Let me just say wow! This has really really inspired me. Thank you for taking the time to share your tragic childhood experience and how it affected you.
When you said
my reaction when I was seeing any flying insect vaguely similar to a wasp (bees, wasps, hornets, syrphidae was all the same to my eyes) was to run away while moving my arms in a completely unarticulated way
I laughed. You know why? I saw a picture of myself doing the same things. This has been my life since I could remember, running away, screaming and throwing my arms up in every which way.
Everything you mentioned here was just really good. I’m actually going to save your comment in a document so I can easily refer back to it. The discoveries that you made about the importance of having bees around, how they are probably more terrified of us than we are of them, and you doing the macro. I love photography and I could see myself trying to photograph a bee on this flower. Maybe I too will give this a try :)
Hahaha oh my gosh we see one too many of scolopendras where we live. We find them outside around our home and sometimes they get in. 😬
Reading this was so therapeutic for me. I’ve never met anyone who related to me in this way or had similar instances. Let alone react the same way when encountered by one of these insects.
Thank you so very much for taking the time out to share this with me and your desire to want to help me. My husband also read your comment and agreed this was very helpful and encouraged me to try photographing them as well ~ 🌺😊