Silly phobia and my sister's prank

Without sounding conceited, i think im a fairly intelligent logical person. BUT i have a silly completely illogical phobia-- fear of turtles and tourtises. Simply writing that down makes the hair on my body stand! Why? Why do i fear something i know isn't harmful, that can't do anything to me, why do i lose all common sense when it comes to these little animals? I have no idea why, all i know is when i was little i was once playing on the floor and a tourtise we had walked over my leg from behind and it surprised me somehow and freaked me out and although i was ok with touritises before, something changed that day and i became afarid of them.

Now i can't even look at pictures of turtles or even cartoon charachters of turtules and stuff.. If i see a turtule when im changing channels, for example, on TV or something then i know i'll have a nightmare at night and will wake up terrified..

I hate this, being afraid, not being in control.. especially when i know how illogical this is but i just can't change, i want to but i can't. I was thinking of going to a skrink or to do hypnotherapy so i won't be afarid of turtles anymore, but im so scared of being cured of this. that i might touch a turtle after therapy 'cause im not afraid of it, just knowing that makes me not want to go and fix this.

I guess i can live with this phobia since i hardly encounter any turtles in real life but i know i'd be much happier if i could get rid of this fear. I feel sorry for people with other phobias where the thing is all around them and they can't avoid it and live a normal life. like being afraid of birds or feathers or cats..etc.

This reminds me of a very unpleasant memory of 4 years ago when i was a senior in high school and my sister was a junior. my sister's friend had brought a little turtle to school in a little see-though gift box kind of thing and so my sis told her to come say hi to me and hand me the turtle and say its a present. I can't believe my sister did that! The girl came up and was like "hi, i have a gift for you" and she put out her hands and at first i couldnt see what was in so i took the little box and the turtle started moving inside and i just screamed bloody murder and threw the box across the school yard. I was almost in tears and couldn't concentrate the whole day, and i was looking over my shoulder every few minutes.

Anyway, thats it. I can't go any further with this, as it is i might have a nightmare today.
Jya ne!