By Karen Condley Abbey
[Editor’s Note: The author of this little piece is my niece, so I of course k n e w that she was afraid of snakes. But I forgot that fact and failed to cover up the snake in John Collier’s painting shown with Maik Strosahl’s poem about Lilith (“The First Wife”). Not good – Karen subscribes to email notices of blog posts, and she emailed me, “Please remember to warn me if you post anything with pictures of snakes, because I have a real bad phobia, and once I see a picture of a snake, it will keep popping into my head.” By way of saying I was sorry, I invited my niece to write about how her fear of snakes originated....]
I think it started while visiting relatives in Arkansas who had an outdoor toilet, or “outhouse.” I don’t know exactly how old I was, but I’m sure I was at least 4 years old but not yet 13. I remember sitting over the hole in the plank inside their outhouse just thinking about snakes crawling up and biting me on my hiney! On that occasion I didn’t even have to see a snake – imagining one was all it took!
Another time – it might have been on the same visit to Arkansas – while at my great grandmother, Mama Voss’ house, I was out back in a barn with my pants down around my ankles, squatting, when I did see a snake – a few feet away staring at me! Boy, did I take off running! I don’t remember whether I drew my pants up first or drew them up as I ran!
Now, to look at a garter snake I can handle, but a big coiled-up Rattler scares me half to death. So, pictures in magazines, or any place where a large mean-looking snake is shown, I will have the image pop into my head for hours!
I remember that when I saw a poster in a state park of the poisonous snakes of Arkansas, I thought, I will never live here! In California, at least we only have the Rattler, which is more than enough!
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Karen & Moristotle as children:
| Copyright © 2020 by Karen Condley Abbey |
As is well known, humans are evolutionarily afraid of snakes anyway. It was a matter of survival, inbred by Nature, that humans would be wary of creepy, crawly things...BECAUSE many were poisonous and their bites could kill you. Karen’s fear is pronounced, and it might fit Wikipedia’s definition of herpetophobia, “a common specific phobia, which consists of fear or aversion to reptiles, commonly lizards and snakes, and similar vertebrates as amphibians. It is one of the most diffused animal phobias, very similar and related to ophidiophobia. This condition causes a slight to severe emotional reaction, as for example anxiety, panic attack or most commonly nausea.” See also “ Ophidiophobia.”
ReplyDeleteDear Karen, thank you for sharing this story on the Moristotle & Co. blog. Although I know you won't be making regular posts, know that I enjoyed reading it and hope you will share another story sometime. I do hope to meet you one day. I have heard about that outhouse at Mama Voss' home from others! Ada Voss died when I was an infant, but I have always been fascinated with the colorful stories many family members have shared about her.
ReplyDeleteMorris, the article about poisonous snakes of Arkansas that you linked to this post was written by Renn Tumlison. Dr. Tumlison was my biology professor at Henderson State University when I was a freshman. He did lots of research into the fish and wildlife of the Southwestern region of Arkansas.
Stay well all,
André
I have enjoyed the reconnection with Karen’s two brothers and three sons as a result of publishing her account. Good wishes to them all and to their families. I invite them to let me know if they would like to subscribe to Moristotle & Co. posts, and I will have an invitation sent to them.
ReplyDeleteAll they have to do to initiate their subscription is to reply affirmatively to the email invitation they receive. Specifically, they should check their inbox for a verification message from “FeedBurner Email Subscriptions,” the service that delivers email subscriptions for Moristotle & Co. They will need to click the link listed in that message to activate their subscription. If they don’t see a confirmation e-mail in a reasonable amount of time, they should check their bulk/spam folder.
They should also note that some posts include items (such as videos) that don’t come across in email notices, so, in order to see them, they will need to take the link to the blog post itself.
I had an inkling that "ophidiophobia" was from the Greek, "ophis", and their posthumously deified healer-god "Ophiuchus" ("he holds a snake"), Roman manifestation Aesculapius or Asclepius to the modern Latino-cretins. The symbol of Ophiuchus was a staff and one snake, the Ca-Unus, (modern Greek ena fidi, ena=unus fidi=ophis) The Ca-Deucis ("two snakes") has been improperly used as a medical symbol for the AMA until recently, because the 2 snakes were in fact the symbol of Hermes, the messenger, god of trade and business, Roman manifeatation Mercury of course. They have quietly, and rather sheepishly it seems, corrected the mistake of some artist in the 1800's charged with producing a symbol and used 2. Despite the severity of your niece's phobia effective treatment is possible, there is no need for her to live in such fear. The inability to see even images of one's phobia goes beyond reasonable fear or any real danger, and messes with people's lives. I could tell some stories to set a gal's imagination afire about snakes and privy facilities but will refrain from doing so! Please seek help honey it is out there! You have a whole family of caring Moristotelians out here rooting for you.
ReplyDeleteI truly thank anyone with the desire to see me free of this phobia. If I was younger I might think that kind of therapy would be worth it but not at this age. I have no desire to go through what it would take to change this phobia.
DeleteKaren you would be surprised, with modern medications and methods it is nothing like the arduous journey escaping such phobias once entailed. However, you seem to have adapted to it, and perhaps you're right, better to let sleeping dogs lie...
DeleteA neighbor of mine, a big, burly nearly 300-pound guy, has a snake phobia, likewise inspired by some sort of childhood trauma. Twice this past summer he came home, saw a snake from his SUV - one snake was a harmless black rat snake, the other an equally harmless and amazingly large and beautiful green snake - and would not even get out of his vehicle until he called me to capture and remove it. It seemed silly to me at the time, and fodder for a fantastic practical joke, but after reading Karen's article I may forego putting a plastic snake on his front porch.
ReplyDeleteYou would not want to be responsible for giving
Deletesomeone a heart attack!
Good point. Nor do I want to risk sending a guy nearly twice my size into a blind rage knowing he might guess I planted the fake snake on his porch.
ReplyDelete