Ophidiophobia

Ophidiophobia, for those of you who don’t speak Greek, is the fear of snakes. I used to have it.

Yep.

Full-blown phobia. Forget about being in the room with one. I couldn’t look at a picture of a snake in a textbook without being frozen with fear. I was seized with terror if I caught the tail of my grandmother’s pool sweeper slithering by out of the corner of my eye (the infernal thing!). The one instance of sleep paralysis I’ve ever experienced (so far), my “demon” was none other than a huge snake lying on top of me. Talk about being too scared to move. I don’t know how long I laid there stiff as a board and terrified, unable to even utter a sound. Harrowing, I tell you.

This phobia was likely developed from an overemphasis on avoiding holes that could be hiding snakes when out in the middle of nowhere in central Texas. We’re talking rattlesnakes here. Big ones. As a child I was duly warned away from these possible reptilian hidey-holes, but I think maybe I took the warning to heart a little too much. Movies like Aladdin and Freddie the Frog that featured the bad guys turning into giant terrifying cobras did not help. My child-brain latched onto that feeling of terror instilled by these snakes and never let go.

Until I made it.

That’s right. I made it. I conquered my fear. Not just a fear, but a definable phobia in fact. An irrational fear that I really had no hope of controlling due to its very nature of irrationality. My mind could not be reasoned with.

None of that mattered. I was determined to change things. Maybe I couldn’t control it, but I wasn’t going to let it control me any longer either.

But how to go about this?

Like most people I’ve heard of exposure therapy. I didn’t think putting me in a room with a live snake was a good idea, for me or the snake. That was way, way too many steps ahead of where I was currently.

Okay, not that then. But maybe something similar… If I could start with a fake snake maybe…

I’m a cosplayer. I’m a fan of Greek mythology. The answer was obvious.

Medusa.

Yes. I would cosplay Medusa, the most famous Gorgon from Greek myth, the oh-so-recognizable woman with snakes for hair. Through her I would conquer my fear.

It was perfect. I set out immediately to gather what I needed for it, including a bag of plastic snakes and a wig.

I sat down with a paintbrush and gold paint, intending to add a little oomph to the black, plastic snakes, and froze.

Okay. That was okay. That was expected. Just my normal response. I didn’t let it stop me.

One by one, I held a dozen plastic snakes in my hand and carefully dry-brushed them with gold paint. I looked at the winding shapes of their little bodies and pushed past the shuddering fear that gripped me as I imagined them slithering over my fingers, hiding under my couch, looking me dead in the eye and pinning me in place with a serpentine gaze before striking.

I looked them dead in the eye right back.

It didn’t matter that they weren’t real snakes. They were real to me and my shrieking mind. I didn’t back down. I persisted even in the face of my biggest fear.

I wove the snakes into the wig, feeling a strange sense of peace come over me. A calm after a storm.

Then came the time to finally don the costume. I put it on piece by piece, carefully assembling the finished look, which included even more snakes in the form of jewelry. Then I took a long look in the mirror at myself. Snakes danced in my hair, and I smiled.

I had a glorious time as Medusa, walking around a convention and taking pictures. It was the first step in overcoming this phobia, and it was a rousing success.

Now, I didn’t stop being afraid of real snakes overnight. But through cosplaying Medusa and consistently not shying away from other instances of the slithery creatures, I have found that, a few years later, I am able to be in the same room with a real, live snake. That’s something I had thought could never happen. And yet, I stood there, heart only beating a smidge faster than normal, and observed as little Hector the Corn Snake wound his way around my friend’s hand and then found his way down into a dark hoodie pocket to hide. You know how snakes like to hide in dark holes.

The only way to overcome your fears is to face them. You can’t avoid them forever. One day they’ll catch up to you and it just might be in the worst way possible.

I didn’t want that to happen to me, so I took the steps necessary to, if not erase the fear entirely, at least learn to look it in the eye and keep going despite its coiling grip around my heart. I’m happy to say that I was able to find some peace with this particular phobia.

Maybe next time I see Hector, I’ll be the one to hold him.

Call the goddess, Nike, because this is a victory.