Me, My Sensory, and My Synesthesia

Snakes

First off: if anyone reading this is afraid of snakes, I highly recommend skipping this chapter.

Okay, now that the disclaimer is out of the way, it's time to plunge into my dark, terrifying, and absolutely weird fear of snakes.

To start, I've seen plenty of snakes in the wild and I've been fine with them. The only time I was afraid was when I nearly stepped on it and so it started writhing and lashing itself all over and freaked me out because there was suddenly motion in my peripheral vision right where my foot was about to step. Oh, and the time my family was walking on the trails near the hospital and a snake suddenly caused a crashing sound as it whipped itself back into the dry grass and leaves to avoid us. Only two times.

No, the fear aspects only comes when I see them in their cages. Like, what the actual what. There is no chance it could bite me or anything and yet I see it and jump backwards and feel my heart speed up and can no longer think. Pictures also cause fear, but oddly enough, only really color photos. Somehow, my brain is afraid that they'll break free of the paper and bite me. I can't hold the paper anywhere close to where the head is or I'll freak out. Also, I have to keep my eyes on the picture so I can make sure it doesn't start moving. Why is my brain like this????!! Seeing them on TV can also cause the same feelings, but in that case, I have to pull my feet up onto the couch because my brain tells me it's gonna come out from under there and bite me.

HOW DOES ANY OF THAT MAKE SENSE???????!!!!!!!!???

How am I only afraid of them when there is absolutely no chance I could get harmed?

In fact, there have been a few nights (haven't felt it in years) where I get this...it's like...it's almost like a freezing-type of sensation along my leg. It's whitish-silver. It creeps up my leg and even though the only way to make it go away is to move my leg, I feel afraid to because my brain tries to tell me that the only logical explanation is that there's a snake in my bed. Like seriously?! Or I'll be lying there and my brain will suddenly tell me that there's a snake curled up at the foot of my bed, either under the covers or on top. It's so frustrating!! Fortunately, it's been so long since I experienced either of these things, I think they've stopped. I do still see them in my room like I said in the last chapter, but I no longer feel the need to recite song lyrics to myself when I need to get up.

I have been improving. A few years ago, the mere thought of entering a reptile house put me into a state of panic. About two or three years ago, I had the idea to start trying to get over my fear by focusing on getting over the picture fear. That's when I discovered that learning about them made the fear less. I love animals and I actually own...uh, hold on...uh, about 9 animal encyclopedias. (Two strictly dog breeds, one canine family, one wild cats only, one strictly mammals, two strictly horses, and two general animal encyclopedias, both of which include reptiles. I have other animal books, but I don't think they can be called encyclopedias.) So I would look at the pictures of the snakes. And, because it's impossible to look at something written in a language you know without reading it, I would start to read. And when my mom would watch stuff on TV about snakes (which, btw, I've never understood because she's afraid of snakes also so idk), I'd sit in on those. And apparently my "oooh, look at all this interesting information" overrides my "AAAAA ITS A SNAKE" so that's cool. Recently, I've even been able to go into reptile houses and look at the snakes with only minimal fear and anxiety.

(Cool snake fact before I go: I saw on one of those TV shows that there's a venomous snake in west Africa called a stilleto viper which has fangs that stick out of the sides of it's mouth, so it never has to open it's mouth to inject you with venom. It looks nearly identical to a harmless snake, so people have picked it up or disturbed it  without realizing there was any danger and then as it lashes around, it'll stick it's fangs in you and bam. So cool.)