What is ophidiophobia?

Again, this post is related to this year’s Chinese New Year, being the year of the Wood Snake.

But before that, allow me to give you a very quick definition of “phobia”.

A phobia is an anxiety disorder; it is an intense, irrational, and persistent fear of a specific object, situation, or activity. People with phobias may experience panic attacks, which are sudden and intense episodes of fear that last for several minutes or longer.

So, a phobia is a mental disorder (you may even call it a disease, if you wish) and it is intense, irrational and persistent.

With that established, I shall talk about ophidiophobia, which is what I have.

Ophidiophobia is a fear of snakes.

My phobia started when I was young and I cannot remember when, but as far back as I can remember, I had always had this totally intense, irrational and persistent fear of snakes, whether real ones, photographs of real ones, drawings, cartoon drawings, “cute” cartoon drawings, toys and the word in every language that I understand, so this includes the word “snake”, “ular” and the Cantonese word for the reptile.

So it has really taken me a lot of courage to type the words four times above. A LOT of courage.

For the rest of this article, please allow me to just use “sn…”.

My mother created an alternative word for this reptile when I was young, because she understood I could not tolerate the mere mention of the word. Only very close friends know what this word is.

My mother understood what a phobia is.

A quick history of my childhood for readers who have not read the encounters I’ve had with this reptile, now and growing up. My childhood was spent living in government quarters so we had quite a few encounters with the reptile coming into our house. I have seen my father catching them too. Perhaps I’ve seen too many of such encounters and over time I developed the phobia? Or perhaps I was born with it? I really don’t know and I don’t wish to know anymore.

Growing up, I had to get family members to paste over every picture in science books and story books. Then, with my children, I really had no choice, I could not get over the phobia, so my children learnt to protect me. They helped paste over every picture in their story books. If they saw photographs and drawings of it in newspapers, they would remove the page.

Thankfully, I did not “transfer” the phobia to them. So, I guess phobias are not “transferrable”, which is a good thing.

If I did accidentally touch a picture of them, not only would I scream, have palpitations and shivers but let’s hope no knife is nearby because my instant reaction would be to take a knife and chop off the part of my body that had accidentally touched the picture. Or I would want to wash that part of my body with chlorox. The intense fear would last for hours.

Intense, irrational, persistent – these keywords describe it, exactly and accurately.

So, please do not ask me why. It is irrational.

And if I’ve encountered a real one (which I have last year and 12 years ago), the fear would remain for quite long where I would be fearful even of belts, the shower hose, the garden hose, strings, etc.

Sorry, I still need to tell you more about it.

Now, I had two teachers/lecturers whom I respect very much and kept in touch with through the years. I made the mistake of telling them about my phobia. One totally believed that phobias can be cured by using the shock therapy, so she said if she lived with me (thank goodness she did not), she would shock me with photos of it until I was “cured”. Luckily she respected me enough not to do it. I told her I might die from the fear, but she didn’t believe me.

The other is a former lecturer who delighted in entertaining himself by capitalising on the fear of others. He knew I was afraid but again, he didn’t understand what a phobia was, so he capitalised in my fear to get some laughs out of it.

People who do not have phobias will never understand what a phobia is. But sadly, some also do not have any empathy, let alone sympathy for those who suffer from it. It is pretty much like depression. If you’ve never experienced it, you will never truly understand how much someone suffers from it and how it is actually a disease beyond their control and more than ever, they need empathy and sympathy, not stupid “advice”.

Now, back to phobias. We have heard of claustrophobia (the fear of crowded places), acrophobia (the fear of heights), arachnophobia (the fear of spiders), katsaridaphobia (the fear of cockroaches), etc. I have none of these four. But have you heard of the fear of fish (I know of two of such people), the fear of holes, the colour orange, even the fear of cats and dogs? These are not so common, but they exist.

So, when someone tells you they have a phobia, please, please have some sympathy and if you are a friend, please try to remember their phobia. It may be “ridiculous” to you, but it isn’t to them.

It is not something they wish upon themselves. Believe me, if they had a choice, they wouldn’t want to have it.

For example, my next-door neighbour has a fear of furry animals. I understand and absolutely do not hold it against her that she is afraid of the neighbourhood cats. She is afraid.

Being afraid is different from hating, you know what I mean?

So, now back to this year’s CNY being the Year of the Wood Sn….

I went with the family to Sunway Lagoon that day and luckily my son spotted a huge statue of it at the theme park, so he quickly diverted my attention and told me to look in a specific direction only and to keep walking. Luckily!!

There have been so many of them decorated in shopping malls. I’m trying my best to survive through this period, believe me. I’m trying. My friend and comrade-in-arms who has the same phobia is avoiding all shopping malls this season.

But a few days before CNY, oh no….the whatsapp messages started coming in with pictures of the reptile. Some were very real, some cartoony, but what difference does it make to me?

I cannot remember how many times I have flung my phone away (luckily the phone is still usable), screamed and had palpitations over this CNY. And it’s still coming in many times a day.

I know, it’s not the senders’ fault. How would they know, right?

So as of the first day of CNY, I’ve been asking my husband to scan through each whatsapp message to vet them. If unsafe, I asked him to just delete the message but I will reply to the message. If it is someone whom I think will understand, I will explain about my phobia, but to others, I won’t.

So if you are reading this and you sympathise with me, please do not send me any CNY greeting with pictures of the reptile.

And please don’t ask me why I am afraid. I don’t know why.

And please don’t ask me if a cartoony version is okay. It isn’t. Not at all. If I cannot even tolerate the word, how can I tolerate a cartoony version of it? And no, a small one in the corner of the picture is also not okay. Please, no.

No eels too, please. Yes, I know an eel is a fish, but please, no.

Thank you so much.

A list of common and not-so-common phobias: https://www.verywellmind.com/list-of-phobias-2795453


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