Wonderful article!
I know I'm a little late to comment, but just wanted to say thank you for sharing your experiences with apiphobia, which I've also had pretty much my whole life. Mine came from being stung by bees so many friggin times before the age of 6 (under my feet, on my ear, toes, fingers, you name it) that I eventually became very allergic. And - believe it or not - I was also stung inside the mouth by one hiding inside my soda can, just like you 😖.
There's so much in your story I can relate to - needing to stay indoors on beautiful days, running around like a crazy person if a bee was around, and so on. The worst thing of course was how people would laugh! Yes yes, I understand we look silly when we run around like that...but the fear we feel ain't so funny.
I've also learned to start dealing with the phobia, slowly over time, very much by focusing on what you've recommended - on the fact that we totally, absolutely need them for life. And that (contrary to what I always believed), they don't in fact want to kill me 😅.
Another thing that helped me was to focus on how super cute bees actually are - I included them in my post just earlier today 🤗.
Much love and peace to you,
Lizz-Loo