COPPELL GAZETTE (Texas) 29 April 06 With snakes, you have not much to fear but fear itself (Jim Dunlap)
It is coiled on the garage floor with head raised. It strikes at anything that comes near. Its tail is vibrating frantically. It must be a rattlesnake.
Are you afraid of snakes? A lot of people are but most won't admit it. Snakes have gotten bad press since biblical times with Adam and Eve. Some people fear snakes so much, they can't even look at pictures of snakes in books and magazines, others have recurring nightmares about snakes.
If this is your problem, you suffer from ophidiophobia. It is widely regarded by psychologists as one of the most common morbid fears that plague humans, right up there with fear of heights and fear of speaking in public.
The fear of snakes seems to be learned from childhood, usually taught by relatives and friends who dislike and fear snakes. Sometimes, however, a particular incident can instill the fear, such as a personal experience with “the snake that almost bit me," or being witness to someone else’s encounter with a snake.
Some fear the snake will bite or constrict and kill them. Some get sick at the thought of the slimy skin and the slinky way the snake moves. People who fear being bitten by a poisonous snake think every snake they see is poisonous. This is just because of their lack of knowledge about snakes.
Actually, of the 250 different kinds of North American snakes, only the coral, copperhead, cottonmouth and rattlesnake are capable of delivering a fatal bite to a human. Only about a dozen or so snakebite deaths occur each year in the United States. Statistically, lightning and bee stings kill more people. However, this is of little comfort to a person with ophidiophobia.
I have been asked to remove snakes from many places. I once took a harmless rat snake from a fireplace in a bedroom of a family that would not even enter the house as long as the snake was there. A few years ago, I received a frantic call from a Plano resident who reported a vicious rattlesnake was holding her dog at bay beside her house. When I arrived, there were eight people armed with sticks and leaf rakes surrounding a helpless 2-foot long ribbon snake.
If you have ophidiophobia and it interferes with daily living, help is available. A psychologist can treat you, and you would learn some facts about snakes, such as snake skin is not slimy but cool and dry to the touch. Snakes are by nature relatively passive animals. Snakes flick their tongues to explore their environment as part of their sense of smell. And you might be encouraged to look at pictures of snakes and perhaps even touch a live snake.
That snake on your garage floor is, most likely, a harmless Texas rat snake. We do not have rattlesnakes occurring naturally in the Plano area. The rat snake puts on a very convincing act trying to make you think he is a rattlesnake, but his bite is harmless.
As I always tell people, when you see a snake, leave it alone and walk the other direction. Don’t get close enough to it to try to figure out if it’s poisonous.
With snakes, you have not much to fear but fear itself