Heights
I share an aversion with Tam. Heights freak me out a little. In college, to get over my dislike of heights and to make some extra money, I worked on a bungee tower in a local tourist trap. Me getting over it worked, for a little while. Then, a lack of doing it every day, it came back. A few years back while visiting Toronto, I went up the top of the CN Tower. It made me mildly uncomfortable and I was hugging all the walls. But doing something like this, I’d probably flip my lid.
And I know, it’s completely irrational. But my body seems to react poorly to not being on the ground. I don’t even like the Sunsphere.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:11 am
I used to teach rock climbing to college students.
On of our techniques was to break everybody up into two teams, and play tug-of-war with the climbing rope. Ten people on each side, pulling just as had as they could until they were all exhausted.
When it was over, everybody trusted the ropes. The reptile part of their brains came to understand that the ropes were strong, not because we discussed their multi-thousand-pound breaking spec, but because they pulled on them really hard with their hands, and they held.
I think most fears are like that. Satisfy the reptile part of your mind, in terms that it can understand, and the fear goes away.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:32 am
I think about 1/3 of the people feel pretty uncomfortable getting off the elevator at the CN tower.
We have about 10% who can’t sit in the balcony of our local playhouse because of the pitch of the seating.
September 17th, 2012 at 11:05 am
Llooking up at the CN Tower while I was doing the Edge Walk would be a very bad idea.
And I left other remarks at Tam’s place.
September 17th, 2012 at 11:06 am
“Looking”
Sheez.
September 17th, 2012 at 11:11 am
Paste and click on this scaredy-cat…go ooonn…I dare ya’…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/View_From_Camp_IV_El_Cap.JPG
September 17th, 2012 at 11:21 am
I have zero problem with heights.. Its the impacting the ground that bothers me….
September 17th, 2012 at 11:31 am
I get dizzy standing on a thick carpet. I believe it’s a qestion of vestibular balance function. Your peripheral vision does not provide suficient references of balance so you need nearby tactile references — feeback of a solid surface from you feet, something to reach over and grab.
I have no problem with flying, rollercoasters, etc.
September 17th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
“Llooking up…”
I can’t. I’m not Welsh. 😉
September 17th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Heights are an odd thing for me, as I don’t absolutely fear them, though I fear them more now that I’m older, probably because I recognize I’m more unsteady.
But even in my 20s, I couldn’t deal with the CN Tower well. I tried stepping out on to that plexiglass floor, but the lizard part of my brain wouldn’t let me do it. No way it would let me do that hanging thing.
September 17th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
And I’d note that one reason I paid someone to paint my house is I can’t deal with ladders well anymore. I agree with the above poster that it’s not the height, it’s the fall. Being a fatter bastard now with a worse sense of balance, being high on a ladder and actually letting go of it to do work isn’t something I can do anymore.
September 17th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
We have 11 houses going right now and I have yet to be on a roof.
September 17th, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Oddly, I never had a fear of heights until roughly a decade ago, as I hit middle age.
Middle Age Man Superpower?
September 17th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Went up in the Sears Tower once and it was twilight and you could see neighborhood street-lights start to flick on from as far away as in Indiana (I think) and march across the state, lighting up…but it was so absurdly scary unfathomably tall I might as well have been in an airplane.
September 17th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
I always have had some fear of heights, though I went back to the CN Tower a few weeks ago after not being there for probably a couple of decades and found the glass floor even more daunting than I remember it.
That said, I did paint homes in college and found that if I set a ladder, I could go up no problem. Control thing more than anything.
September 17th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Scariest YouTube video ever:
September 17th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
craig, no!
September 17th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
Craig, that’s nothing:
September 17th, 2012 at 7:08 pm
Hewwwwm’ns, all diffurnt. I had a buddy, helped me build my house, who was perfectly comfortable hanging from a rafter truss by one knee two stories up over a concrete floor, pounding spikes backward, upside-down and over his head.
Move him 18 inches higher and to the other side of the decking, and he couldn’t avoid getting edgy if he was within 6 feet of the end of the roof. That’s why they call it “edgy.”
September 17th, 2012 at 7:10 pm
It’s not heights it’s widths! I and many others have no issue being 35,000 feet in an aluminum tube going 500 mph but a 2 ft wide 2″x8″ plank 10feet up? Forget about it!
September 17th, 2012 at 8:29 pm
I have had a fear of heights for as long as I can remember. It hits me the hardest, when I drive. Not a car , or a regular truck, the bigger ones. I don’t drive semis, but a truck with, say, a tall cab. It’s weird. My oldest child is a roofer. Stick me up there, I am worthless.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:34 pm
So am I the only one who’s first though is I want to rappel down? Or BASE jump? I have an adrenaline thing that tends to have me doing things most people with any sense skip. It’s lessened over the years but not by much.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Maybe we’ve been misunderestimating them Canajians, eh?