A few weeks ago I was discussing phobias with a friend and realized that I have or had about a million of them. Most, I think, can be traced back to some kind of childhood trauma. Let’s have a look!
Acrophobia (fear of heights): I love rollercoasters. This actually doesn’t present much of a problem even for someone afraid of heights, though looking down while climbing the first hill tends to heighten (ho ho) the white knuckle aspect. I can possibly trace this fear back to my older half-brother who grew up with my father’s ex-wife. After a car accident, he was left partially brain-damaged and to most people would seem a little “off”. We were visiting him at the hospital, though this was long after the accident, so it may have been a hospital of the mind, not body. I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. It was a sunny afternoon in Victoria and we were either on a balcony or standing on a stair landing. In either case, we were well above the ground below. My half-brother thought it would be a hoot to pick me up and dangle me upside down over the edge. I did not agree but was not in a position to argue, so dangle away I did. I believe my hollering resulted in one or both of my parents halting this activity. I can’t say I was afraid of heights before this but I’ve never been crazy about them since.
Claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces): This could stem from one or two incidents. The first was being at a hospital in Victoria (a recurring theme, it seems — oddly, I have no phobias of hospitals). I don’t recall the specifics of why we were there, I just remember the elevator failing somewhere between floors and being stuck for a good while.
The second incident happened when a cousin and I went into the second closet of my bedroom. We were too young for hanky-panky so this was just “exploring”. Two of the bedrooms in the old house on St. Julian Street featured walk-in closets that had small closets in back, nestled in the space under the eaves. We had a flashlight so to better create a spooky cave feel, my cousin shut the main closet door. That was when the door knob fell off, landing somewhere on the bedroom floor. We could not get the door to open without it. A parent finally freed us after some stereo screaming.
Hydrophobia (fear of water): I never learned to swim properly as a kid. I could dogpaddle, sort of, but mostly I floundered and kept to the shallows. When the Moose Lodge installed a swimming pool, it was an exciting event for the town of Duncan. They had a pumper truck filling it and everything. No sane kid could ignore this spectacular new form of recreation, so I gingerly made my way down the ladder and into the shallow end. Somehow I managed to intake enough water to simulate a kind of pseudo-drowning. My dad fished me out. I don’t recall swimming in that pool again.
The follow-up to this occurred in January of this year when I attempted swimming lessons and discovered that water kind of creeps me out once it gets above my waist. I’ll go back. Someday.
Agoraphobia (fear of open spaces): This fear is best illustrated by a nervousness I’d feel if walking through a large field. I can’t think of how this came to be a fear. Maybe by that point in my childhood my mind just found it easier to fear everything rather than to pick and choose from a list. I still feel a tinge of this sometimes but it’s mostly gone now, so hooray for the list shrinking slightly.
And I should point out that a lot of these fears could be pushed aside by necessity. For example, I once lived on the 15th floor of a tower downtown. I tried using the stairs. Once. After that, the fear of closed-in spaces like the elevator got promptly ignored. I’d just “la la la” while getting whisked up to that 15th floor. Still, there’s little denying I was quite the basketcase-in-waiting as a wee one. I’m much better-adjusted now. Really!