<p>feeling like a freak–oh, yes. Yes.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for sharing your story. I can’t imagine going through what you did.</p>
<p>You are not a freak and you deserve to feel safe in your space. That’s what’s missing, the feeling of security. Sometimes just having your fear respected can give you that. I hope that can be communicated to your parents.</p>
<p>Another reason for being open with people that you have an honest-to-goodness phobia is to prevent otherwise well-meaning people from doing things to try to scare you and amuse themselves. If they get the idea that you’re squeamish, you’re fair game. If you openly and honestly appeal to their decency by asking for their understanding, you probably won’t have to deal with that.</p>
<p>You have an illness that’s negatively impacting important parts of your life, like your college choice. The good news is that it’s treatable – even curable!</p>
<p>It is not typical for young adults to just grow out of severe phobias. They typically persist or worsen during your life absent professional help. There is no virtue in “learning to deal.” If your college plans were affected by recurring migraines or a painful rash, would your parents suggest that you “learn to deal” before seeking treatment? Tell them it’s the same thing.</p>
<p>Well I’m going back to my original suggestion, try a good hypnotist first. Therapy is great for insight and can be wonderful and life changing, but are you trying to understand why your afraid of bugs or get over (at least some of) your fear of bugs. </p>
<p>However - If you have other feelings you want to explore, than discussing bugs is a good way to get in the door… and I’m all for that, if you want to try therapy you most certainly should.</p>
<p>ncmentor, good treatment of a phobia nowadays will have zilch to do with understanding why she’s afraid of bugs. It’s about alleviation of symptoms, and of suffering. That’s true whether we’re talking about cognitive therapy with a psychologist or medical therapy with a psychiatrist.</p>
<p>Today I worked with a 12 year old girl with a fear of crickets. It’s what we are here for.</p>
<p>I used to work treating phobias with systematic desensitization. Even most extreme cases of bugs, snakes, rats, took max a few sessions. This is one thing that psychologists have figured out well and it is so fast and easy it hurts to see people suffer when a cure is so available!!</p>