The Book of Ashes

Continued... 11:19AM

Continued...

I guess where I was heading yesterday was towards mental disorders. Take the case of someone who is scared of heights. The sight of a large drop induces fear in them. It is a conditioned response, built from, possibly some bad childhood experience, or from continued exposure to heights without getting over the fear. Whatever the reason for it getting there, it is an irrational fear. You can take people up to the top floor of TechTonics and they start to get agitated going up in the lifts (my mum) and once up there can't stand anywhere near the glass windows or look down the side of the building. This is not even that bad. Take them up to the roof where the full force of the wind hits you and you can lean over the barrier and spit down the side of the building. That is scary! But what goes on in this persons mind? It is not unlike depression. It is a cylic pattern of thoughts. Detrimental thoughts. They see the supposed danger (a natural reaction, heights can be dangerous if the proper barriers or safety measures are not taken). This induces a small amount of panic or fear (stay away from the danager). In a normal person rationality kicks in. They see the barrier seperating them from the danger. They tell themselves its ok. They concentrate on the view instead and slowly their heartrate subsides. But the person who is afraid of heights becomes more afriad. The kick of adreneline or ""fear"" accelerates the heart rate, the person, instead of listening to the rational part of their brain (when standing on solid ground, they can tell you that there was no chance of them falling off, but still they couldn't help being scared), listens to the irrational. Fear builds more fear. They can only think of the big drop, the air flowing past them, the smallness of the barrier. More fear grows, their legs become wobbly, they freak out more. They start to loose their sense of balance and have to grip onto things as they are no longer confident of standing upright so close to a drop without falling sideways 5 meters and accidently vaulting the barrier. They become overly sensitive looking for signs of danger. They misread their own body signals, racing heart, wobbly legs, seeming loss of stability. This induces more fear. They have two options, one of which is not always voluntary. They can leave and remove the source of the fear (what most people do, avoid what causes the fear), or stay and overcome it. By this stage though it is usually too late. You know that after a fright (an almost car crash), your heart is racing, your legs wobbly, it takes a while for you to regain your composure. To overcome a fear it is best to subject yourself to a small dose of it, before you become too fearful and you must come to the realisation on your own (not the logical thought but the realisation that brings calm) that this fear IS NOT GOING TO HURT YOU. You are there now, on a 2 metre high ledge, you could jump safely to the ground yet you are a little anxious, its a little high, but then you get pissed off with your wussyness, you lean out a little knowing the grass won't hurt you if you fall. Suddenly you STOP THINKING ABOUT THE HEIGHT, the cyclic thought process is broken and you start thinking about hey cool, I've done it, I'm leaning out on a height. You have overcome a small part of your fear. Next time you will be less fearful. Attempting another height can lead to further improvement or a relapse. You should probably take it in small, safe steps. The issue is in breaking the cyclic thought process that feeds your fear. One bad thought feeds another, one good thought breaks also feeds another.

It is easy to write, hard to put into pratice