Extreme snake phobia

by Chance
(Wheatland, Wyoming, USA)

As long as I can remember I have had an extremely irrational, traumatic snake phobia. I honestly cannot even look at a picture of one.

For example, I was looking through a National Geographic once as a child and opened up to an article about snakes. A split-second glance at the photo caused me to throw the magazine and proceed to rip it up and throw it away. Even now, at sixteen, I cannot look at pictures of snakes and I will not look through a magazine, book, or website if I know it will have pictures of snakes.

When I was younger, I was putting rope lights on the fence and noticed a little rattlesnake about five feet away from me. I ran in as fast as I could in pure shock to the house and my mom almost took me to the emergency room. I was in a complete state of shock.

Another time I saw a huge bullsnake in our driveway and it caused great trauma, and I've had dozens of nightmares about it. The worst was when there was a snake in our garage; it caused me to go in to a huge panic attack and I lost a lot of sleep over it. I get extremely paranoid and feel things crawling on me even if there is nothing.

The thing is, I am a very rational, intelligent, and easy going person. But when it comes to the concept of snakes, I loose all control. It is very indescribable but every kind of snake just freak me out so bad it can be unbearable.