted to chime in if you will allow
>>> I first think that it is important to come to understand that and insect
>>> phobia is not at all uncommon. In fact, the phobia itself and the
>>> question
>>> of how to deal with it is something that humans of every color, creed 
>>> and
>>> visual acuity face
>>> So, my personal opinion is that the creation of insect screens (the 
>>> stuff
>>> you put on your windows and doors), mouse traps and bug zappers and
>>> varying
>>> types of natural and chemical pesticides are in play when devising how
>>> one
>>> counteracts ever so annoying invasion of pests.
>>> I think the first thing that is highly important is to keep your
>>> residence
>>> as clean as you can make it. Is make sure home more hospitable to humans
>>> But less hospitable to the nonhumans
>>>
>>> I grew up in places where you had rats, aunts, and roaches (Yep I grew 
>>> up
>>> in
>>> the hood :-))
>>> Learned from my mother that cleanliness fixes a good bit of the problem.
>>> She
>>> is cited actually.  I also would tried to install screen on windows and
>>> doors for the summer and try to understand that when the weather is hot,
>>> the
>>> insects want in.
>>> If you like cats and you live in a place where you can have one, they
>>> tend
>>> to keep away the smaller critters
>>>
>>> Because I have a difficult time being able to tell
>>> I think this is all I can think of at the moment (I totally love the pun
>>> in
>>> the subject line).
>>> I think I will "buzz "off now.
>>>  Darian
>>>
>>>> On Jun 2, 2014, at 4:17 PM, Emily Pennington via Oabs <oabs at nfbnet.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi, everyone.
>>>>
>>>> With the summer season very much in evidence, I think it a very
>>>> appropriate
>>>> time for this post.
>>>>
>>>> Let me give a preface. I am a well-functioning, mostly happy college
>>>> kid.
>>>> I
>>>> can do laundry, and I am slowly but surely mastering the culinary arts.
>>>> In
>>>> short, I can't wait to live independently.
>>>>
>>>> However, I have always had one huge phobia which causes me to regress
>>>> into
>>>> a
>>>> helpless, quivering child: insects. I hate them all; even butterflies
>>>> landing on me scare the crap out of me. I know that bugs have a very
>>>> important place on this earth, and as long as they keep to themselves
>>>> outside, I am completely fine with that. What freaks me out is when 
>>>> they
>>>> appear in my house, on my desk, or worse, on my flesh. The hornet's 
>>>> nest
>>>> incident of '07 - about which most of you have heard in great detail -
>>>> has
>>>> only increased my fear. The stinkbugs love my room in the winter, and
>>>> many
>>>> a
>>>> wasp turns up in our upstairs bathroom during the summer. I hate them,
>>>> and
>>>> I
>>>> feel helpless when they're around. How do I kill something that I can't
>>>> find, let alone something with a painful stinger? My paralyzing fear of
>>>> bugs
>>>> also leads me to worry about what I'll do in the future when I have to
>>>> kill
>>>> the inevitable rodent in my house. I always joke that I'll marry
>>>> somebody
>>>> who will kill all of the vermin, but I know that won't always work. 
>>>> More
>>>> importantly, I need to come up with a system for being able to detect,
>>>> locate, and safely and successfully exterminate unwanted insects when
>>>> I'm
>>>> by
>>>> myself. After all, I won't live with my bug-killing parents forever.
>>>>
>>>> So, my fellow blind brethren, I ask you: What do you do in these
>>>> situations?
>>>> I know that not everyone has lived on their own in a non-dorm setting
>>>> yet,
>>>> but in any case, how have you - or how would you - handle it? I'm sure
>>>> Deborah and Eric are veteran exterminators and have some great tips as
>>>> well.
>>>> I'm anxious to hear your thoughts and war stories - not only to get 
>>>> some
>>>> good laughs, but also to give me some good ideas on how to work with my
>>>> phobia.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks, everyone, and have a great week. Enjoy the sun!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Emily
>>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Kaiti Shelton
>> University of Dayton 2016.
>> Music Therapy, Psychology, Philosophy
>> President, Ohio Association of Blind Students
>> Sigma Alpha Iota-Delta Sigma
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Kaiti Shelton
> University of Dayton 2016.
> Music Therapy, Psychology, Philosophy
> President, Ohio Association of Blind Students
> Sigma Alpha Iota-Delta Sigma
>
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