The Quest to Cure My Octopus Phobia

I hate thinking about them, I hate looking at them, and I refuse to eat them.

I’m not sure where the disdain for these fucked up, alien fish things came from. Still, I vividly remember watching a National Geographic documentary about “surviving” them as a kid. The host said if you ever get attacked by an octopus, you need to punch the suckers on their tentacles so that they release you. If it doesn’t work, you’re dead. Awesome.

My hatred grew stronger when, a couple of years later, I stumbled upon a YouTube video of an octopus unscrewing the top of a jar it was inside of and crawling out. These fuckers are scarily smart, and it threatens my humanity. 

Octopuses are unnatural, and I don’t think they should be on Earth. If I could spear each and every one of those cunts in their fat fucking heads, I would. Is that animal cruelty? I don’t care. My Pacific Islander ancestors did the same to survive, so it’s in my DNA. Take it up with them.

Some people have called my hatred and fear “irrational”. Sure, it’s definitely tainted my desire to do anything in the ocean. I don’t want to go fishing or snorkelling – I don’t even want to go on a cruise in case the boat sinks, and I get yanked to the seafloor by a filthy, fuck-off octopus. But on the flip side, I understand I’m likening octopuses to the Boogeyman. It’s embarrassing. And for the first time in my adult life, I’m going to actually try and change that.

How, you ask? ‘My Octopus Teacher’.

My boss asked me if I had seen the documentary where “the South African dude wants to fuck the octopus” after finding out about my fear. I had not and firmly vowed that I would never put myself through the hell of watching it. But I’ve had a change of heart and am choosing to do what I do best, and capitalise on my trauma. So, here we go.

Within the first minute, I had to pause the documentary because I felt sick. 

Octopuses are fucking ugly. Like super. That’s something that’ll never change for me.

I got chills (not in a good way) when the film opened with shots of the octopus rapidly swimming, flailing its eight limbs around, blending into coral and kelp and being hideous. Hitting me with this dreadful montage of octopus action almost made me throw up. But after a couple of deep breaths and several sips of water, I resumed and decided to continue the rest of the film out of full-screen mode.

The scene where the filmmaker introduces the camera shield to the octopus and you hear its suckers attach and detach from the plastic is truly horror movie worthy – one of the most genuinely repulsive things I’ve ever seen and heard. And I’ve seen some fucked up shit in my life.

Part of me wanted the pyjama shark that tore off one of the octopus’ tentacles to just gobble the rest of that little bitch up and for the documentary to end right there with the moral of the story being, “Well, that’s life”. But that story doesn’t get Academy Awards, does it?

The filmmaker is a straight-up hippie. Talking about “I want to be more like an amphibious animal” – you have a whole human son to care for. Go tend to him instead of spending a whole week chasing octo-pussy. 

“All I could do at the time was just think of her, on water and land. It became a bit of an obsession”. Touch grass, I beg.

I had to double-check if the filmmaker was going through a divorce at the time of filming to justify his creepy adoration for this animal. Turns out he’s not, he’s just a freak. Him saying he felt like he had been “psychologically dismembered” when the octopus lost a tentacle pissed me off. Get a grip, bro.

Am I still scared of octopus? Yes, severely. 

This documentary showed me they are smarter than I thought, which does not fascinate me. It’s terrifies me. If octopuses ever develop human-like intelligence and start to walk on land, we’re all FUCKED.

However, I did notice that as time passed, I became less frightened when the octopus appeared on screen. Usually, I’d be dry heaving and wincing at the sight of it, but I guess the purpose of exposure therapy is to lessen its power over you by facing your fears head-on. This is why I’m just a journalist, not a marine biologist.

While I can’t say I’m fully immune from my octopus fear, I feel like I can tolerate the sight of it ever so slightly more. Will I consider going snorkelling now? Will I go on a cruise accepting the 0.7394% chance of being swallowed by an octopus if the ship sinks? Will I finally be able to eat the baby octopus at KBBQ?

Nah, fuck that.

Adele is the Junior Writer & Producer for VICE AU/NZ. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter here.

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