An irrational fear of heights, as the unafflicted might argue? Or is such a thing truly rational?
I’ve only lately felt that this phobia has something to do with a certain depressive quality, or even a death wish. Wrongly perhaps, I also feel (in a hesitant way) that those raised reasonably will also be reasonable re “the heights.”
How did such thoughts come to me? Well, a few months back I had to visit cousins in a big city, ones I hardly know. But it needed to be done, so I entered their high-up apartment, and all other fears took flight when I forced myself to join the male cousin (in law) outside on his patio, or balcony.
This was one of those slim gizmos maybe eight inches wide beyond the sliding door. Then there was the waist-high railing, and my host blithely stood against it, looking down at the traffic whizzing hundreds of feet below. Meanwhile, it took all I had to push myself out the sliding door and into a chair!
But I’ll tell you something: this maneuver drove out any other concerns I had! (Especially trying to meld with people I hadn’t seen in years.)
Long ago, and in a similar way, I was out by cliffs overlooking the Pacific, and a psychologist I knew urged me to parry stress by closing my eyes and walking toward those cliffs and … the rocky beach far below. Which certainly did the trick!
As you can see, I’m definitely no fan of heights! How I used to ski on mountains out West astonishes me – not so much the skiing part, but going up in rickety chairlifts, and here’s something odd: back then, those in the East, where you weren’t so high off the ground, generally had swing-around, protective bars. Not out West, where your skis were helplessly dangling; and man, when the lift stopped far above the smooth white surface below, this gent got good and queasy!
On one occasion, I recall a guy beside me cracking jokes as we waited for our chair to get going again; and this lift had stopped FAR above the tree line and almost in the sky, it felt! Meanwhile, I was turning nauseous and praying as well.
Even worse: in the mid-‘70s I was teaching college students over in France for a term; and on a day off, we were bussed to the Pont du Gard, a surviving Roman aqueduct. My students and pregnant wife all crossed easily on foot, though it was raining and there were no guard rails back then; and the top of the aqueduct, which you trod across, was some 170 feet above a shallow, stone-filled brook they called a river!
Me? I made it out on the slick concrete about 20 feet, then went bananas! How I got safely back, my legs like steel, and with that huge drop so compelling, I’ll never know! Glad I did, crossing a second time in the safely enclosed trough, where once the water ran, then meeting the bus on the other side. Thankfully I didn’t go farther on the vertiginous top part, or you wouldn’t be reading this right now!
Yes, I think a death wish of sorts is involved here. Which by the way, NO ONE must ever act on, OK? Ever! Instead, talk it out with a human, or several.
But I know that some would account for this phobia via genetics, or perhaps (for the impervious), a scientific kind of mind? Or maybe due to nothing in particular? I.e., some have it, some don’t?
I’m certainly no authority here, nor re other phobias I don’t like hearing about for fear I’ll pick up a new one! But back to the one highlighted here. I could add other dicey incidents of yore, such as being way up on the leaning tower of Pisa, and outside, and again, with no rail! Good and queasy then, too, I wasn’t much of a tourist!
But enough memories, and explanations. I’ll let you sprout your own opinions on the subject.
However, one final question remains: are such phobiae ever fun? No way! Encounter ‘em and run? I know some shrinks wouldn’t advise such a lack of assertiveness, but that does seem the way in this realm.
Or certainly for yours truly!