Project Mottephobia

For my final VR assignment for this semester, we are required to create a simulation based on a particular fear. For that, I have chosen a personal fear, a fear of butterflies and/or moths, either called mottephobia(for moths) or lepidopterophobia - which includes moths, butterflies and skippers - something between butterflies and mothhs.

It was quite a strange project for me, cos u see, these things do freak me out. And I'm here dealing with pictures of them, of many of them. pany pictures of them. Even animate 3D models of them. Yuks. By the way, I just removed a picture of a huge Urania month in this post cause its disturbing. >.<

As I was searching through the internet for related pictures, I came a cross a site called IHateButterflies.com, "the official site for the phobia of butterflies and moths. It has a forum which phobes like me, share their feelings and horrible experiences involving these so called "beautiful", flappy creatures.

I had my fair share of bad experiences with those things, like when that horrible huge Urania moth that flew into my bedroom, landed on top of my closet and stared at me with its monstrous bulging eyes and ended up being spray-mounted by a friend of mine, stuck to a piece of mounting board and threw out the window - heh, poor thing. Wonder if somebody picked it up to be used for their design projects.

Then there was this strange looking strangely shaped white moth which keeps disappearing and swims out when my bf tries to flush it down the toilet bowl. Must be a horrifying sight - I didnt dare to watch.

Then, i tried and recalled some vague memories of childhood experiences which involve something like flailing my hands about trying to shake off some moth, a bad boy laughing at me, a nanny bewildered by the chaos and sort.

But reading that forum, I am glad that I didnt live in some place like certain parts of America where they had millions of colonial or migrating butterflies, with the favourite ones being the monarchs. That could have scared the hell out of anyone, even those who are not really scared by regular butterfly encounters.

Then, there are those who would swear againts being in the same room with a moth or butterfly. For me, if its only a tiny moth and its not fluttering about or very near me, i wouldnt mind. I pity those who shiver only by looking at a picture of a butterfly. Life must be real tough.

But one thing i notice is that, when they mention about first childhood memories of butterflies, it usually involve everyone else laughing at you while youre scared shit. I believe that experiences like these cause the victim to develop a phobia. You begin to relate that particular creature to the feelings that you had at that time - the fright followed by trembling fear, and the helplessness when people not only dont help but put you into shame and humiliation.

Ofcourse, if after that you acted supportive and solve the problem, like catch it and throw it out the window, things could be easier. But if you belittle their fear, say that they just have to "grow up" and that sort of thing, its just not gonna help. Like this girl who said that when she was in kindergarten, they were out to a school trip. And while walking to their bus, she yawned, and a damned butterfly flew into her mouth. The kids around her started laughing first. When the teacher in front was aware of the situation, she laughed as well. It took some time for the butterfly to finally fly away. Needless to say, that experience left her scarred. Well, in that situation, I think one wont want to do anything unless you're an expert butterfly handler. But even if you dont help, at least you can try not to make it worse by laughing all the way unsympathetically.