Dealing with triggering environment

One of my friends is getting a pet that has the potential to be very triggering to me. Or at least sometimes. It really varies how strong of a reaction I have. It's also the exact type - as in species, breed, colour etc. She's really looking forward to it and its supposed to help with a disability too so I wish I could be happy for her, but it's really upsetting to me and I'm really dreading it. Obviously, she can't make decisions that affect her life based on how I feel about them (I would never expect her to). I'm just not sure how to navigate the situation. I guess the best thing would be to talk about it, but I don't want to suck the joy out of it for her or seem antagonistic. I already reacted kind of guarded and at one point slightly bitchy and I don't want that. I also cannot stand the thought of people going over the usual "oh, he won't hurt you" routine because the reason people expect you to be afraid isn't close to where my absolute terror comes from and I'm not about to discuss that with them. There's another person in her household who is looking forward to the pet. I don't know the person yet but my friend cares about her. In addition to the pet being there in itself, I'm afraid that person will automatically judge or dislike me for not liking that thing. I'm afraid it's going to change the friendship. Any advice on how to handle this smoothly?

Could you try just being honest with your friend? Like, tell them you're happy for them, happy that they're excited etc but explain that it's a potentially triggering situation for you? So they'll know and understand if you sometimes react negatively about the situation or whatever.

Arin

We have a zero tolerance internally to fears. Fears must be confronted and over come.

We respect others fears, we don't expect them to confront and over come but you've asked for ideas on how to make this happen smoothly.

Sometimes we will implant - hate something instead of a person - as a kid we did that to make life easier but now we say it's not "the things" fault it's the person, put it all where it belongs, with the person and not on an inanimate object or an animal or a football team. We used football teams alot because irrationally hating football teams is socially acceptable or TV programmes etc. But we avoid doing that now and replaced emotions where they belong because we're adults and don't have to put up with a person that we don't want to.

I hope this is making some sense.

So in your case a creature is the source of upset and fear. We were bitten by a particular breed of dog repeatedly. Hence we had fear. Hence we got bitten more. This stopped when this particular breed of dog once again attacked us and we punched the dog in the face. We haven't had that issue since but are not advocating punching a dog - it was a refex reaction. A negative short term action with long term positive outcome.

So we can't advocate you punch a similar creature to the one you fear. Our idea, we don't know if its helpful, would be to remind yourself that this particular creature although it looks similar is not the specific creature that hurt you. When we say remind we mean brainwash yourself. This could be to the point that when you see your friends creature you actually see a completely different creature - yes we're saying possibly delude your mind. This particular creature of your friend is infact... Insert a creature you love. Or you go to where there are creatures that look the same as your feared creature and pet them, force yourself to let go of the overall fear of that creature and brainwash yourself into knowing that it was only that one specific creature that did you harm not all similar creatures.

These are the only ways we know that you will also enjoy your friends new pet and experience it smoothly. Sorry if its unhelpful to you.

Much luck