Something new for you this “Memory Monday.” I’m trying to gather stories from my family. I already have a few, with permission to use them. This particular story comes by way of my maternal aunt, Miriam Wilson (maiden name: Dill). In order of birth, there is (from oldest to youngest) my aunt Linda, Mary, Betty, Miriam, Judy (my mom). Then, my maternal grandmother died and my maternal grandfather remarried to my Grandma Flossie who already had my aunt Debbie. After their marriage followed my aunt Joy and uncle Jimmy.
For the longest time, my aunt Miriam was afraid of spiders. I remember hearing about her reaction to the movie, “Eight Legged Freaks.” Apparently she almost squeezed their huge cat, Bob, to death. How they got her to sit down to that movie, comedy aside, I will never know.
The following is her story and the first “memory” story a relative wrote, that made me realize I wanted to collect these stories and more like them.
I hope you enjoy (posted with permission)!
Miriam Wilson with her youngest son, Kyle.
Ever had a night terror or phobia? Tell me about it in comments!
Muse Sings 
I love spiders… so I cannot share the fear here… I know it is hard to process, but spiders don’t go after humans.. they just spin their webs to eat the bugs that annoy us throughout the day.
Great story by the way! 🙂 People around here call me the “spider rescuer.” 😉
I have a working relationship with the spiders in my house. Stay in your corner or your toast. I’ve had too many near-heart-attacks from a visitor coming down on its web right in front of my face. I also grew up in an area with both of the most venomous types of spiders in the States. When it comes down to certain spider looks I learned to be safe rather than sorry (brown recluse and black widow).
Outside is their home though. I’ve enjoyed plenty orb spiders near my porch.
That all aside, I don’t really have any phobias myself. Some people might say I had a phobia of tornadoes, but that’s iffy. First, it wasn’t irrational for a few reasons, one of which includes growing up in a state that sees tornadoes periodically, and at one point in my life living at the southern-tip of that state smack dab in the tornado alley streak. My fear is far less here in New York, where tornadoes occasionally happen, but they’re the difference between a surfable wave and a tsunami hehe.
I do occasionally have night terrors though of various things, usually freaky-looking bugs out of my imagination, but once a very freaky-looking face on the wall. The only way to make it disappear from my vision, wide awake, scrambling to get away from it, and wide-eyed staring, is to flip on the light. Even then it’s hard to get your mind over how real a night terror is. On a rational level, you know it won’t be there once the light goes on, but on a more primal level you can’t imagine how it wasn’t there in the first place. When it’s bugs I usually have to thoroughly examine my pillows and blankets to be sure anyway. The one with the freaky-looking nightmare face though…yeah…I got up and stayed up for a few hours lol.