Katsaridaphobia – a fear of…

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P1060057

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Not some beach beauty
Lying supine on its back
With upward knee-bent legs

This is a creepy crawly
Sprayed to its death
Waiting for its last breath

Unable to turn its back
And get back on its feet
Lies inert and helpless

Feels life through its feelers
Vigorously jiggles its skinny legs
Then goes numb and number

It implores – Help! Help! Help!!
Its sight gives us shivers
As we say – Eww! Ick! Yuck!

***

Whether it‘s some hyper-active – alive and kicking – big red cockroach causing scare all around or a half-dead roach lying on its back, it is always a creepy sight.

Once a roach is sighted, a quick decision has to be made, and thereafter, the whole process of chasing it so as to spray insecticide on it with our shaky hands, and then see it running haywire trying to somehow save its life, is a nightmarish thing.

You do not want to kill it, but what to do.
You’re afraid of him (it) and he’s afraid of you
You can either love them or hate them
You can save yourself or save them. 

So, faced with this dire situation that demands immediate action, we cannot help but spray lethal liquid on its shiny creepy body and render it immobile.  Having lost all control on its life, he (it) lies completely helpless on its back.

Nowadays I cope better with my Katsaridahobia, Shmobia. With mindful thinking, I have conditioned my mind to cope with it. No, not by trying not to avoid it, rather by looking at it directly for a while. I’ve also learnt to think in terms of inclusiveness. Nothing in this world is ugly. No creature is good or bad.
All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful…The Lord God made them all.

~~~

The above picture was self-clicked. For more creepy fun have a look here, but the faint at heart to please stay away from this link.

26 thoughts on “Katsaridaphobia – a fear of…”

  1. Ugh! I hate roaches. The brown ones typically found in New York and the large red ones, we call waterbugs that my cat Sylvester loves to catch and bring to me! Why I don’t know. Sylvester seems to think bugs in general are living toys, but not living too long since he tries to kill them! Creepy crawlies just give me the heebie jeebies.

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    • No one loves them. We’re afraid of them but they don’t know this. It’s amusing how your cat chases them, kills them and brings them to you. They are like toys for her. See how the perspective changes everything.
      Heebie jeebies is the right word…:)

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  2. I hate roaches with every fiber of my being! When I was young, my sister used to be afraid of armies of them being lined up outside the bathroom door at night. They always come out at night. Don’t they?

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  4. Yuck! I’d rather deal with a mouse instead of a roach! In Florida they are called Palmetto bugs…but they are really just a huge roach as far as I’m concerned. They are ugly, nasty, and fast!

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  5. I don’t hate cockroaches, but I feel very nervous around them! Also I don’t think everyone hates them, I know some who look at them kindly. In fact there is a lot to love about them, given how much more useful they are to the environment than our species is 🙂

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    • That’s from a very kind person. Nervousness is the right word, which is still not ‘liking’. But why is it so? Aren’t they like any other insect? People eat other crunchy insects. I think it’s about our minds being conditioned to like or dislike them. They are more useful but humans control most other species so we feel we have a right to dislike them.

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      • Yeah it’s a false assumption people have about their positions in the ecological totem pole. It’s a very thin line that separates our anger towards vermin (which have evolved because of our improper garbage disposal habits) and greed for tiger skin and so on, in my humble opinion.

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  7. Cockroach in supine helplessness, and your thoughts around it. As a pest, it is most hated for its disease spreading calibre; as a specimen, I recall mounting it on dissection boards, ripping open its alimentary canal, respiratory and nervous systems, and viewing it under a pool of water in the lab tray for my biological studies in school nearly five decades ago; it serves an ecological purpose feeding on filth and garbage, in turn also reminding us to keep homes and surroundings clean.

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    • Actually, two days ago, in response to DP’s photo challenge ‘Creepy’, I wrote a small post on my phobia for cockroaches, and how it contributed in my life decisions; I mentioned about my practical classes during pre-med course. They’re thoughts similar to yours – about the tray, the pinning of anesthetized ‘Periplaneta Americana’, about locating mandibles, mouth parts, esophagus, their white blood etc…then drawing their diagrams. I hadn’t yet published this post on phobia, when next day I saw DPs writing prompt ‘Helpless’ so wrote a poem depicting a roach’s helplessness. Now, posting these two posts on a cockroach would’ve been too much – so I combined them but took out my college days.

      Thanks for sharing your experiences.

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