So what are you afraid of? I don’t like stinging insects and try to avoid them as much as possible. Probably my most terrifying encounter with a large bumblebee occurred over 30 years ago. I was driving one of my sons to some event. It was a warm spring day. I had the car window open and was going about 50 miles an hour. Due to the weather I was wearing shorts and a tee shirt. Suddenly a large bee came in the window and landed in my shorts. I screamed and stood up while the car was still moving. Thankfully the impact had killed the bee, but I didn’t know that. I was able to pull the car safely off to the side, get out and shake the bee out of my shorts. All of this while my son was laughing hysterically. He still laughs today whenever this is brought up.
I also don’t like to fly. Up until a few years ago I would avoid this as much as possible. Since I’ve retired we have gone on quite a few vacations and it doesn’t bother me as much. I think increased exposure has helped greatly. I remember going to a lecture about phobias many years ago. The presenter talked about exposing people to their greatest fears and helping them through it. One of his famous cases involved a woman who was afraid of live lobsters in grocery stores. She was terrified that somehow they would escape their tanks and attack her. Now this sounds foolish, but it certainly wasn’t to her.
I still have a fear of heights. I am not sure where this came from. I used to go on our roof, install TV antennas, fix shingles, hang wire, etc. I remember standing outside on a ladder, balancing on one foot, painting the second floor of our home. However something happened and now heights make me extremely uncomfortable. I did fall once while painting inside, but it wasn’t that big a fall. Maybe that is where it started.
My wife loves heights. She always wants to go up to the highest point in every building. She loves Ferris Wheels and I don’t. She will go on them by herself while I take pictures of her. My sister has some of the same fears. There may be something to this genetic thing after all.
This is all leading up to our Alaskan Cruise. One of our sons went on this cruise last year and greatly enjoyed it. We decided to try it and went last week. I had some misgivings about going on a cruise ship, but that was fine. What I wasn’t ready for were the mountains and unbelievable scenery. I live in the beautiful but very flat Midwest. We do not have snow capped mountains in June or really any other month. Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest have more mountains than you can count. When we got off of the plane we saw Mt Rainier– beautiful but very unusual for us. My cousin and his family have lived there for forty years. They drove us all over before the cruise showing us their beautiful state. Washington is very green and very mountainous.
When we started the cruise we went to Juneau and then to Skagway. During our stop in Skagway we took a bus tour up to the top of one of the mountains. The purpose was to show us the scenery and then to experience this famous train ride on the White Pass and Yukon Railway. This is supposed to be one of the real highlights of the trip because of the beautiful scenery. My wife loved it. I found it terrifying. Exposure didn’t seem to help. We were on this fairly old rickety train going up and around mountain passes. We seemed to be on the very edge of falling for most of the trip. I tried to be a good sport and took a lot of pictures. However at one point I really stood out from the rest of the passengers. The train guide told us to get our cameras ready because we were coming up on an iconic sight to take pictures. We entered a tunnel and came out onto a beautiful sight with what seemed like a six-mile drop down the side of the mountain. I leaned over with my camera and when we came out of the tunnel I said, “Fuck” and sat down very quickly. No one said anything, but there were some odd looks. I have no idea how many pictures I took since my eyes were closed most of the time.
I suppose if I really wanted too, I could work on this fear. However if that would involve exposure to heights I’m not sure I want to do that right now. One of my old psychiatric supervisors used to say that people finally change when they really want to and they are ready, I am neither of those right now so I will just enjoy my beautiful flat land and avoid anything higher than about 3 feet.