My fear of stepping animals to death

Sharing a peculiar fear of mine

Today I will share something with you that might sound ridiculous, maybe totally not understandable or even stupid: my fear of stepping on animals and smash them to death…

Since I can remember, to walk outside in a forestry or nature-area when it rained caused a huge discomfort for me. I couldn’t even bike through the rain, or after the rain. I would get off my bike and push it, with laser focus on the road to make sure I would not step on any snail, slug or earthworm and not drive over it with my bike. If I encountered a snail, I picked it up by its house and threw it in the bushes, field or grass. I still do that now, being 36 years old.

For me, to describe how I feel when I imagine how that animal must feel when being smashed to death makes me cringe, feel pain and discomfort. I feel physically sick, fear and panic arises within me, I get agitated and nervous, will not focus on anything else than the road and avoid to cause all that I feel inside of me in another animal.

This fear and discomfort was there when I was young and stuck with me till today.

Several months ago I walked back home in the evening, it was dark, rainy, I had my dog with me, little twigs were on the street, the streetlamps reflected lights on the road and everywhere snails, slugs and earthworms were crawling out on the walking path...

A walk of 10 minutes took me 40 minutes, while experiencing fear, shock, stress, panic, crying, deep breathing, trying to avoid my dog to step on them, not seeing properly and just being super upset. It was one of the most agitated moments I experienced in a long while.

And you know, I can’t explain to you why that is. To me, it feels like I feel their potential pain. I know that I also do that with people, this is why I can’t handle violent movies, stories or audiobooks, I will immediately feel physical pain upon witnessing terrible occurrences.

It has nothing to do with my eating habits either, it stayed whether I ate meat, was vegan or vegetarian, none of this mattered. I am also someone who is okay when people hunt animals for their own consumption, even though I could never hunt can animal myself.

I don’t really share this fear of mine with many people, it somehow feels a bit vulnerable, cos it’s also rather irrational. I also dont kill any bugs or spiders that enter my apartment, or that cross my path in a tent or anywhere else. The only thing I make an exception for are mosquitos. & I suck up fruits flies with my vacuum cleaner. But the rest: I let them live. Usually I catch them with a glass or something else and release them to the outside.

For me it feels wrong to just kill them. Why would I smash a bee or wasp when they come for sweets or honey? Why would I kill a spider or moth when they look for shelter in the warmth? They surely don’t want to harm me, so I don’t want to harm them either. Its simple reciprocity for me. Even if they are insects, or mollusks or bugs. Doesn’t matter to me.

I remember, when I went to the ethics course during my PhD, I had several drastic and eye-opening moments, some of which really threw me off my balance.

As plant biologists, the main ethical guidelines we had to follow were around GMOs or genome edited plants. When it comes to human biology, using mice or other organisms, the ethical and moral guidelines were more extensive. After all, working with mammals, or even fish and performing experiments on them, is a different caliber.

We had a PhD student who worked with Drosophila flies in that course and she presented her work. She described what she was doing and projected pictures of her fruit flies onto the wall…

They were horrifying. Truly a nightmare to look at and as if they come from a horror or alien movie: the flies had extremely deformed bodies, they had eyes all over their legs, even on their wings, they were clearly not able to live a normal fly-life. I felt terrible, I felt pain, and shock and horror. Because she also said: there are no ethical and moral guidelines, no restrictions on what they can or can’t do to those flies. I couldn’t believe it. Anyone who saw those pictures felt bad. How come there are no regulations in place?

I know, I know, these are just fruit flies, no one likes them & I suck them up with my vacuum cleaner too, but it shows something more: some creatures are cared for, others are devalued and that has different consequences. A spider is also just an arthropod, it looks scary to some, many don’t like them —> so sure, let’s just kill them off. They are still a living being and I dont see why I should take its life. Just like I dont want to kill a snail or earthworm by stepping on them. Especially when they are trying to flee their flooded homes to not drown to death. Imagine how terrible it is to escape and then be smashed by a shoe, or a bike…

I honestly have no idea what you might think about these stories, but at the same time, I don’t mind so much & I decided to write here, to share from my heart & soul, this fear of mine is part of them. It’s a sensitive topic, weather it makes sense or not and sharing it feels soothing. And who knows, maybe some of you can identify with it and have a similar fear?

So far I have not met anyone like that so I would make a happy-jump if there is ONE other human on earth that shares this fear :-). Or maybe you have another unconventional fear you want to share? If so, feel free to do that, we can start a club ;-).

Love,

Daria