Rarely Rational

Hypsophobia. That’s what I have. I’m hypsophobic and I’ve gone to different shrinks for help, but I still have hypsophobia. Maybe you never heard of hypsophobia before. Hypsophobia is the fear of heights. And no, there was no drama with heights when I was young, I didn’t see someone fall and I didn’t fall. I had the falling dream (all kids have the falling dream), but I look down and I worry I’ll slip and there’ll be no support. No, I always felt supported in an emotional, spiritual, psychological, etc. way in my home, I’m just afraid of heights.

I can do other things and have. Hell, I’ve gone to spiritual retreats where I stared at the person across from me, they nodded, and I walked across coal that was 225 degrees Fahrenheit. I’ve been on stage, no problem, but something about hitting a hard surface. Maybe something happened when I was a baby or an infant. But, I don’t care about the cause, just the solution. “The answer is 42,” and the question is how many years could it take me to get over this crazy fear?

Logic tells me it’s irrational, but fear is rarely rational. And everyone, including me and every shrink this side of the Hudson, knows the acronyms of fear “Fuck Everything and Run,” “False Evidence Appearing Real,” “Face Everything and Relax,” and I’m sure this shrink, like every other shrink, has heard these, too.

But this shrink has gotten good reviews online. Things like: “Used to have PTSD, but, with this therapist, the meds he prescribed, and my assistance dog, I’m feeling a lot better. Would recommend to anyone,”. “Had clinical depression, but after six weeks, I’m engaged in activities and doing great”. There were no reviews about phobias, but I’m sure it’s something they teach in shrink school.

*

I come in and the receptionist gives me a fake smile. You can always tell if a smile is real or not by looking in someone’s eyes. Eyes don’t lie. She asks how I’m doing. I say “Fine”. But, if I was fine, I wouldn’t need to be here. Why even ask then? She confirms my appointment and has me take a seat.

Typical waiting room. Semi-soft chairs, a play area for kids with children’s books, Rubik’s cube, etc, and the same damn dumb magazines every waiting room has: “Cosmopolitan,” “Time,” “People,” “Psychology Today,” etc. You get the picture. The secretary calls me up and asks for ID, insurance, and has me fill out forms. You’ve been to doctors, you know. I fill them out and hand them back. There’s always a glass door between us and receptionists. Don’t know why.

After 8 minutes, I’m called in. There’s a middle-aged Caucasian man with a casual button down shirt, bald on top, but white hair on the side, a white coat over the shirt, khakis, belt, and shoes that aren’t sneakers. He asks how I am. I give the same bullshit reply and he asks how he can help me.

So, I tell him about my hypsophobia, how I can’t go on aeroplanes, be near cliffs, be on skyscrapers. I tell him about the coal, the other therapists, and shit from my childhood. He says he has experience in this area and we’ll progress and he’ll try methods to conquer my fears. Also, the cliche, “Conquering fear isn’t getting rid of fear, it’s having the fear and doing it anyway.” This quote came from the famous psychiatrist, Dr. Ibid.

He also explained we won’t always meet in his office since that’s why the other therapists didn’t work. We’d go to places where we could use techniques to decrescendo my fears.

His office is on the first floor so that made sense. There are also books on fear, worry, anxiety, and the depression/anxiety cycle. I get depressed that I’m anxious and I get anxious that I’m going to be depressed. Crazy, I know. See, I can look at pictures or paintings of heights and I’m ok, but when I’m up there, my body shakes, the breathing shortens, my pulse rises, I sweat, and I feel like I need to piss, even if I don’t. Sure the psychiatrists have a name for that, too. They have a name for everything.

*

A few weeks passed. We talked, discovered there was no cause or rationality for my fear, but I could get over it with or without medications. He taught me “the DARE Response”. Maybe you never heard of that before? “DARE stand for ‘Defuse, Allow, Run Towards, Engage’”. And he said, after a month, he felt I had the Defuse part down. This means “Who gives a fuck?” We’ll all die someday. Why would it matter if I died in a random shooting or by falling. This did help. I used defuse everywhere; I stopped worrying about my bills, showering, letting the dog out, and other useless things.

Then, at the end of one appointment, he told me the following week, we’d meet in a different place, as we’d discussed. He also reminded me, as it said in “DARE,” no one ever died of anxiety or fear.

*

I put in the address in my GPS, said it would take an hour and a half. Listened to classical music to calm myself, but drank coffee to stay awake. Coffee could ease my anxiety, right? When the GPS said, “You’ve reached your destination,” I found myself and my therapist at a small aeroport. Not a commercial aeroport, more like a personal rich person’s aeroport. I got out and locked the car.

There’s a story my therapist told me about lions. When lions get old, they can’t kill prey anymore, so the young lions have the old lion roar and the prey runs away from the roaring lion into the young lions who kills the prey and everyone eats. But, if the prey runs towards the roaring lion, the old lion can’t do anything.

So, holding my therapist’s hand, I got in the airplane, feeling my heart crescendoing, my breathing shorten, the young, white man, short hair, in a red suit, attached our clothes together. I hyperventilated. No one reacted. My therapist attached himself to a different jumper. As I stood near the open door, I screamed in fear, and he jumped, and . . .