Afraid to take the steps?

Do you avoid the stairs at the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue?  Do you freeze at the bottom of the atrium steps in the capitol building in Madison, WI?  

If not, you just don’t get it.  You aren’t part of the club.  You see, I am afraid of heights.  I don’t know anyone as afraid as I am.  Which makes me the leader of this club. 

Hiking-and-scared in Petra, Jordan

When I approach something high, my body freezes in shock.  My heart beats faster as I stare at the impending doom.  It’s decision time. 

I ask myself a barrage questions, “How high is it, really?  Can I see the top (or the bottom)?  Is there a fence or a railing?  Is there ever a point where the railing ends, leaving me in the lurch?” 

I sweat, my knees shake, I grab for something stable, sometimes the nearest person.   

If I’m at the top of something looking down, I feel as though I’m spinning, doomed to hurdle down. 

In the scariest situations, I feel nauseous and consider any other option (“Can I take a different train?  I’ll go anywhere else!”).  If I’m with a stranger, this is when it gets awkward.   If I’m with a friend, this is when they get annoyed.

Life goes on though, and I must, nearly daily, face this fear experts call “irrational.” 

Recently, my boyfriend and I went to the pyramids in Giza.  We paid extra to enter one of the pyramids.  I read in the Lonely Planet beforehand, that entering a pyramid was not for those with claustrophobia.  I felt comforted by that.  The idea of going up stairs in a womb-like, tightly enclosed space seemed easy.

The first stairway was so tight that you are basically forced to crawl up.  It was the second part that made me freeze.  I had to climb a precarious ladder that led to a precarious stairway with a precarious railing that led to a steeper stairway with a sad excuse for a railing in the middle of the completely open atrium of the top of the pyramid.  I could not see how far up it went, and only knew that it led to a hot, dark death chamber.

I looked at my boyfriend and said, “I can’t do it.”

The next few moments are now a blur.  People passed us awkwardly.  Tears streamed down my face as I stared up at the stairs helplessly.  I asked a woman who walked by, “How far up do the stairs go?” seeking answers that would make me feel like I could do it.

At last, after who knows how long, Joe looked at me and said, “Well listen Cat, I’m not gonna go up if you aren’t.”

That’s all he had to say.  I’ll skip something scary, but definitely don’t want someone else to miss out on the inside of a pyramid because of me.

So I went up. 

I cried the whole way.  I asked him to walk behind me (then I couldn’t turn back) and put his hand on my back, which somehow settled my spinning head.

So was it worth it? 

Yeah.  My tears quickly melted into my sweat.  But, it was where the pharaoh laid.  It was a room filled with mystery and spirits and history.  And, it was a room that I had to conquer my fear to reach, which allowed me to leave with my pride intact (once I wiped off the tears).   

A few months after the Egypt trip, I spent a month traveling solo in India.  Without Joe to convince me it was time to conquer my fear so he could see the inside of a pyramid, I had to face my fears alone.

I had a huge backpack on my back and a daypack hanging from my front.  I was standing alone on the catwalk that connects from above the many platforms at the Bangalore railway station, shaking, clutching my stomach and trying not to tear up. 

My first thought was, “I’ll have to go somewhere else on a train that leaves from platform one.” 

That should tell you where my logic goes when I’m frozen.

I calmed down and reminded myself that I had no option but to go down the stairs.  I had to do it and I could do it.  “I’ll be fine,” I told myself.

I waited for a few people to walk down the staircase and followed them closely.  Lucikly Indians do not require the same space bubble that Americans do, so I abused the privilege of bodily closeness. 

I focused my attention on the backs of their heads and held onto the railway that led me safely down.  Halfway down I realized I was muttering to myself.  I was the crazy, crying foreigner talking herself down the steep steps.

Once at the bottom, my flood of relief was interrupted by a sinking realization.  My train was, in fact, at a different platform. 

Defeated, I walked to a tea stall and said definitively to the chai walla, “I’m not going back up those stairs.  How else can I get to that platform?”

He saw the desperation in my face.  I was eyeing the train tracks, ready to hurdle myself over them to avoid the stairs. 

“There’s a tunnel that way,” he said. 

No longer the crazy, crying foreigner, I was now the solo-traveler ready to conquer anything in her path.  A tunnel, now that I can do!

There are alleged solutions to my problem: treating physical symptoms (mantras and candles), psychotherapy (what caused this?), behavior therapy (virtual scary situations), medication (for depression) and the support of friends and family.

I’m skeptical. 

As a kid one summer, I conquered the high dive at the Wynfield Club in York, Pennsylvania for one day.  One day.  I spent all afternoon jumping off the high dive, but the next day, I couldn’t do it again. 

I am able to conquer my fear when I have to, which means I could always conquer it.  The thing is, sometimes I’d really rather not be the crazy, crying foreigner talking herself down the steep staircase.  I’d rather be the leader of an elite club, facing my fear only when I must and then rewarding myself with chocolate on flat, safe ground.   Would you like to join?