The Super Scare was Just What I Needed

I wanted to be brave, with the thought of danger, being just that, a mere thought but I was just the opposite.

 I was brave in events that didn’t involve heights, ledges, confined spaces, strangers, crowds and anything new I had to start. I was brave about spiders too.

What actually is ‘being brave? There are the people who have to be brave for a living, firemen, policemen (and women), soldiers and sometimes teachers too; when I was at high school you had to be really tough to work at the school I went to! New teachers soon learnt to duck when missiles were thrown, especially rubbers and occasionally, a compass! Now that could really hurt!

From the stories my Gran and Pop told me about living through the second world war, when Pops was on the front line, I thought they were extremely brave, but from their point of view ‘It was something you just did – for your country, and without thinking of the circumstances’. To me the thought of crawling through a muddy trench and not able to see in the dark, wet, with enemy fire going on around you, was incomprehensible.

I try to put on a ‘brave face’ but I’m such a nervous person! - Even walking into a room full of strangers sets my heart racing and my palms sweating. I never enjoy it but just endure it!

I tried speed dating once but it was terrible. Each time I got to the table with the guy sitting opposite me waiting, it took me at least two minutes to calm down enough to say anything he could understand. When I finally felt relaxed enough to speak properly…DING the bell rang and I had to start all over again.

I had read all the books, ‘Confidence comes easy’, ‘5 easy steps to being the real you!’ ‘We can all be brave hearts’,  and now gathering dust on my book case shelves. Only last week I picked up a book titled ‘the new you - confident, self-assured and sexy’. I liked the look of that – I was none of those three!

After reading the first chapter of the new book I shut it up thinking ‘What a load of twaddle! Why do I do this to myself?’

Of course my mother couldn’t understand why I wasn’t satisfied with being just the way I was.

“Why can’t you just be content with who you are? You’re such a lovely girl. Kind, funny….”

“Mum, I might be those things but I want to be brave. I’m so scared of everything. I hate aeroplanes for a start. Remember when Gran was really sick and I ended up in bed next to her with anxiety and a migraine from flying!”

“Well I think you should go and do the course that Michelle did. She couldn’t even use a lift because of her claustrophobia, and look at her now, an air stewardess”.

It was true….about Michelle.

 I was tempted to do the course but the thought of meeting all those new people, strangers….and then talking about myself in front of them filled me with dread.

I had turned down a couple of nights away with some of my friends. “Honestly Maisie it will be perfectly safe in the helicopter. We’ll all be in it together. The view is spectacular – all those mountains and snow-capped peaks to look at” my best friend said to me sounding like she was coaxing a three year old to eat their broccoli.

“But what if the helicopter flies into the mountain?”

“Why you always think of things like that Maisie? You’ll miss out, as usual”.

I couldn’t help it but I annoyed my friends, family and certainly myself.

When my friends came back from their fun weekend helicopter trip I listened with envy to their stories and laughter. I was good at pretending that it didn’t matter but it did.

Crunch time came when my best friend Liz invited me to her birthday party. “Please come Maisie “she said to me after telling me the date of the party. “I’m only inviting a chosen few!”

“Of course Il come. As if I would miss it Liz, you’re my best friend”.

“It’s in the revolving restaurant in the Beauford Towers and it will be fabulous”.

I felt fear engulf me and perspiration broke out under my fringe on my forehead.

“Oh…That’s a really tall building isn’t it?” I managed to get out.

“Yes it is - the tallest building around. I think it’s about fifty four floors" she informed me very happily.

Meanwhile I was already thinking of excuses to tell her for not being able to attend. “Wow, fifty four floors, maybe even fifty six” I said quietly.

I left Liz after promising I would come to her party, and drove home.

“Mum, I can’t go. I just can’t go. It’s fifty something stories high and the lift is glass. You look down…all that way. What if there’s an earthquake and the building starts to sway and the stairs crumble? Can I say you are sick that weekend?”

“No you can’t my girl, if you’re not going just tell the truth!”

I had four weeks until the party – two weeks before the reply was due. It played on my mind in a way it shouldn’t have. I knew it was ridiculous to get so het up about a tall building, well, a very tall building and catching a glass lift!

I had to do something to change the way I thought and felt. I thought back to the plane trip I went on a year ago. It was only an hour and a half’s flight. I was petrified! I couldn’t sleep the night before and felt sick in the morning. Finally we got to the airport and I said to my parents “I can’t do this, I really can’t, just go without me and I’ll pay back the cost of the ticket”.

“Don’t be so bloody silly” my Dad had told me “You’re coming if I have to carry you on the plane myself. It’s your brother’s wedding and you are chief bridesmaid – do you want to spoil the whole wedding because of you being scared about everything there is to be scared of? Now pull yourself together girl!”

My dad was the kind of man who said it just as it was – didn’t mince words. I couldn’t say anything – mainly because if I opened my mouth I would burst into tears!

I hated it. Every time the plane bumped or made an unusual noise I said to my mum “What was that?”

“Oh nothing love” she would say in a kindly tone “it’s quite normal” Once she turned to my dad and said to him “Tell Maisie that the turbulence is normal Fred” to which he replied “Oh for goodness sake!”

After about half an hour I started to calm down and realised that when the plane bumped up and down it looked like I was the only worried face on board, so I tried to relax more. I put the head phones on and listened to music, so that when mum turned to me and whispered “We’re landing in ten minutes” I was fairly calm.

So I was now sitting in a circle in a room of scaredy cats telling a whole lot of strangers what I was frightened of!

I listed everything – there was a lot of nodding going on, voices saying “Me too, I’m the same” and sympathetic looks telling me that if they had as many fears as me it would be just awful! I knew I was pathetic but when the guy next to me told us all that he was scared of ants and if one happened to crawl on him he would have nightmares for a week, I felt a bit better about myself!

After just two evenings of ‘the group’ I actually felt a little more rational about some of my fears, and I was beginning to relax a little about my friend’s party and the glass lift, so I went straight home and opened up my lap top – I was going to reply to the invitation and say I would love to come.

I wrote the short reply very quickly but to press the send button was a different matter! Twice I walked away before I pressed it – after two cups of tea it had gone!

The response to my reply convinced me that it was the right thing to have done. “I wouldn’t have enjoyed my birthday as much without my best friend being there” Liz emailed me. “It will be such fun!”

I had two more weeks of the classes I was attending and enjoying. ‘Two weeks to be able to stand in that glass elevator and look down far below and feel at ease’ I said to myself as I sat in the circle and listened to my fellow attendees. The ant man was full of pride when telling us that he had let an ant crawl on his foot at the weekend whilst in the park, and didn’t feel panicked at all. We all dutifully clapped and said “Well done, so brave!”.

I couldn’t help but smirk when picturing the ant on William’s foot and him puffing out his chest because he didn’t have a panic attack – mine most likely sounded just as silly to some when I told them “I’m proud of myself for being able to reply ‘yes’ to an invitation, knowing I will be able to stand in a moving glass lift and not have a panic attack”.

The others said “Fantastic, well done, you’ll have a great time” and for a moment I wondered what I had done!

Part of my ‘recovery and going forward’ I was told, was to go and watch the glass lift in the foyer going up and down a couple of times. I had to look at the faces of the people inside the lift and see how happy and relaxed they all look, saying to myself….’It’s a fun thing to do. They are all enjoying themselves and I will too next Saturday night’.

I watched the lift go up once with a few smiling faces in it but when it was half way down I felt a little nauseous. I wanted to watch it reach the ground but just couldn’t. I knew I had to get out of there and quickly. Breathing quickily I raced outside and into the fresh air and sat down on a bench. “OK” I said aloud “A little hiccup but next Saturday I shall be fine. I know I will “but I didn’t sound too convincing.

“Oh you look lovely” Mum said to me as I took a last look in the hall mirror before getting into my car. I hadn’t eaten all day with a nervous stomach - every time I thought about going out to the party, all I could picture was the stupid glass lift going up fifty odd flights with me in it!

I said my goodbye’s and drove off. I was going to a party and it felt like I was off to the gallows!

I met a group of the girls inside the foyer of the building and we all went up together. There were photos and selfies being taken continually and in most of them I had a false smile or a grimace on my face!

In we got with the door to the glass lift shutting silently. The girls were really excited and the chatter was loud and happy, with lots of “Don’t the people look small way down there” and “I feel like I’m flying”….but I didn’t look down below at the people, straight ahead for me and that was just another thing I wouldn’t want to be doing – flying!

After what seemed like hours, but was actually only about two minutes the lift stopped and we all stepped out into the ballooned room. “Wow this looks fabulous” we chorused at seeing how the room had been set out. It was bright and colourful. Multi coloured table cloths and fluorescent balloons gave the room a carnival atmosphere.

The band tucked away in the corner had begun to play and the bar was open so the party was under way!

It’s so easy to forget fear when your mind is elsewhere. So while I was eating, drinking and dancing I didn’t give the glass lift a second thought, or the fact that I would have to use it to go down at the end of the evening!

It was a great night. We all got up to tell at least one story of how we met and knew Liz - school and university days, working together or just random meetings. Most of the stories were funny and the more drinks everyone had; the more exaggerated the stories got!

It was about 11.15 and time to cut the birthday cake, belt out a few bars of ‘happy birthday’ and get a few more drinks in before we all turned into pumpkins.

As we were all wandering up to the table one of the waiters ran past us, banging into a table. We all turned to see what he was running from but couldn’t see a thing. We could hear a bit of shouting coming from outside the main door of the room, and then we smelt it.

“Can you smell smoke” someone asked - a few more people began to ask the same question. “Maybe the chef’s burnt the cake” and a lot of laughter, but not from me! I could sense something was wrong and was on ‘high alert’…

“Hello ladies and Gentlemen”. Said a man in a suit and tie, who I assumed had some authority in the place. “I am asking you not to panic but we have a fire. It is contained to this floor and the one above but unfortunately it has put the lift out of action for these two floors.

DON’T PANIC, DON’T PANIC!! I wanted to run, and cry and get out of the room NOW.I felt like I couldn’t breathe and perspiration had formed on my forehead. I looked around to see other people with worried looks on their faces.

The man continued. “I’m asking that we all stay calm. Do not, and I repeat, do not open the doors. We need to keep the smoke outside for as long as we can. The air-conditioning units are not working so we need to all stay inside this room. We have called the fire brigade and are assured that they will be here in less than ten minutes.

“How can they get us out?” I yelled, frantically. “If the lift doesn’t work how can we get down?” tears had welled up in my eyes and I felt prickly all over my body.

“It’s ok Maisie”. Liz had obviously seen me in my state and raced over to hold my hand, telling me in her soothing and calm tones “Just breath, nice and slow, just breathe Maisie, we’ll get out of here don’t you worry”. But I was shaking like a leaf in the wind.

I thought about how nice and safe it had been just stepping into the glass lift to come up here. That seemed like nothing compared to this. All around me there were voices talking loudly, asking the man seemingly in charge how we would all get out if the lift didn’t work for these two floors, where the fire was, how bad it was, and even our chances of getting out safely. He answered the best he could in an assured manner but really didn’t have too many answers.

The kitchen and dining room staff had joined us and it was a lot quieter - voices had calmed down. Smoke was creeping in under the doors. Someone opened the curtains and looked out of the windows (I didn’t – I already thought I was going to die)…. Flames were coming from the side of the building and above us. Someone started screaming and was promptly told “That’s not going to help, please stop!” It was getting hot and very stuffy in the room

Then we heard it – the sirens, lots of them.

“I can see the cherry pickers being raised – with firemen in the buckets” someone yelled. People clapped.

 As the buckets got level with the windows which were opened somehow from the outside, we were told “Form a line leading to each window. We will be taking three people down at a time. Lean slightly, only slightly, out of the window and we will help you in to the bucket. Keep your arms in the bucket at all times”.

 I couldn’t watch anyone get out of the window and into the bucket but I could see the lines were getting shorter. 

There were only three of us left. Spray was being used on the building and the smoke in the room was thick and black now.

“I can’t lean out” I told the fireman as I glanced down.

“You can”

“I caaannt” I screamed, petrified. It’s too far from the bucket. I’ll fall”.

“You won’t fall. Look I can touch you. We’re almost up against the wall” he tried to coax me.

“What if I fall?”

“You won’t, I promise you”.

I leant out slightly shaking and feeling sick. Before I had time to think and perhaps back away strong arms grabbed me and pulled me into the bucket, to safety.

Two years on from the fire life is great. Getting out of that burning building was a horrendous and now that is my yardstick.

“May I have your boarding pass please?” the steward asked me as I boarded the plane.

I walk down the aisle and sit in my window seat, close my eyes to relax before take-off.