Hi @crosheille, I really liked your beautiful post.
Please let me tell you how I've gone beyound my Apiphobia.
When I was a child (4 o 5 years old as I could remember today), I've been stinged on my head by a wasp while I was playing with my friends at the kindergarten. I can still remember that day right now, even if 36 years passed since then.
For many many years since then, 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...
One day I discovered the foundamental role pollinating insects has to the nature and the entire world (probably if ever bees should extinguish, the entire natural food chain would collapse).
These informations which was very interesting for the native curiosity of the child I was, were not helping my istinctive fear reaction to them, but created an open loop in my mind which reclamed further investigation about it.
Since then I started to documenting about these interesting insects until one day I realized an obvious fact: in no way any of them would be interested having a conflict with a being 100 times bigger then them, because it would end with their death for sure.
This awareness in my mind little by little made fear become curiosity and curiosity reclamed further experimenting.
Years later I discovered Macro-photography and insects are one of the most interesting subjects for me to picture, so the need to move closer and closer to the subjects and the relaxed approach required by that kind of photography allowed me to understand that with the right attitude, insects let you move closer and in the end I arrived to the conclusion that they completely ignore you, if you dont look threatening to them!
Today I enjoy my time into the outdoors and insects do not worry me anymore.
This is true with the exception of ticks and scolopendra, eh eh eh.
And so, thats it, this is my experience, may be it could inspire you in some way.
Bye bye,
take care.
Giulius
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
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 ~ 🌺😊