TERRIBLE FEAR OF MAGGOTS/WORMS. HELP???

Question

Okay, today my kitchen was filled with maggots due to me being a last dumb teenager who didn't take out the trash for a few days. Maggots in the trash, maggots on the floor. Everywhere, uck. And I didn't even realize it and I've walked barefoot in and out of the kitchen all day, I was petrified. Anyways, after prayer, reading articles on how to over come fear, reading how people eat MAGGOTS like they're nothing, I managed to brave them and clean the entire kitchen with a method that I like to call "THROWING HOT WATER AND BLEACH ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE AND CHUCKING THE TRASH SO HARD INTO THE DUMPSTER". Then I sprayed and scrubbed everywhere. I've always had a phobia of anything worm like. When I saw the maggots today, I felt nauseated and I needed to lay for a bit because I thought i would of passed out. I'm actually surprised I managed to clean them out. Anyways, any tips on how to over come this fear? I just don't get how garbage men and doctors and how other people can deal with them with ease on a daily basis. Just how??? I want to die when I see one, just ONE. I feel so weak and ashamed. It seems like something I shouldn't be afraid of.

Zoozu · Accepted Answer

Don't feel weak, you did a good job, even if it was excessive. Now next time, if there is a next time, you will not react so intensely, and you also won't have to go overboard in your cleaning but will just do a normal, reasonable disinfection. One thing that could help you is to make an effort to develop compassion. All creatures want to live and be happy or successful in their own way. For bugs or flies who may live such a short time, their goal is to survive to reproduce. They are nature's little survival machines, but we can appreciate them as among the many amazing varieties of life forms. Maggots are the babies of flies, and their job is to eat, which is why the flies laid their eggs on the rotting food. They will turn into flies and then mate and lay their own eggs, and so it goes. Just a day in the short life of one of God's creatures. They have no awareness of you and no intention to hurt you, infect you, or scare you. You are a much bigger, smarter life form and you can overcome this irrational fear. Try to learn some objective facts about worms. Earthworms are pretty amazing, what they do for the soil. I found one on the bricks the other day and gently picked it up on a piece of cardboard and put it in the moist earth where it can be happy. Try to have love for life, but that doesn't mean you embrace any creature--not a tiger or an alligator or a snake, etc. Admire them from afar. Some pests you may have to eliminate from the home, but don't hate them. They don't hate you.

Freethinking Liberal · Answer

All and any phobia can be extinguished. I used to do that on a daily basis as a hypnotherapist (now retired). There are though, many different and successful methods. most are based on Systematic desensitization, also known as graduated exposure therapy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_desensitization

There is no mystery to how a phobia is extinguished because, by the very nature of a phobia it will go away if the problem is dealt with.

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TERRIBLE FEAR OF MAGGOTS/WORMS. HELP???

2 Answers