Rational or Irrational Fear of Heights

I can’t go on ferris wheels, rock walls, or go up on the highest level of seats at AT&T Park without freaking out. When I climb on an actual mountain, I lose all my fears until I look down. One of my nicknames in the family is “mountain goat”. We were once on a trip to Arizona to meet up with my mom’s cousin’s family. They are so fun one of them has an afro and the other went outside climbed up a tree and jumped on the roof, and finally yelled down the chimney. To get back to the story, we were climbing one of the smaller mountains(which was still pretty high).We were seven-eighths of the way done when I looked down at where my family was. When I saw that they weren’t that far away from me, I looked behind them and saw how far down we were. I immediately turned and started freaking out. We were so close to reaching the peak, but I insisted that we head down. It’s really ironic that my nickname is mountain goat, but I’m afraid of

The informational text, a magazine article titled In the Spotlight from Stuff That Scares Your Pants Off! by Glenn Murphy is fascinating. The science facts of why people are afraid of speaking in public (glossophobia) and how it may be overcome is clearly defined to the point that one can easily relate to other phobias that may sometime affect people’s live, whether it is life threatening or not. Many of the short stories, magazine articles, and the poem read in class, and ones assigned for home work are equally interesting because it makes you think about your personal experiences. Knowing phobia may affect one’s life style, it is comforting to learn there are cures to remedy, or keep at bay, fears and phobias by focusing and practicing steps needed to keep one from being afraid.

Fernando, a Mexican-American male who was born in Los Angeles, California. He is 26 years old and currently in an exclusive relationship. Furthermore, he is a senior Mechanical Engineer major in University of California, Irvine. Fernando has been having Acrophobia, a phobia of height, for almost seven years, and every time he participates in any activities which involving climbing or elevating to a high place, he becomes anxious and fearful of the height which results him in incapability of accomplishing the activities. When Fernando experienced the fear of height for the first time, he was taking an airplane to Tijuana, Mexico alone. His first separation from his mother and siblings caused him distress and pain which amplified his

     All people have fears, whether they like to admit it or not. Their goal should be to get over those fears, whether they are of heights, swimming, speaking in front of large crowds or even something more minor. Getting over the most basic fears can mean so much to people and push them further until they have accomplished a lot of things that they want to get done. For example, someone who is afraid of heights should pick something (like bungee jumping) that has to do with heights and try it just to prove to himself that he has the ability to do anything that he allows himself to do. Sure, what he does might scare him, but how else can he ever expect to get over his fear? Another example, if a man wanted to ask a woman out on a date, he should ask her instead of sitting around and waiting for the love of his life to fall into his lap. Everything a person does

Introduction: Almost everyone has an irrational fear or two—of mice, for example, or your annual dental checkup. For most people, these fears are minor. But when fears become so severe that they cause tremendous anxiety and interfere with your normal life, they’re called phobias. A phobia is an intense fear of something that, in reality, poses little or no actual danger. Common phobias and fears include closed-in places, heights, highway driving, flying insects, snakes, and needles. However, we can develop phobias of virtually anything. Most phobias develop in childhood, but they can also develop in adults. If you

“A phobia is essentially a human being's irrational fear of something. It could be an object, an animal, a situation or an environment. These fears are persistent, intense, excessive and unrealistic, which is primarily why phobias are deemed irrational. A clinically phobic person's reaction to what scares him/her may seem extreme and the fright may not appear to be justified.” (Grenier et al., 2011) A specific phobia is known by a deep and persistent fear of an object or situation which becomes anxiety. The anticipations of the stimulus may make the symptoms arise. Many individuals who suffer with this disease will avoid the stimuli. They will take extra steps and precaution to have no contact. The main characteristics that the DSM-5 describes for this disorder includes “the individual suffering from a persistent fear that is either unreasonable or excessive, caused by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation, exposure to the stimulus usually results in an anxiety response, the sufferer recognizes that their fear is disproportionate to the perceived threat or danger, individuals take steps to avoid the object or situation they fear, and the phobic reaction, anticipation or avoidance interferes with the individual’s normal routine and relationships, or causes significant distress. At last, the phobia that the person has to be constant for a period of six months or longer.” (American Psychiatric Association,

I have this fear of heights. Ever since I was little I have always had this fear. At the environmental field trip (EFT) in Trinity Pines the zipline was around 200 feet from the ground and overlooked a valley of fallen trees and vast green sagebrush.

of this world; there is fear of heights, fear of spiders, fear of ants, fear of airplanes, fear of

My fear of heights hasn’t bothered me and this far in 12 years of life it really hasn’t, but now it does. I go on rollercoasters, I do things with huge drops, and I love it. I only get scared when I feel insecure. Usually I put my foot up against the rollercoaster car or the seat in front of me to give me leverage. Not today, today there are no seats, just a cord. Keeping my attached and kept safe, not to be safe, but for my sanity.

Acrophobia, the fear of heights, affects around 5% of the general population. Often confused with vertigo the two share almost nothing in common besides the person’s fear of heights. The number of people with a fear of height is likely much higher than just 5% of the population but hasn’t been diagnosed as a phobia because it did not meet the criteria required to be diagnosed as a phobia. In the movie “Vertigo” Scotty has what is known as height vertigo, which is dizziness caused by being in high places.

Whether you're afraid of everything under the sun, or fearless everyone has had the feeling of fear overcome I believe anyone can overcome a fear. I have overcome a few fears in my life and believe with determination anyone can. I've been afraid of heights my entire life and overcoming that fear took years. I never thought it was possible for me to be in a roller coaster until that one day I was in a situation that made me surpass my fear. I've been afraid of heights since I can remember. Some people will scream and cry whenever they are far up in the air. To a person without that fear it may seem funny that being afraid of heights is childish stuff, but to me it's not. I personally am not a person to freak out about heights anymore since I finally conquered it by getting on a ton of rides and just letting it

So I have a little bit of a fear of heights. As the thought of near death runs through my mind, I get nervous, very nervous. My heart starts to beat faster and I start to sweat. I start to envision my funeral, and then snap back to reality just in time to feel my stomach acting funny. It not so much of a fear of heights, as it is a fear of a long fall, to rocks far below me, most likely to kill me.

Whether it's a full-blown phobia or something that just scares the crap out of you, we each have that one thing that makes us weak in the knees. Maybe it's ghosts, clowns, or even spiders (really?). For me, my biggest fear is of being buried alive. No, of course this is not rational. But in my defense, most people's deepest, darkest fears are irrational. That's part of why they scare us so much. My fear falls somewhere between a phobia and something that keeps me up on those dark, lonely nights. My fear even has a fancy name: Taphophobia.

Of course, it’s not really a fear of being in a high place. Rather, it is the view of a long way to fall, of rocks far below me and no firm wall between me and the edge. My sense of security is screamingly absent. There are no guardrails, flimsy though I picture them, or other safety devices. I can rely only on my own surefootedness—or lack

There has been some research done on the fear of heights. Psychologists by the name of Gibson and Walk did an experiment in 1960 called “Visual Cliff”. The “Visual Cliff” experiment was an experiment to see if babies who were still crawling would cross a thick piece of glass that covered a steep drop off. They then put the mother on the other side of the drop off to call the baby over to the other side. Even with the mother calling the crawling babies to come to them, the babies still did not cross over the glass. This experiment shows that most humans if not all humans have acrophobia at least partially ingrained in our genetics. I believe this is part of our survival instincts.