Anyone else here have acrophobia?

[Bouncy Ball]

Want to talk about it?

[fluffernutter]

1. i kind of do.

my parents have a condo in the city that is on the 12th floor. going out on their deck makes me feel kind of dizzy and makes my knees weak. my feet tingle. but i'm not seriously freaked about it to the point of not even going out there.

how do you feel?

[alittlelark]

2. Sounds to as though you have vertigo.

[Bouncy Ball]

15. If I were to go out on a 12th floor balcony?

Well, first of all it wouldn't happen. When I went up in the Sears tower in Chicago a few years back, I wouldn't move away from the elevators. I was finally talked into it. Went over, looked out, then ran over to a trash can, vomited and started trembling all over, and I begged the people I was with to go back down with me.

Quite embarrassing.

I've also gone on this silly little ride at Six Flags called the Texas Chute-Out in which you simply sit in a hot air balloon looking basket and you go up up up and they sit you there a bit so you can look alllll around, then you come down. Nothing scary about it for normal people. But I went up in it a year ago and started to CRY.

I HATE having this phobia. I really do.

[fluffernutter]

16. i'm sorry, that sounds awful.

:hug: are you freaked out on ferris wheels? when i was a kid, i used to go nuts up at the top, i hated it. now it's no big deal ... i guess i am the opposite of you, it used to be much worse, and now it is better.

i hope yours gets better too.

[Bouncy Ball]

17. Yeah

I don't see mine getting better. It's gotten worse as the years have gone on.

I can't do ferris wheels. Oddly enough roller coasters are ok, because they are normally so fast, I'm not aware enough of the height, but the part where it slowly crawls up to that top hill is about enough to make me wet my pants.

[Kire]

23. when I was about 4 or 5 my dad took me to the World Trade Center

I was freaking out. I was crawling on the floor because I thought that would be lower to the ground -- the 107th floor (or whatever).

That was one of the first thing I thought of the morning of 9/11.

[Bouncy Ball]

28. Oh dear God.

I've NEVER been in a building that tall. And never will.

The photos of those poor souls jumping on that day are forever burned in my mind. I had nightmares for weeks and weeks after that. Not of the planes hitting the buildings, but the people jumping.

I can't even write too much about it now.

[BikeWriter]

32. That did really suck! I've been a professional fire fighter in my life...

...and I've been in combat, but to decide whether to leap into space or remain in that burning building was a terrible death.

[Bouncy Ball]

39. I cried for days over them.

I know you can't really say what you'd do unless you were in that situation, but I strongly believe I would walk right into the flames. Anything but that. Anything but freefalling through space. I get sick to my stomach just to think of it. And the fire COULD be really fast if you do it right.

This is so morbid isn't it? Sorry. I'll be forever haunted by those poor souls.

[BikeWriter]

42. I'll never be ashamed to admit I cried that day...

..I knew exactly how the fire fighters felt going in. I woke up one morning with our house shaking and million gallon storage tanks of compressed petroleum gas exploding across town. The fireballs were going thousands of feet in the air. My ex naively asked should she call the station to see if they needed help. I told her there were people dying over there and I had to go.
I held her close and told her I loved her forever and for her to tell the Children I loved them. I knew I'd never see them again. We lost eight refinery workers that night, one of them a good Friend of mine. Somehow, we all got out of it alive.

[BikeWriter]

31. Oh my Dog! Did he know you were afraid of high things?

:=(

[Kire]

35. nobody knew until I was up there

I don't even think I'm acrophobic now. I guess I grew out of it.

[BikeWriter]

38. I hope you did, but I hate the thought of children being scared like that.

:(

[Kire]

44. well, thanks

that is actually a nice thought that somebody would care about "Little Kire" like that.

[BikeWriter]

45. You're welcome.

:)

[NightTrain]

3. I do.

I become nervous and shaky on a ladder, but get me aboard a jet plane and take me 50,000 feet off the ground, and I'm fine! :shrug:

[Bouncy Ball]

8. Hey I'm the same way!

Isn't that weird?

Though I do have random thoughts while I'm on a plane of the floor dropping out and falling. That's when I have to have a drink or two.

[Ready4Change]

37. I'm much the same, and I'm a pilot!

Generally, I'm fine if I have a railing or a good, firm hand hold. But I'm not happy near, as a prime example, a cliff edge that rounds off, ie: that doesn't have a clear, definable edge.

However I'm happy as a clam flying or riding in planes, even ultralights when I'm more outside than inside the thing. I've also done (and loved) a free fall parachute jump, piloted almost 40 hours of aerobatics flights (loops, rolls, spins, etc...) can't get enough of rollercoasters...

But 10 feet up a shaky ladder and I'm, um, highly distracted.

[Dookus]

4. bwahahah

[KitchenWitch]

6. You are evil

:puke: :puke: :puke:

[Bouncy Ball]

9. You are the most evil little Dookus

that ever walked the earth you evil doer.

You suck!

[Dookus]

13. Moi?!

That's crazy-talk. I'm widely loved.

[Bouncy Ball]

19. If I knew you in real life

and told you I had acrophobia, you would probably try to take me up somewhere high with the purpose of "curing" me, wouldn't you?

[Dookus]

22. Of course not...

I wouldn't do it to cure you. Just to laugh. :P

[Bouncy Ball]

24. Dammit.

That absolutely fits your personality, too. I should have known that.

[pres2032]

10. is that the CN tower in Toronto?

[Dookus]

11. Yep!

I love the glass floors there.... really scares people.

[progmom]

21. I used to have nightmares about that very spot.

All the time, when I was a kid. I used to dream I was stranded out there on the other side of the window. Hadn't thought about that in years.
Wow. Thanks. :scared:

[KitchenWitch]

5. I do

the weird thing is I didn't used to. I developed it as a late teen.

[Bouncy Ball]

12. Same thing here, didn't have it as a kid.

But it has gotten worse as I've gotten older. I also have these weird compulsive thoughts of falling to my death. Not that I WANT to, that's the fear. But it'll just pop into my head and cause a little mini panic attack. It's been so bad, I have actually talked to a counselor about it.

They say part of acrophobia is the fear of not only the height but the irrational urge to jump.

(I can remember thinking heights were pretty cool when I was a kid.)

[BikeWriter]

7. WTF, I must admit I'm SNAFUd but I try to LOL about it.

If I have acrophobia it is only one more of my many phobias,

[Bouncy Ball]

14. You just get more interesting the more I get to know you.

So what are your other phobias? I only have two: the acrophobia and claustrophobia. I'd have to say the first one is the worst, but the claustrophobia isn't far behind. I can't even read descriptions of small, tight spaces without sweating and breathing hard.

[BikeWriter]

18. Mostly, I'm an insufferable jerk.

Lots of people who know me don't agree with that statement, but I figure if you hear that first you won't be too disappointed if you learn more. Actually, I'm not afraid of anything, except beautiful women. ;-)

[Bouncy Ball]

26. Well prepare to be afraid then.

Just kidding.

You sure don't seem like a jerk.

[BikeWriter]

29. I know, but that approach prepared you for the worst.

In comparison I'm really not that terrible a person.

[Bouncy Ball]

30. I knew it.

I normally have pretty good radar. What is your avatar about anyway? No sheep? As in sheeple?

[BikeWriter]

34. Yes, that's the statement it stands for. It's one commonly used...

...on the message boards I spend most of my time on.

[Wilber_Stool]

20. I used to be a lineman for a

cable TV company(yeah, a cable man). Climbing 50-60 foot utility poles. I like to say it's not high you are, it's how you got up there that matters.

[norml]

25. I have agoraphobia.

ag·o·ra·pho·bi·a ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gr--fb-)
n.
An abnormal fear of open or public places.


Fear of high places, when you are clumsy, and could fall, makes a lot of sense. Fear of open or public places is more difficult to explain. I don't mind small closed places at all.

[Bouncy Ball]

27. Just READING the part where you talked about

being clumsy and falling made me shiver.

Ug. I really hate this. I wish someone could wave a wand over me and get rid of it. Or poof some Magic No More Acrophobia Dust on me.

[LeftyMom]

33. I know what you mean

I *HATE* it! It sure sucks when the rest of the family wants to take a picture on a bluff overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and I can't even get out of the car and have to turn my head because just seeng people standing a few feet from the drop-off gives me a quivery feeling inside.

I can't even watch people climbing mountains or standing near a high balcony on television without getting nervous.

When I was a kid I screamed and cried on elevated freeways and on bridges. I'm so glad those things barely bother me anymore, it's bad enough getting nervous on the third floor of the parking garage without flipping out on the freeway, too.

[LizW]

41. I've been known to shriek hysterically at my husband and kids

for getting too close to the edge of a bluff.

I've always had this fear, but unfortunately it gets worse with age. In college I could do the glass elevators and such, but not now.

A couple of years ago my husband came home from a hiking trip with friends with a picture on the digital camera of him sitting out on a high, overhanging rock. I won't describe it in detail, but it made me so sick I cried for hours.

People who don't have this fear have absolutely no understanding of how we feel. But my family has learned not to tease me about it.

[progmom]

36. Never used to think I did...

(though the picture from the CN Tower has proved that theory wrong)

Then, in my early 20s, a friend and I drove across the country together. Stopped at the Grand Canyon, and being that we were two very competitive girls, kept daring one another to go further out on ledges and outcroppings to take photos. There was one outcropping that required shimmying along a rock face to get to. Crowds of people, back behind the barriers the way normal, sane people are supposed to be, were all pointing at us and gasping.

It wasn't until I got the pictures back (most of which were fuzzy, dammit) that I realized just how dangerous it had been. Looking at the pictures gave me vertigo. And now I am somewhat afraid of heights.

How dumb is that?

[Bouncy Ball]

40. Not dumb. Very human.

I went to the Grand Canyon with my daughter this past summer. Oh God, it was horrible. I mean it was gorgeous, but it was so hard being there. I literally wanted to run away, fast. When we left, I kept breathing sighs of relief.

I had a death grip on my daughter's shoulder the whole time. Then when we were in the book shop, I found a book called Death in the Grand Canyon and it had a rainbow on the front!! WTF? I stood there reading it for a long time, all about times people have jumped or fallen. That was SO stupid of me to read that.

When we were just about to leave, it really started to get to me and I could tell I was starting to hyperventilate. I also tend to cry when I am that scared. Weird, because normally I am quite a rational, strong person. It's very out of character.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

43. Kinda sorta

I can't walk to the edge of a cliff, and I can't look out a window in a tall building, and I can't do a lot of stuff like that. I can't even watch "those" scenes in movies (looking down from a great height, etc.) without slightly freaking.

HOWEVER

I LOVE to fly- I don't think twice about hopping into a passenger jet and flying across the country in the window seat. My dad used to fly a Cessna, and we'd go buzzing around the countryside in it, and I had a blast.

SO WHY CAN'T I STAND HEIGHTS? Damned odd. I think it's an alien mind block of some kind.