Kлenger and Suvi!!!
mh, insectophobia, insects, trauma, graphic description
yesterday was a serious breakthrough with my insectophobia
a bit of background:
When I was a kid I used to travel around Crimea steppes with my parents. During one of our stops we were unlucky to encounter a locust swarm. This was especially shocking for me, since I was like 5 or 6 at that time and I was entirely covered by locusts, they crawled in my pockets, under my shirt, under my pants, in my hair, in my eyes, around my mouth and this continued for ah hour. Even after my parents cleared me of locusts they still were present everywhere.
This changed me in a way, I began to be incredibly afraid of any insect, including butterflies and ants. Images too were enough to drive me to near-panic state.
mh, insectophobia, insects, trauma
To cope with this I sometimes imagined myself as an insect queen - the locusts chose me rather than just swarmed. Also recently I decided to try to create an insectoid character for a tabletop RPG I plan to play. This helped me a bit, but not fully.
mh, insectophobia, insects, trauma
Yesterday however, with some help, I fully immersed myself with an idea that I am an insect queen. Like went into totally different state of mind. This felt extremely weird, but instead of trembling and having extreme anxiety I actually spent hours admiring locusts, butterflies, bugs, mantises, bees, wasps and other insects; watched some videos on how insects actually work. This was very weird but also very satisfying.
I felt familiarity and connection to the insect world. Something I could never feel outside this state of mind, being rather extremely phobic.
mh, insectophobia
After some sleeping though, I returned to my previous insectophobic self. But I think this is still a very serious breakthrough. I need to explore myself more.