Irrational Fear?

I was wondering how many of you guys/gals run into people with an irrational fear of your BPs. For instance; I have a video of my BP feeding on my phone, and my girlfriends mom couldnt even be in the same room with my phone. In another case, my neighbor knows I have a BP, but wont come past the front door (snake is in the basement level) My girlfriend started off really afraid as well, but Im taking special measures to make sure not to push the issue, and let her realize there is nothing to be afraid of on her own.
I am a therapeutic day treatment specialist, so I have worked with clients with phobias and some level of exposure therapy..but It is interesting to me that so many people are more afraid of a snake, that on its worst day might scratch your skin, when in my area of the U.S there are black widows and brown recluse spiders outside that can do much more damage.
THoughts?

I have some friends & family members who can't even look at photos of my snakes, they will come to my house knowing that the snakes are in a locked room :)

My mom has a deeply rooted (from childhood) phobia of all snakes. I'm so proud of her, though. She's come so far. She's really determined to overcome it, and she's gotten to the point that she'll actually hold Axel's back half, as long as I keep a hold of his head so he can't look at her.
She knows that he's harmless (Mostly. She also thinks he's slightly evil:P) and she's really trying.

I often think people with irrational fears of snakes are simply ignorant. They're been taught, all their lives that snake=bad.

We haven't had much company since we got our snakes. My friends and family always have an excuse why they can't come. Sometimes I think I should have had some snakes years ago.

My brother-in-law wont come down the basement stairs because of my snakes. My father hates them and wont come over. My "father-in-law" doesnt like them so i get to move soon:D . Its amazing how some ppl freak out over such a dosile animal, i own 5 cats(with claws ;) ) and have 3 fish tanks lol which would u worry about?

I know a native american person I work with, I think she might be Apache, and she refuses to even speak with me because according to her ancestral beliefs snakes are bad mojo apparently. Once she found out I have snakes at home she started avoiding me like the plague and won't even respond to anything I say or do...

My neighbor is terrified by snakes. When she found out that I had them she started to squeal. It was quite funny. She asked me to let her know anytime that I am going to bring my snakes outdoors so that she can hide out inside. She has also stated that she would be content if she never had to see one of my snakes in her life time. It is quite comical though when I show her one or two threw the snake room window....lol

I know a lot of people that are terrified of mine. I also have one person that is terrified of MICE and will not come over if there is feeding going on. I hope she never opens my freezer door, as there is about 100 in there :rofl:

Humans are inherently prone to attach fear with snakes. It's actually been proven in psychology studies that it is harder to attach a fear to say a flower or elephant than a snake or spider. We have an instinctive bias to become scared of snakes easier than other things. I actually wrote a college paper about it recently. My girlfriend is finishing her doctorate in psychology and helped me build a strong arguement about our irrational fear of snakes. It is a very interesting topic. We spent several evening having some great discussions about it while I was shaping my paper up.

Regards,

B

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Originally Posted by Simple Man

Humans are inherently prone to attach fear with snakes. It's actually been proven in psychology studies that it is harder to attach a fear to say a flower or elephant than a snake or spider. We have an instinctive bias to become scared of snakes easier than other things. I actually wrote a college paper about it recently. My girlfriend is finishing her doctorate in psychology and helped me build a strong arguement about our irrational fear of snakes. It is a very interesting topic. We spent several evening having some great discussions about it while I was shaping my paper up.

Regards,

B

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Totally Agreed.. This is not a thing to be laugh at. Fears of Snakes or Spiders are one of the fear deeply encoded in Human mind from our past when this creatures was deeply misunderstand and most of them was deadly for a humans...

I totally Agree that some of our fears come from lack of knowledge and misunderstanding of source of fears.. but is not that simple at all. I'm arachnophobic... And even if is a fear mixed with fascination.. there are situation when I gonna be near panic... I can watch spiders behind the glass, or in natural environment taking Photos and all... but If I can choose be alone in room with roaming free rattlesnake or wolf spider... I CHOSE RATTLESNAKE!!!

I'm afraid of people's stupid phobias.

I attribute that same, well not fear, but that level of being grossed out, or whatever, to my level of being grossed out by bugs and insects. If someone doesn't like holding or seeing snakes, I don't really dismiss it, I just kinda think of how I would feel if I saw a centipede, and then I imagined myself holding that centipede. And then there are insect lovers out there, who would call my fear irrational.

So in the end, its all relative. Can't blame or fault them, as long as they don't press their biases on others, then I'm fine.

My favorite is my one female friend who is terrified of snakes to the point where she made me get rid of a stuffed snake I won at six flags(I made some little kids day), but she wants to get a pet tarantula.

The majority of my extended family are afraid of my snakes. They cringe when I simply mention them. Though, now it seems like my sister is more afraid of the frozen rats. :rolleyes: However, my parents are not. I'm actually planning on buying a GTP for my dad (though, I will most likely care for it since I'm moving back into their house in Vegas). He has fallen in love with them and the G-stripe BPs.

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Originally Posted by DellaF

We haven't had much company since we got our snakes. My friends and family always have an excuse why they can't come. Sometimes I think I should have had some snakes years ago.

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:rofl:

My dad told me when I was in college that if I got a snake he would stop visiting me at my apartment. :P

I didn't end up getting one until I move almost half way across the country for work, but I always found it odd that he was that afraid of snakes. I highly doubt he would ever set foot in my apartment now.

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Originally Posted by Kinra

My dad told me when I was in college that if I got a snake he would stop visiting me at my apartment. :P

I didn't end up getting one until I move almost half way across the country for work, but I always found it odd that he was that afraid of snakes. I highly doubt he would ever set foot in my apartment now.

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I'm glad it turned out to be the opposite with my dad! I begged since I was ten years old to have one but had to wait until my parents moved to another state. Now I have three going on five next month and I'm actually moving back in with them next month and suddenly they're fine with me bringing five snakes into their home. :rolleyes:

I havn't actually got a snake yet due to phobias... I have been with my wife for nearly 8 years and its took her this long to actually persuade her into allowing a snake in the house !!! My daughter has been pestering her since she was 4 (shes now 10) .... her grandma and mom said they wouldnt ever come in the house with a snake here (I can't think of a better reason to rush out and buy one haha)....
We have had geckos in the house for the last few months and she is finally actually getting into looking at the various ball morphs .... so we will see how things go across the summer and getting one haha:D

Yeah, we really shouldn't be laughing, as most people have phobias of some kind. It's just a shame that people are often unwilling to tackle the phobia.

One of my Sgt.s at work was in the middle of a huge, very dangerous situation that SWAT had to respond to.

The only thing he cared about was that someone mentioned there was a huge snake near the back door. Yep....he's more afraid of a snake (probably garter or black racer...) than he was of the very dangerous and mentally unstable person he was dealing with....lol

My father was a vet of three wars and scared to death of snakes. Even a hatchling black rat snake would send him running for cover. He would rather have you take pot shots at him with a rifle than pick up a garter snake and walk toward him, and I'm not exaggerating.

I do think that most people have an inherent distrust of snakes. But there is usually more to it. In my father's case, it was reinforced to the point of nutty fear. His family lived close to a creek when he was a kid and they found numerous copperheads, so I can understand why they taught their kids to be scared of snakes. My father would actually start to sweat if he was near a snake and he wasn't afraid of much else in the animal world.

Everyone doesn't have that ingrained fear, though. From my family's accounts, I was never afraid of snakes or spiders. As a toddler I would find these fascinating creatures and bring them into the house to share with my family. In my case, seeing the reaction that they produced probably encouraged me to seek out even more of them. But then again, I was an evil child. :D

When I encounter someone with a fear of snakes, I refrain from feeding it. Not everyone will do it, but some people eventually get curious and want to see what it is that I "get" from keeping snakes. You can't win everyone over, but I have had a few folks who feared snakes end up holding my snakes and finding out that they aren't bloodthirsty man-eating monsters.

This reminds me of that new cell phone commercial.

The one where the guy calls up a Tarantula pic on his phone that is supposedly so life-like it makes the chick next to him have screaming hysterics and the guy across the table yanks off his shoe and beats the cellphone with it.

That commercial is funny, but it isn't. It's funny because people react so strongly to a picture of an animal, not even the animal itself.

It is also not funny because a phobia is no laughing matter. I myself am phobic about heights. Not just afraid of heights, but phobic. It take an effort of will just to climb a stepladder. Something on the roof of the house ? It takes me a hour to get up, and three more to get down. I can't ride escalators without someone on either side of me and in front of me. I can't walk up to the stair railing in the mall looking down on the lower level.
A ride in a ferris wheel brings on a panic attack. You couldn't get me on a glass sided elevator with a 3 ton wench.

On a school field trip I managed to make the horrifying ride to the top of the St. Louis Arch. My teachers insisted I HAD to go, and thought my claims of fear were exaggerated.
Once I got off the little lift thing and felt the floor swaying, I laid down in the middle of the floor and just moaned and cried. It took three teachers and three custodians to get me up off the floor, and almost 45 minutes to get me back on the lift. I threw up twice on the way down. My teachers never made the mistake of insisting I go anywhere high again.

So yeah, people overreacting to certain things they are afraid of is funny, but don't look down on a true phobia, cause they aren't funny.

Gale

I must admit, I had a fear more irrational than all these. I really did not like to touch animal limbs or feet (lizard toe sucker pads and little paws of cats dogs mice) and pretty much freaked out. Which led me to my favourite ball python. HAHAH imagine that.

But of course I did get over it, kind of, at least. And in any case I have decided to enjoy having my instinctive fears, since they give me a kick in my boring life. I became an adrenaline junkie as a grew up, I love getting into precarious situations and heights (totally into extreme sports) and doing stupid things like in Neg's Urban Sports just for a dare. Yeah I'm pretty immature but I have my right to be for a while more. Still in my teenage years and schooling. So now facing such fears is just another 'kick' I get.

my father-in-law and his wife will not ever come to my house they said because of my snakes.

One of my exs (from way back when I was in college and before I started keeping snakes) was, and still is, extremely terrified of snakes. He was a big guy too, football player and everything, but you couldn't even say the word snake or he would start to squirm and cover his ears. One of his friends had a king snake and tried to bring it over once, and he was reduced to tears, cowering behind the sofa in a corner. It does seem ridiculous and irrational, but I can understand how someone could be afraid of them. There have been so many negative stories and associations over the years that it is very deeply ingrained. Also, in the wild, there are a lot of snakes that could potentially be venomous, so I'm sure our instinct plays a role. Plus, they just look so different from us with no limbs, no eyelids, etc that they seem very alien and threatening... it's difficult for people to associate with them like they can with a dog or a cat or even a bird. I admit I was a little uncomfortable around snakes before I finally got one, so I can at least somewhat understand how someone could have a phobia. It is a serious thing.

But no, most people just think I'm weird when they find out I have snakes :P There are a few that don't like to walk by their enclosures or shiver when they see one of them, but none of them freak out too much. I always make sure to ask friends and guests before I take any of my snakes out if they're comfortable with that, because I've seen how intense ophidiophobia can be.

My brothers wife broke down crying from looking at photos of my balls (heh snickers**) on my phone. She will not even come in my house even though they are locked in a seperate room and cannot escape :confuzd:

I work at a pet supply store, so we don't have any actual animals, but my manager is deathly afraid of snakes. She even went to therapy for it and couldn't bring herself to put her hand on a picture of a snake printed in a magazine. There was a time when she wouldn't come into my house (we knew each other before I worked for her) because of the snakes (well, at that time it was just one snake). She's getting a little better with it though, because her boyfriend is dying to get a snake and because we're getting more reptile stuff in at the store and are therefore doing a little reptile show thing to raise awareness about the fact that our store is no longer just for dogs and cats.

At first she didn't even want to go to the show herself, because I would be bringing my snakes and someone else was bringing his reptiles, including snakes, but now she's decided that she's going to go, and just steer clear of the snake tables :P

my mother is terrified of snakes in general.shes screams and even cusses at me(she never cusses). shes really religious and i think she has some satanic implications towards snakes.i tried to introduce her to show her my bps sweet,shy,and docile.i mean Marley even lets me pet the top of her head and bottom of her mouth without avoidance.ive only had her for a couple of months.nice snakie
my big brother,army vet 37 years old wont come near me or in a room when "the snakes out".hes not scared he says and claims it just makes his skin crawl.im not buying it sissy.

off topic kinda he told me this story of when he was going through basic training his platoon was walking through some forest and they seen a massive snake in the trees that appeared to be longer than three of his tallest "brothers" in the squad.

people fear what they dont know.
now im going to go make my scorpion sting me.:O

wouldnt even put her hand on a picture of a snake???:rofl:

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Originally Posted by ogdentrece

I must admit, I had a fear more irrational than all these. I really did not like to touch animal limbs or feet (lizard toe sucker pads and little paws of cats dogs mice) and pretty much freaked out. Which led me to my favourite ball python. HAHAH imagine that.

But of course I did get over it, kind of, at least. And in any case I have decided to enjoy having my instinctive fears, since they give me a kick in my boring life. I became an adrenaline junkie as a grew up, I love getting into precarious situations and heights (totally into extreme sports) and doing stupid things like in Neg's Urban Sports just for a dare. Yeah I'm pretty immature but I have my right to be for a while more. Still in my teenage years and schooling. So now facing such fears is just another 'kick' I get.

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hahahahahahahahahahahaha animal feets???ahahahahahahahahahahaha
mature is boring buddy keep your young heart.

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Originally Posted by mark and marley

wouldnt even put her hand on a picture of a snake???:rofl:

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It's true! I said it was bad :P the worst part is she couldn't even carry the book into the psychologists office. She had her mom (who was there for moral support) carry it in her purse, as far away from her as possible. :rofl:

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Originally Posted by angllady2

My teachers never made the mistake of insisting I go anywhere high again.


Gale

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my teachers never made that mistake again either!:rolleye2:

i can understand being scared of something, im not totally into scorpions and spiders, but snakes aren't a problem for me.

my mom's excuse growing up was that I couldn't have a snake because grandma would never come to visit. so after i graduated from college and had my own place, i got a Pinky, and then a few months later I got Mr. Stubbs. :D

i used to have people over to my place all the time. most of them loved pinky, and they would pass him around for an hour or two at a time (unless he just fed). i usually asked to make sure it wouldnt freak anyone out first...

It is also amazing what children(who grow up to be adults) can learn from their parents.

I am absolutely petrified of wasps. I jumped out of a moving vehicle because one flew in the window. I was only stung a couple times as a child and I don't remember it being that bad, but yet I still have a ridiculous irrational fear of them.

I visited my mom a couple days ago for my birthday, and she saw a wasp and completely flipped her lid, screamed and ran out of the room.

I looked at her, looked at myself, and was like, so this is where I got it from!!

I had grown up my entire life learning to fear them because she feared them.

I get it all the time. I work in a Petsmart and there are people who will see the reptile habitats and purposefully walk all the way to the other side of the store, just to get past them.

I am of the belief that a fear of snakes is learned. I've had kids come up to the reptile habitats and want to look inside and their mothers steer them in the other direction spouting off how scary snakes are and how they will eat them. I think it is really sad. I get so excited when kids want to see the reptiles and want to learn. I gladly take out the lizards and snakes and hold them for them to touch and they ask me questions. But when you get those parents that just freak out if I even mention the word snake, the opportunity to teach those children and let them experience reptiles goes right out the door. I think fear of something like that is simply ignorance and an unwillingness to try something new.

yeah, my brother will run out of the house if my BP is on my arm or out of its cage

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Originally Posted by Royal_Python

when in my area of the U.S there are black widows and brown recluse spiders outside that can do much more damage.
THoughts?

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Sounds like someone has a phobia of spiders :D. The chance of one of those doing anything to you is so small---walking down the sidewalk is more dangerous. Just saying most people have irrational fears of things

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Originally Posted by Johan

Sounds like someone has a phobia of spiders :D. The chance of one of those doing anything to you is so small---walking down the sidewalk is more dangerous. Just saying most people have irrational fears of things

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However, you'd have to go a lot farther to be bitten by a poisonous snake than a poisonous spider. I have several friends who have been bitten by recluses and had to be hospitalized. I wouldn't call that an irrational fear, if it's actually fairly likely to happen (in our area). I live in the country, and just putting your foot in a boot could get you sent to the er. It's really not such a little thing.