So am I scared of heights or being untethered?

In rock climbing it’s sometimes called “exposure reaction”. It’s different than conditions that often have a medical basis, like vertigo or peceptual dizziness.

It’s mostly a kind mental block that involves negative anticipation. You can overcome it with training and visualization exercises, but it can be tough.

I think you have a little acrophobia. Most people are on a continuum of how comfortable they are with heights. Zero no fear at all and ten can’t be two feet off of the ground. When does it become acrophobia? At a 6? I don’t really know. Maybe you’re just a little neurotic about things that can go wrong, I’m like that.

My husband goes up ten foot ladders, but can’t take three steps on a rope bridge without being freaked out for an hour even after coming right back to land. He feels uncomfortable on the terrace of a very high floor. He’s never sure when a height will bother him, and sometimes it’s very intense.

Fear of heights is one thing. Fear of falling is different.
I have a similar thing in me that you state. I can climb a radio tower to great heights and have no fear as long as I feel it a secure structure.
Yet put me up on an extension ladder on the side of the house and I have a sense of fear because I do not feel the ladder is secure. I also get a sense of vertigo when I start this sense I could fall or go over an edge.

I freak out a little and look away when they show someone on tv standing on a highrise and looking down. I frequently say out loud, “Nooo don’t look! Get back you idiot!” I don’t even want to look out of the windows of an upper floor. I have a 3-step ladder that makes me nervous on the first step.

Elevators don’t bother me (unless one was stuck! claustrophobia) except for the glass ones. Oh! and I hate those stairs that you can see through, like with no back to them.

But I love the idea of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane with a parachute, so I dunno. ¯\(ツ)/¯

@Forever_Free Good point. I think it is more about falling and not so much the height. I can be way up from extreme heights and not be frightened. Yet if I’m walking on a sidewalk with extremely thick slippery ice on it near heavy traffic I will avoid it to keep from maybe falling and sliding into traffic or even possibly injuring myself by falling on thick hard ice. And I can go up my steady stoop ladder that has wide legs on any surface but the moment I place it on the top of the stairs, I change the position of the ladder so if I should fall I would either hit a wall or stairs that go up but not down the steeper side. My stairs wrap around a wall like a C and have two landings.

@Forever_Free Interesting!

@JLeslie Yes. It is very interesting. Somewhat based in control or lack of my own destiny.
It starts with a tingling in my ankles that climbs up my calf.

I’ve said this for many years about myself. I’m not afraid of heights. I’m afraid of falling. So if I’m tethered I’m fine. Back in my rock climbing days I had no problems.

Nope, we climbed rocks knowing one false move would result in injury. That was extra reason to be more careful when we did.

Sounds like untethered. Anyone know how to conquer that or just exposure?

I was told it was because my dad was a pilot by a family member but I’m skeptical. Ha!

“A man’s got to know his limitations.” – Dirty Harry

I think we can be a little too concerned with identification with our shortcomings such as fear and that causes us to focus in a peculiar way on odd things like the exact terminology of our shortcomings. Am I skinny, underweight or do I have a high metabolism. This us shuffling about trying to find a comfortable spot in our psyche concerning self knowledge. Where as if we look at it without words, it’s just fear and insecurity whatever manifestation it may take.

I have always been very afraid of heights from childhood. I remember climbing a ladder to get onto the roof and not being able to come down. My father helped me and I eventually got down very nervously. I remember a very early childhood nightmare of being on a balcony with no barrier and the sensation of horror of how unsafe it was. My father also has an unshakable fear of heights so it may be hereditary to some extent.

In my adult years I had a few jobs which required me to face that fear. And although I did out of necessity and although it did help, it didn’t eradicate it. And I had nightmares as an adult about those jobs. Climbing three or four story scaffolds with no harness and nothing behind or under me. Climbing precarious unsafe ladders onto steep roofs carrying things. This year I has to climb one to the second story on an inclined floor to remove a birds nest at a church. I struggled greatly but decided it had to be done for the sake of my job. I dropped it and the two chicks inside died. I realized that it was because of my fear of falling which was real but not insurmountable. I still feel guilty about it seeing the pigeon afterwards looking frantically for her baby pigeons. It was unreal. I didn’t know birds were like that. It carried on for I think an hour in frantic confusion. If I could do it over I would have decided to either not do it or to commit to facing my fear and use both hands or climb one or two steps higher and assume the real risk of falling.

I just simply am afraid of heights, no matter how many times I’ve climbed ladders or scaffolds or walked on roof trusses or climbed trees. It’s still very much there and being tall and not very athletic or well balanced doesn’t help either. I still even get very apprehensive just standing very safely and looking out the window of a tall building or over the balcony. I can’t control the invasive thoughts but can observe it more than when I was younger and be ok with it more.

Not everyone is meant to be a fireman. And I’m not a fireman and never should be. I have other strong points. I accept my shortcomings and recognize that accepting and acknowledging them would help me to make better decisions. If I had made a better decision I wouldn’t have half assed it and killed that pigeons chicks. A month later I walked passed the church and saw a rather large, even overweight man very casually standing on a similar ladder in the very same spot where I had been painting the gutter. I looked at it and couldn’t fathom how I could do something so dangerous with such ease. It looked very dangerous and I believe it truly was but he didn’t seem at all affected. Yet myself and my boss and the guy who I was filling in for at the time all would not be able to do what this large man was doing because we are all scared of that kind of height situation. My boss worse than me. So it made me see there are just some innate differences in all of us. What’s important is knowing and accepting the knowledge of yourself. Overcoming it is a different matter which comes after if it’s necessary. For me overcoming my fear of heights isn’t necessary right now and I hope it wont ever be in future because I’ve had enough of trying to overcome it. I believe that if I really needed to I could based on what I know about myself.

Also balance seems to be a big part of it too.

@wearemiracles It’s not about branding it as bad or a shortcoming. I was simply wondering. Like the same way, I wonder why they would call something one thing or another and if it fits its definition. Labels are only bad if we see them as that. As for the labels of fat or skinny or stupid or fools, those often are meant to be offensive but I just never saw fears in any way negative.

Technically we all have fears and they are usually meant to keep us safe and alive. Wild animals fear humans. No one ever pointed to one and mocked it for being fearful. We see it as part of their nature as it is for us as well. Or I suppose I should say I never mocked anyone for having a fear. It’s usually born from something or just intuitive. Not everyone can go parachuting even if they take other crazy risks. I don’t try to beat myself up for my shortcomings because they are what makes me a person different from others. I am who I am.
Learning about a definition and what makes it so is just all a part of growing.
I’m more afraid of people who don’t have fears. That usually means they are extreme risk takers and I don’t necessarily trust them or suicidal or desperate.

@Pandora My bad. I realize the way I put it implies that you had some insecurity about being afraid of heights. It was a lazy assumption I guess. Maybe you were trying to figure out the exact source of the fear not run away from the label. That would make sense. But it doesn’t even matter. There’s nothing wrong with asking a question. I didn’t mean to make it seem like you did anything wrong.