Expose Yourself
Ten years ago I pulled over after crossing the (former) Tappan Zee bridge and took a Klonopin and cried for 20 minutes until the drug started working. If you don’t know why, take a moment and look up an image of that bridge.
Maybe you still don’t get why crossing that bridge would put me into hysteria. If so, that’s good.
But some of you know what a strong fear of heights feels like. By the time I was almost over that nightmarish three-mile, see-through-to-the-water-far-below bridge, I could only see in tunnel vision. I almost passed out from fear.
My fear of heights has worsened with age. What I could manage at 27 became un-do-able by 35. I have missed flights because the only way to the concourse was an open staircase suspended multiple stories in the air, only to open onto a platform with glass, see-through “barriers”. So you can see all three stories down, no matter which way you turn.
Architects are sadists. Or, at least, unbothered by the fact that some people are terrified to walk along narrow open suspended platforms as if they were tightrope artists.
I find the following impossible:
-Taking escalators with no walls on either side. The suspended, open-air kind that hang over huge multi-storey drops.
-Same as above with stairs
-Glass elevators (see sadism, above)
-Atrium hotels where all rooms are along a balcony they call a “corridor”, and where there is no visual escape from the fact that you are suspended six stories up.
-Automotive bridges of any appreciable height. The higher, and the more see-through (such as guard rails that are lattice and basically transparent, see again ‘sadism’, above).
Many of these things, I suspect, I may never conquer. But then again, I may.
There is one bridge I’ve conquered. I’d like you to find your version of my bridge for whatever phobia besets you.
The Crown Point Bridge is a suspension bridge over the river that divides Vermont and New York State. As such bridges go, it’s a small one. But it does have in miniature the features that drive my nervous system to Defcon 1: It rises to a visible peak in the middle, appearing from the base to stretch into the sky infinitely; it’s way too see-through; the guard rails aren’t solid enough.
I won’t let this bridge defeat me. If I do, it means I’m not just allowing my phobia to remain, I’m letting it get worse.
So I’ve drawn the line at the Crown Point Bridge. I will not allow myself to pick a route to avoid it. This takes more willpower than you might imagine, especially if you can’t intuit what it’s like to have a severe phobia of heights.
I was right to draw this line. Not only has my phobia not worsened, my fear of the Crown Point Bridge is significantly lower than it was even a couple of years ago.
This is what I do. I’m going to tell you the embarrassing, child-like mind games I play with myself to get over this bridge. It’s a good idea to come up with your own; they work. Yes, these are baby steps, but baby steps are necessary when we’re first learning to walk.
1. I remind myself that no matter what my mind says, I’m not actually in danger on this bridge.
2. I will be across it in 45 seconds. That’s all I have to bear.
3. Distraction techniques! I sing descending arpeggios as I start over the bridge. I-III-V-I, V-III-I. Ah-ah-ah-AH-ah-ah-ah. Down one step of the scale for each one.
I add babyish lyrics: “Holding me DOWN to the ground.”
4. Direct, stern reminders to myself to hold my composure: “There is no danger here, Josh. You have a choice about whether to panic, so choose not to. This IS a choice, not an outside force making you feel anything.”
This past week I had to go over this bridge, and I discovered a few things. One was a refinement of technique: I used to sit in the parking lot at the base of the bridge and wait for every car to go by so I wouldn’t be stuck behind motorists who inch along at 30 mph (I scream obscenities at them from inside my car with the windows closed for being such bastards and stretching out the time it takes to get across.).
No more doing this. I don’t allow myself to pull over and wait. I have to go right from the highway onto the bridge, no matter what. Pulling over and waiting turned out to be anxiety-inducing; it was setting my mind up to be afraid. I was making my fear happen.
The result? When I returned the other way over the bridge a few days later, my anxiety didn’t go past 1 on a 1 to 10 scale. Usually it runs up to 5 or 6 and peaks “in the red” even higher for a moment.
I didn’t even sing arpeggios.
What’s your bridge?
Excellent story. Good for you. I stopped flying. My sisters, who put our mother in a small hospice room for a year (she wasn't that sick-illegal where I live in upstate NY--legal in Wisco) aren't worth it. My grandfather, ironically an immigrant from Norway, had such terrible fear of heights that my Uncle Lars had to take over driving (he was barely old enough) when they drove West over the Rockies to see (other Norwegian) relatives.
Since my then-husband betrayed me, lied, pretended, went awol (yup, super cluster B, like deserves a special label) and etc to "be a woman full-time" and got our kids to do erasure like calling him Mom and me by my first name, I got panic attacks. I actually thought I had heart disease. I try to memorize sections of Mozart and Beethoven to run in my mind when I feel the dreads coming on. I developed a set of floor movements to feel connected to muscles of abdominal wall, which is grounding, esp when breathing deeply to push away the dreads, close out the peripheral anxiety.
The world has gone nuts, I'm called a bigot (even been called a racist for no reason--my closest neighbors and friends are minorities who believe sex matters) I try to memorize little soundtracks of hearing their little kids in the next door yard and put it into my mind when I fear that my ex-husband's crew will come and burn down my house and rip up my garden, were I memorize moments of joy, like seeing two monarchs in mating dances. A book to help w the PTSD: Transforming Trauma by Dr. James Gordon. I don't do the whole plan, but adapt the concepts. Nature heals. She really does. I've been there. I've had to get myself off of the k. I thought it would get worse as I got older, but I'm better. Keep writing about it. Even the horrible childhood stuff. It makes you feel awful temporarily, but then is off of the back burner of your mind. Be proud of yourself for putting this out. You are on your way. Contact me through my blog if you are near Hudson Valley (bridges, yeah) and I'll give you a tour.
Ute Heggen, uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com
When we had dinner at Longhorn (the night you launched this Substack, if I recall correctly) I was actually working through one of mine. I told myself if it worked out naturally so that I was seated with a good view of the door, fine, but I wasn't going to ask for a special table or move seats or anything. (I have been known to wait significantly longer, to the point of managers being summoned to talk to me about WTF is wrong, to get a table where my back is not to the door, nobody will be walking behind me en route to the kitchen or bathroom, and I have a good view of all exits.) I have played the deaf card a few times to explain this, but the truth is that if I turn my hearing aids all the way up, nobody can sneak up on me in a restaurant. It's just anxiety. When I got there, you had the perfect table claimed (which helped!) but of course I was sitting across from you, back to the door. I reminded myself a couple of times that I could trust you, so if anything bad was approaching the table you would both react and warn me, and that it would be fine. Which it was. :-)