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If this is the snake that is wandering around in my yard, I better be scared of it!

Mohave Rattlesnake

Picture here

For a reason researchers do not yet understand this ALWAYS deadly snake is far more deadly in the county I live in than any other snake in Arizona.

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One of my young neighbor boys spotted the snake last weekend inside the chicken coop – that would have been the same snake – no doubt – that I evidently saw (kind of without seeing it) today (see previous post:  +DISSOCIATION? DEHYDRATION? DID I REALLY JUST SEE A SNAKE?).

Last weekend I looked online and could not find a picture that matched the snake in the chicken coop.  We watched it exit the coop moving south into the narrow stretch of weeds between my back fence and the American-Mexican border fence.  I hoped the snake had stopped for a few moments in the coop and moved on.  Perhaps it has not.  Perhaps it has moved into my garden.  Perhaps I better WAKE UP LINDA!!

This snake is very, very dangerous.

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I met a local man named Leo at the Laundromat café this week and I have his telephone number.  He catches snakes, ‘milks’ them for their venom, and sends the vials to the University of Arizona where they develop anti-venom.  He receives $500 per vial.  I think I better call him tomorrow for a chat.

When I described the snake that was wandering through the chicken coop to Leo he immediately told me it was a Mojave.  How could he know that quickly from my very rough verbal-visual sketch?  Did I closely examine the head and markings of this snake in my yard today?  No, as I described in my last post, I most certainly did not.  Some part of me evidently saw the snake, ‘telepathically’ greeted it with respect, and let it go its way without paying a single bit of attention to where it was going – as I trivially heeded a stupid centipede.

“No way to go, Linda!”

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Since writing my last post I have had thoughts now and then about the terrible traumas of my childhood of unbelievable abuse.  I was NEVER safe, and yet remaining consciously in a state of hyperalert-hypervigilance awaiting Mother’s next attack was impossible.

Because of the psychotic break Mother had while birthing me, there was never a time during the 18 years I lived with my parents from the moment of my birth that abuse or the threat of abuse was not a very real presence for me.  But because I was a child I somehow was able to FORGET the constant danger I was in – in between many of Mother’s attacks.  They always came out of the blue anyway.  I never knew when exactly she was going to attack me.  I was nearly always taken by complete surprise.  How did I manage to live that way?

Somehow I must have developed some kind of coping skills to survive her.  Today’s experience with what I now see is most likely an extremely dangerous snake brings these issues into immediate focus for me.  I did see that snake today – even though some part of me is in denial that the snake was real, that I really saw that snake, that it was less than two feet away from me – and that it most likely is the most dangerous snake by far of any in Arizona.

My inner self somehow had made some kind of peace with the close proximity and presence of that snake today.  Some part of me simply said, “Hello!” and then completely turned away as if that snake did not exist.  I made the same kind of ‘peace’ with the presence of that snake as I did with the presence of my mother.

I made the snake go away.  In between the thousands of brutal attacks against me – physical and verbal – how was I able to make Mother disappear?  Go away?

I had to become able to vanish-banish Mother any time I possibly could do so or I would not have been able to both survive her and grow up as a child at the same time.  A more dangerous creature than she was could hardly have been found by any child.  I HAD to make some kind of space within which I COULD ENDURE and survive – a space into which Mother could not really enter.  I think this happened automatically – naturally in this so-unnatural condition I was forced to remain in for those 18 very long years in Mother’s hell.

That Mother COULD attack out of the blue without warning at any given instant of time is not really one bit different than knowing an indomitable killer snake is slithering around in my yard and can and probably will make its appearance ANYWHERE at ANY TIME – when I least expect it to.

How does a person – especially a little child – protect itself from such overwhelming ever-present horrible deadly danger?

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I see now I need to call Leo about this snake.  I am most grateful that I met him this week.  Because the Mohaves are far less common here than the Diamondback rattlesnakes are, Leo is always looking to find a Mohave to milk for its venom – and then release the snake safely into the wild.  I truly hope he will willingly come down here to investigate.  I truly hope he is knowledgeable enough to know exactly not only where to look for this snake ‘of mine’ but most importantly how to FIND IT.

I do not wish to live with this continual threat of death this close to my door – within my peaceful garden.  As beautiful as this snake may be, it can and under the wrong circumstances will kill me.

I want it gone.  I want the threat GONE – and dissociating from this danger as I did so smoothly and instinctively and effectively this afternoon IS NOT the way for me to handle this.  This snake is NOT my friend – any more than my mother was a mother!

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