A childhood belief about creepy crawlies

I'm 16 years old, and I have aracnophobia.
Just about all my life, I've been worried about spiders and other creepy bugs in my room. They occasionally come in too. Rarely spiders, mostly moths. Some times, when a moth or a fly flies around in my room, I have problems sleeping. I try opening my window and make it fly out, but there's no way I'm touching it. If I don't succeed, I leave it be, turn on the lamp in the ceiling, so that it'll at least stay in one place (on the lamp) and not make so scary sounds. It also rids the fear that it'll land on me while I sleep or while I try to sleep.

As late as when I was about 14 years old, I always thought it creepy to place my feet on the floor when getting out of the bed. I did it, and I knew of course it was irrational thinking, and it was just stupid to think something could be hiding under my bed, but it always made me feel uncomfortable.

I think both these fears of mine have to do with the Idiot Box, the TV. Having seen a few scary movies years ago, darkness always has been scary, because you never know what might happen or what might be hiding in the dark. Not necessarily scary things, but also you might hurt yourself if you bump into things. I also saw a documentary about aracnophobia on TV once, and fear for bugs generally. They said maybe the phobia was caused by the bugs' unnatural looks, and then they showed terrifying enlarged pictures of bugs with moving antennas and hairy mouths and legs and so on. Even though I may know more about the reasons for my phobias now, I still feel uncomfortably being in total darkness, and my phantasies still come to me, even though I know perfectly it's just absurd. I kind of like the darkness after all, exploring my own fears. Very fascinating. Good scary movies can make my hair rise all over my body, but I sort of like it too.