Fear of heights shouldn't be a phobia.

shunyata said:
When you act irrationally.

Checking the ladder a few times to ensure it's stable before climbing on? Not irrational.

Checking the ladder for over an hour and shaking uncontrollably after finally getting to the second rung? Irrational.
Click to expand...

That sounds like ocd
 
Drain Bamage said:
SEI80248246.jpg
Click to expand...
Holy shit! Where is that?

my wife refuses to ride cable cars and I’m always telling her they don’t fall
 
If I'm not mistaken, they're irrational fears. So fearing something whenever it is of little or no actual threat or it is debilitating.

At least, that's how I understand it. Fearing an actual shark or being dangerously high somewhere is not irrational in the least bit.
 
I don't have a lot of respect for pedestrian fears like fear of heights because the only reason they can continue existing is because people nurture them. They're fears that are very confined and so aren't typically disruptive enough to someone's life where they absolutely need to do something about it. All they have to do is restrict their lifestyle and just keep avoiding situations that involve heights in perpetuity, e.g. mountain hiking, rock climbing, rollercoasters, ferris wheel, checking out the view on top of a skyscraper, etc. If they're so weak they can't even confront a small, circumscribed fear like that, it doesn't bode well for their ability to cope with much more traumatic situations in life.
 
I have a phobia of drowning because of reliving past traumatic events when my cousins encouraged me to go down this one slide at the wem waterpark that had the deep pool. Forgot the name of it. It was the farthest one out nearest the wall. Just a long slide that went straight to the depths of hell.. luckily a lifeguard on standby saved my ass as a younglin.
 
Yeah I don't like heights or planes... My family has a condo that is like 14 floors up with a balcony. I have no problem going out there but sometimes I can get Intrusive thoughts such as it being really easy to end it (I am not depressed) or this shit could detach from the building like surfside condo collapse. If I haven't slept well its like a 10x worse.
 
Renard said:
I don't have a lot of respect for pedestrian fears like fear of heights because the only reason they can continue existing is because people nurture them. They're fears that are very confined and so aren't typically disruptive enough to someone's life where they absolutely need to do something about it. All they have to do is restrict their lifestyle and just keep avoiding situations that involve heights in perpetuity, e.g. mountain hiking, rock climbing, rollercoasters, ferris wheel, checking out the view on top of a skyscraper, etc. If they're so weak they can't even confront a small, circumscribed fear like that, it doesn't bode well for their ability to cope with much more traumatic situations in life.
Click to expand...
It is not intuitive to everyone that avoidance feeds anxiety. A person likely unconsciously avoids the problem situations for some time before they're identifiably phobic and then it's likely they're far more highly motivated to avoid them further rather than deal with the phobia. It's a great example of a feedback mechanism. The avoidance increases anxiety which induces even more strict avoidance and on and on--like eating because of low self-esteem, also not something to shame someone for and for the same reason. By the time it comes to really affect a person's life it's also going to be very difficult to overcome. Most people are not as motivated to do so for things like heights or particular animals or the like as they are for things that are far more impactful like agoraphobia. I don't think it's sensible to view that with disdain any more than any other mental illness of lesser or greater severity.

They aren't nurturing them. They're inadvertently making their issues worse, not coaxing them along.
 
Last edited:
Satan's Daddy. said:
I have a phobia of drowning because of reliving past traumatic events when my cousins encouraged me to go down this one slide at the wem waterpark that had the deep pool. Forgot the name of it. It was the farthest one out nearest the wall. Just a long slide that went straight to the depths of hell.. luckily a lifeguard on standby saved my ass as a younglin.
Click to expand...
I nearly drowned when I was pushed into a pool as a kid and I have still never learned to swim. I was in my late 30's before I could stand fully under the shower such that water was running over my face as well as the rest of my head--prior to then, never at the same time if I could avoid it--without reliving the feeling I was drowning. I'm now at the point I can dunk my head under water for a second or two but it takes some working up to lol.

This seems a good time to make the distinction between the cause of the recurring fear, which may not be irrational at all--e.g. anyone would be freaked out for a while after a near death experience of any kind--and the fear itself, which is by definition entirely irrational and caused by past events, not the trigger inducing the fear in the moment.
 
Last edited:
revoltub said:
Cant find the other thread on this but I dont see why certain fears especially heights is a phobia or even other ones like fear of sharks or sharp objects.


Of course you should be afraid of those things. Sharks attack and kill humans, a fall is dangerous, and sharp objects cut. If you arent afraid somewhat of these things theres something wrong.

Compared to something like the fear of potatoes, or fear of grass, which are obviously ridiculous, should these "phobias" be considered abnormal at all?
Click to expand...
Isn't a phobia just when a natural fear is atypically overwhelming?

So all of us experience a small, natural fear when standing on a roof, but most of us aren't immobilized by it. Those immobilized may have a phobia.

Or, I misunderstand the term.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Oddmonster
International Conservatives has bigger fear center then liberals study finds
4 5 6
Replies
102
Views
4K
Zazen
Zazen

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,238,147
Messages
55,540,688
Members
174,821
Latest member
africancelary

Share this page

Back
Top