fear of flying
Every step that I took on my way to the top hurt me in some way. I couldn’t look down for fear that I would lose my footing and tumble over the side. When I reached the apex, the mouth where I had to walk across the platform, my tongue felt stuck to the back of my throat. I took each step cautiously, but my legs were leaden and I felt myself dragging my weight with each step I took. I was so, so scared, and so worried that my incredible shakiness, my complete instability would make me lose my footing, plunging me to my death.
Does anyone ever fall off, I asked the guide? Yes, he smiled. I choked back my horror. “Que?” he asked at my confusion, clearly not having heard my original question. I shook my head slowly and turned to face my fear. The struggle to fit my feet into the bag took too long, since my legs didn’t seem to work. And the bag itself kept bunching up below me, ensuring that my plummet to the ground was imminent.
“Well, I’m going,” piped my puzzled eight-year-old niece, who until then had waited patiently. And off she sailed, down the big slide. I watched her slip neatly down to the bottom and, taking a ragged, shallow breath, I followed.
Yes: I am afraid of heights.
No, despite the title of this blog, I am not afraid to fly. Thankfully, I’ve been travelling since I was a kid and it seems to have inured me. But I have severe acrophobia. So severe that watching my neighbor, who locked himself out of his apartment, race to the top of the ladder and then jump through his open window on the 2nd floor almost made me faint, as I held my breath for his entire trip up the ladder. I am also afraid of steps with spaces in between them and walking by a scaffolding makes my hands ice cold with dread. I don’t know why, since I have no plans to stand on one anytime soon. But just the thought of that height makes me dizzy with my own fear.
The treatments for acrophobia seem to run one of two courses: slowly introduce patients to situations where they have to confront their fear of heights, so they become desensitized over time to the affects on their body. The second course involves throwing patients into the worst situations possible, in order to make small situations involving altitude increases less alarming.
Never having received any therapy for acrophobia, I’ve always chosen the “just do it” mentality. Forcing myself into situations where I have to confront my fear of heights to prove to myself that I am, in fact, stronger than my fear. Riding in tall glass elevators, I stand next to the glass and watch the ground drop before my feet. With small, but equally frightening tasks like changing a light bulb, I try to shake off my fear and take deep breaths in order to reduce the shakiness in my legs so I won’t fall. I want to prove to myself that I can conquer my fears and face them head-on.
But I only want to do it once.
I don’t see any need to prove, over and over again, that I can get on the Ferris Wheel, I can go down the big slide or that I can do any other number of these stupid endurance tests that I always force myself to do. My best friend Cheryl is talking about jumping out of a plane on her birthday next year. I might just do it with her.
Then again, maybe I won’t.
Does anyone ever fall off, I asked the guide? Yes, he smiled. I choked back my horror. “Que?” he asked at my confusion, clearly not having heard my original question. I shook my head slowly and turned to face my fear. The struggle to fit my feet into the bag took too long, since my legs didn’t seem to work. And the bag itself kept bunching up below me, ensuring that my plummet to the ground was imminent.
“Well, I’m going,” piped my puzzled eight-year-old niece, who until then had waited patiently. And off she sailed, down the big slide. I watched her slip neatly down to the bottom and, taking a ragged, shallow breath, I followed.
Yes: I am afraid of heights.
No, despite the title of this blog, I am not afraid to fly. Thankfully, I’ve been travelling since I was a kid and it seems to have inured me. But I have severe acrophobia. So severe that watching my neighbor, who locked himself out of his apartment, race to the top of the ladder and then jump through his open window on the 2nd floor almost made me faint, as I held my breath for his entire trip up the ladder. I am also afraid of steps with spaces in between them and walking by a scaffolding makes my hands ice cold with dread. I don’t know why, since I have no plans to stand on one anytime soon. But just the thought of that height makes me dizzy with my own fear.
The treatments for acrophobia seem to run one of two courses: slowly introduce patients to situations where they have to confront their fear of heights, so they become desensitized over time to the affects on their body. The second course involves throwing patients into the worst situations possible, in order to make small situations involving altitude increases less alarming.
Never having received any therapy for acrophobia, I’ve always chosen the “just do it” mentality. Forcing myself into situations where I have to confront my fear of heights to prove to myself that I am, in fact, stronger than my fear. Riding in tall glass elevators, I stand next to the glass and watch the ground drop before my feet. With small, but equally frightening tasks like changing a light bulb, I try to shake off my fear and take deep breaths in order to reduce the shakiness in my legs so I won’t fall. I want to prove to myself that I can conquer my fears and face them head-on.
But I only want to do it once.
I don’t see any need to prove, over and over again, that I can get on the Ferris Wheel, I can go down the big slide or that I can do any other number of these stupid endurance tests that I always force myself to do. My best friend Cheryl is talking about jumping out of a plane on her birthday next year. I might just do it with her.
Then again, maybe I won’t.
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