Learning to rock climb was certainly one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. Not only was it completely outside of my comfort zone because of my extreme fear of heights, but it was also outside of my usual style of learning. Generally, I prefer to read to learn, or at the very most observe others doing something then move on from there. Observing someone else rockclimbing doesn't get you very far, and reading about rock climbing is kind of like reading about cooking - you may know the basic steps for making a roux, but that is a far cry from turning butter and flour into a base for sauce.
Looking back at this endeavor I've learned a few things about myself and my perceptions of what I can and cannot do. When I started out, I was fairly certain that I could not do anything that would push me too far outside my comfort zone. I had effectively brainwashed myself into believing that I could not handle heights at all, and that there was nothing that would truly change that. Furthermore, I believed that changing that phobia wouldn't have a lasting effect on my life, even if it did occur. I now know that that is essentially a self-fulfilling prophesy. I am afraid of heights, therefore I cannot climb. I cannot climb because I will have a panic attack and get stuck. Then, when confronted with the trigger (heights) the panic would set in, reinforcing in my mind the belief that heights cause fear. There's something interesting about this though: it's all in my head. Seriously, it sounds so very cliche, but it's true. Fear is truly all in the mind, and is a mind-killer. When one's higher mind stops working due to fear, the lower more primitive brain takes over - and all the primitive mind is interested in doing is reacting to stimulus, not thinking things through logically. The primitive mind doesn't care that there are safety ropes and harnesses only that it's off the ground, and off the ground is bad and scary.
That pesky primitive mind doesn't have to be in charge though. As an evolved species, we can choose to grow past our learned behaviors, with a little work. We don't have to continue to experience bad reactions to everyday situations, and I believe that this is applicable in more ways than getting over a fear of heights. Actively retraining a response to a given trigger has so many more uses, beyond re-wiring a phobic reaction. I can see myself using it to help my kids get over childhood fears, such as one of my son's dislike of loud noises. Perhaps, by explaining to him that even though the noise makes him want to cover his ears and tune out the world, that he can instead acknowledge the noise, acknowledge the fact that he doesn't like the noise, and also think about how the noise isn't going to hurt him at all, I will be able to help him move past it. It would certainly help him to enjoy noisy birthday parties more - as it is, he tends to lose himself into a video game in those situations as a coping mechanism. It is definitely something to look into.
On my own end, doing this project in experiential learning has given me the idea that I can do more than I thought I could. I'm looking forward to using my new-found confidence in everyday ways - washing that pesky picture window is at the top of the list. I've never been able to do it before, because of being terrified of the ladder. It will be nice to look out a sparkling window. I also feel less fear when it comes to trying new things. For some reason, now that I've faced my worst fear, any lesser fears seem quite trivial now. Applying for a top notch grad school isn't as daunting. Finding the right preschool for my special-needs son, while still worrisome, doesn't feel as frightening. I still worry, but I've learned that if I just breathe, and talk myself through the situation, pieces fall where they will without causing an all-out panic. It's just fear (or worry, or uncertainty, or you-name-it). It's a biochemical response triggered to stimuli, and in and of itself doesn't mean anything. It's how you respond to it that counts.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
There's a app for that!
Just for the fun of it I decided to type in "CBT" in the Google Play store. Whatdayaknow, there are a bunch of apps that walk you through the CBT process! A bunch, as in dozens, geared for everything from anxiety and depression to stress and jealousy (I didn't know that jealousy was something that someone would want to use CBT for, but it makes sense if it is making that person's life difficult). The top app that popped up is a diary app that uses CBT to help redirect thinking patterns - basically the same things that I have been doing with my fear of heights and rockclimbing. What's interesting is over 50,000 people have downloaded it. It makes me wonder if the people using it truly understand the concepts behind CBT or if they're simply following the directions under the app, which while it was written by a "licensed clinical psychologist with over 20 years experience" (according to the app's description), is not a substitute for substantive research or the guidance of a therapist.
I suppose my advice to you, my readers, is that CBT works (I'm proof), but that you should be careful in trying anything by yourself. If you decide to try CBT, great - but do your research and find a therapist to guide you in at least the first steps. It seems to me that if you go about facing your phobias the wrong way, you could further reinforce your fears rather than conquer them, by pushing yourself too far too fast and not knowing the redirection techniques used in CBT. If I hadn't focused so hard on learning my mantra about my fear-trigger being a learned response and nothing more than a wash of chemicals in my brain and body when I'm off the ground, there's a good chance that I would have had a bad experience climbing - and I'd probably still be stuck on that rockwall, a month later.
Can't you just see it - I'd have to have all my meals brought to me while firefighters tried to figure out how to pry my fingers off the handholds without breaking bones. (Not a good way to spend the new year, and darned hard to explain to the kids!)
I suppose my advice to you, my readers, is that CBT works (I'm proof), but that you should be careful in trying anything by yourself. If you decide to try CBT, great - but do your research and find a therapist to guide you in at least the first steps. It seems to me that if you go about facing your phobias the wrong way, you could further reinforce your fears rather than conquer them, by pushing yourself too far too fast and not knowing the redirection techniques used in CBT. If I hadn't focused so hard on learning my mantra about my fear-trigger being a learned response and nothing more than a wash of chemicals in my brain and body when I'm off the ground, there's a good chance that I would have had a bad experience climbing - and I'd probably still be stuck on that rockwall, a month later.
Can't you just see it - I'd have to have all my meals brought to me while firefighters tried to figure out how to pry my fingers off the handholds without breaking bones. (Not a good way to spend the new year, and darned hard to explain to the kids!)
Monday, February 18, 2013
It's the little things
Even though my rock climbing lessons are officially over (I'm still debating whether to take more lessons or go climbing on my own, indoors), I'm finding that this journey has affected more than just my ability to climb a man-made monstrosity. In little ways I'm finding my life improved, and rather unexpectedly.
The other day I decided to clean the top of a bookshelf. I avoid cleaning high places as a matter of course, partially because I'm short and so I can't see it (if I can't see it, it's not there, right?), and partially because that would involve standing on a stool. In any case, the next thing I knew, I was standing on a stool with a dust rag, cleaning a depresisngly well entrenched colony of dust off my shelves. It wasn't until I was halfway through wiping that embarassing shelf down that I realized that I was on a stool and wasn't in the least bit nervous, let alone scared. That felt like a huge breakthrough to me - I was no longer at war with stools!
It wasn't until much, much later that it occured to me that not only had the stool not triggered a fear response while I was on it, I didn't even think twice about climbing up to clean that shelf. It didn't even occur to me that I was supposed to be afraid of being off the ground. To me, this means that the CBT that I used, alongside the climbing lessons, worked on more than the superficial level of being able to climb a wall. It worked on my subconsious, so that I am no longer hyper-aware of the different levels that I may need to be on. I don't pause before I stand on a stool, or climb on a chair to get something I can't reach from the ground.
I've come to the conclusion that I need to do some more research on how CBT can fundamentally change a person's thinking and response - beyond what I originally thought - which was that it would help me work past my fear. It's done more than that: it's fundamentally changed how I look at the world and where I am spacially in it. Occupational and physical therapists call this "spacial awareness," and it's something that I never realized how hyper-aware I was until I no longer felt it. Facinating!
The other day I decided to clean the top of a bookshelf. I avoid cleaning high places as a matter of course, partially because I'm short and so I can't see it (if I can't see it, it's not there, right?), and partially because that would involve standing on a stool. In any case, the next thing I knew, I was standing on a stool with a dust rag, cleaning a depresisngly well entrenched colony of dust off my shelves. It wasn't until I was halfway through wiping that embarassing shelf down that I realized that I was on a stool and wasn't in the least bit nervous, let alone scared. That felt like a huge breakthrough to me - I was no longer at war with stools!
It wasn't until much, much later that it occured to me that not only had the stool not triggered a fear response while I was on it, I didn't even think twice about climbing up to clean that shelf. It didn't even occur to me that I was supposed to be afraid of being off the ground. To me, this means that the CBT that I used, alongside the climbing lessons, worked on more than the superficial level of being able to climb a wall. It worked on my subconsious, so that I am no longer hyper-aware of the different levels that I may need to be on. I don't pause before I stand on a stool, or climb on a chair to get something I can't reach from the ground.
I've come to the conclusion that I need to do some more research on how CBT can fundamentally change a person's thinking and response - beyond what I originally thought - which was that it would help me work past my fear. It's done more than that: it's fundamentally changed how I look at the world and where I am spacially in it. Occupational and physical therapists call this "spacial awareness," and it's something that I never realized how hyper-aware I was until I no longer felt it. Facinating!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Do or do not... there is no try
So, I just had my last class of rock climbing. I wouldn't say that I'm a proficient climber. I wouldn't say I'm over my fear of heights... but I can say that I've gotten more out of this than expected. I started fully expecting to never get more than 5 feet off the ground. I also was fairly certain that I would get stuck and need the fire department to come rescue me - or at the very least the instructor would have to come up and pry my fear-frozen fingers off their handholds.
None of that happened.
On arrival at my last class, the instructor had me write my name on a shockingly bright piece of tape. She then climbed up the wall (at an impressive rate of speed I might add) to hang a bag of candy from the very top of the wall. The idea was to climb as high as I could, and stick my tape there - kind of like an explorer in the British or Spanish Empires planting the flag to claim a new spot of land. Not that others weren't already there... but that wasn't the point. The point was to lay my claim to my highest point, not be the first person to do so.
The other three people in my class climbed before me. One made it about 5 feet up. Another made it about 10 feet up. I had climbed higher on my first day - and I was the one who was self-admittedly terrified of step stools. I really tried not to feel superior, because I'm not. I'm still decidedly nervous when I leave my beloved ground... I've just learned to work past that fear. Fear is nothing but a bunch of chemicals washing the brain and causing the heart rate to go up. It's either a learned or instinctive response to stimuli - in and of itself fear is truly only in your mind. But back to my climb:
As I started my climb, I heard Yoda in the back of my mind. "Do or do not, there is no try." (Yes, I am that much of a nerd). At the crest of each little lip that I had to move past, I needed to breathe past my fear-response; to take the time to remind myself that my panic is simply a learned response to heights, and that I was perfectly safe. Honestly, just about the worst thing that could happen would be to break a nail - which incidentally I did. Several times.
To get to the point, I made it to the top. I placed my little pink strip of tape with my name at the very tippy top of the rock wall. And I dumped a bunch of chocolates down for the kids waiting at the bottom to scrabble over. Personally, I wouldn't want to eat a Hershey's Kiss that fell 30 feet, but apparently kids aren't so picky. Godiva dark chocolate truffles are a different story...
If you look really closely, you'll see a tiny strip of pink tape at the very top, just to the left of the bag hanging from a nylon tie on a carabiner clip. That one is mine! I claimed that piece of artificially crafted rock in the name of Leena (but not England, or Spain. They can keep their rocks... I have mine).
None of that happened.
On arrival at my last class, the instructor had me write my name on a shockingly bright piece of tape. She then climbed up the wall (at an impressive rate of speed I might add) to hang a bag of candy from the very top of the wall. The idea was to climb as high as I could, and stick my tape there - kind of like an explorer in the British or Spanish Empires planting the flag to claim a new spot of land. Not that others weren't already there... but that wasn't the point. The point was to lay my claim to my highest point, not be the first person to do so.
The other three people in my class climbed before me. One made it about 5 feet up. Another made it about 10 feet up. I had climbed higher on my first day - and I was the one who was self-admittedly terrified of step stools. I really tried not to feel superior, because I'm not. I'm still decidedly nervous when I leave my beloved ground... I've just learned to work past that fear. Fear is nothing but a bunch of chemicals washing the brain and causing the heart rate to go up. It's either a learned or instinctive response to stimuli - in and of itself fear is truly only in your mind. But back to my climb:
As I started my climb, I heard Yoda in the back of my mind. "Do or do not, there is no try." (Yes, I am that much of a nerd). At the crest of each little lip that I had to move past, I needed to breathe past my fear-response; to take the time to remind myself that my panic is simply a learned response to heights, and that I was perfectly safe. Honestly, just about the worst thing that could happen would be to break a nail - which incidentally I did. Several times.
To get to the point, I made it to the top. I placed my little pink strip of tape with my name at the very tippy top of the rock wall. And I dumped a bunch of chocolates down for the kids waiting at the bottom to scrabble over. Personally, I wouldn't want to eat a Hershey's Kiss that fell 30 feet, but apparently kids aren't so picky. Godiva dark chocolate truffles are a different story...
If you look really closely, you'll see a tiny strip of pink tape at the very top, just to the left of the bag hanging from a nylon tie on a carabiner clip. That one is mine! I claimed that piece of artificially crafted rock in the name of Leena (but not England, or Spain. They can keep their rocks... I have mine).
Friday, February 8, 2013
It gets easier
On my third week of class, my husband couldn't make it. Our not-so-reliable babysitter couldn't make it because she was dying of the plague. Or perhaps it was a simple headcold... I've never been able to tell the difference with her. I felt like I was an early astronaut, being sent into space by myself, with no help of rescue if things went wrong. And I had a horrible suspicion that it would go very, very wrong.
I was the one who was wrong. Without my husband there, I had nobody to prove anything to - except myself. Heck, I could sit it out and not climb at all, and tell my husband I made it to the top. I could tell him that I climbed Mount Everest, and he would have no proof either way (except for the fact that I would have to have a Star Trek transporter to get there, up, down, and back in the hour an a half that I was gone. As I don't have a transporter in my purse, that really wasn't an option.
I had completed several climbing classes, and guess what - each time it gets easier! On my first climb I got past my goal of 5 feet, and made it about halfway up the 30 foot wall. On my next lesson, I made it about 20 feet. The first week without my husband I learned how to trust the rope to swing over to better handholds. Trusting the rope and my belayer was a huge breakthrough. Honestly, I sat there for a good solid minute before I could convince my hands and feet to let go for the mere second that it took to swing over to that elusive handhold that was just out of reach.
It felt like cheating.
For some unknown reason, I had it in my mind that it was cheating if I used the rope to get to a new spot on that wall. It was at that moment that I realized that climbing isn't so much about doing it all by myself. Climbing isn't a solo sport... unless you're one of those crazy freeclimbers - I don't know what they're thinking when they do that. Seriously - what type of mental process does it take for someone to think, "I am going to climb a rock without any safety ropes." It must be a special form of crazy. To me, climbing is challenging myself to push past my fear, to solve the mental puzzle that is planning not just my next move, but the next 3 moves. I don't like getting stuck with no idea on how to proceed. That's when the panic sets in.
Speaking of panic, I found that by my third day climbing I wasn't having utter panic at the thought of being off my beloved terra firma. I felt nervous, jittery, tense with anticipation of the fear that I knew I would feel, but it wasn't a mindless panic anymore. The CBT was working. I was retraining my brain to have a new reaction to a stressful situation, one that didn't involve mindless reactions learned through years of panic, but rather a logical, well-thought out process of talking myself out of learned behavior.
I find that there is a cycle of defeatism that occurs with my phobia (and experts in the field believe it as well). First comes fear of panicking in the situation. Then the situation happens, and a panic attack occurs, reinforcing the belief that panic would happen. The next time the trigger situation is met, because panic happened before the mind is sure it will happen... so it does. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's defeatist. It makes me mad that I, a rational human being, have let myself do and be something so illogical. So Pavlovian Somehow I had believed that I was above such conditioning. I also believed, in my heart of hearts, that something that is so simple on first glance (CBT), wouldn't work.
I proved myself wrong.
I was the one who was wrong. Without my husband there, I had nobody to prove anything to - except myself. Heck, I could sit it out and not climb at all, and tell my husband I made it to the top. I could tell him that I climbed Mount Everest, and he would have no proof either way (except for the fact that I would have to have a Star Trek transporter to get there, up, down, and back in the hour an a half that I was gone. As I don't have a transporter in my purse, that really wasn't an option.
I had completed several climbing classes, and guess what - each time it gets easier! On my first climb I got past my goal of 5 feet, and made it about halfway up the 30 foot wall. On my next lesson, I made it about 20 feet. The first week without my husband I learned how to trust the rope to swing over to better handholds. Trusting the rope and my belayer was a huge breakthrough. Honestly, I sat there for a good solid minute before I could convince my hands and feet to let go for the mere second that it took to swing over to that elusive handhold that was just out of reach.
It felt like cheating.
For some unknown reason, I had it in my mind that it was cheating if I used the rope to get to a new spot on that wall. It was at that moment that I realized that climbing isn't so much about doing it all by myself. Climbing isn't a solo sport... unless you're one of those crazy freeclimbers - I don't know what they're thinking when they do that. Seriously - what type of mental process does it take for someone to think, "I am going to climb a rock without any safety ropes." It must be a special form of crazy. To me, climbing is challenging myself to push past my fear, to solve the mental puzzle that is planning not just my next move, but the next 3 moves. I don't like getting stuck with no idea on how to proceed. That's when the panic sets in.
Speaking of panic, I found that by my third day climbing I wasn't having utter panic at the thought of being off my beloved terra firma. I felt nervous, jittery, tense with anticipation of the fear that I knew I would feel, but it wasn't a mindless panic anymore. The CBT was working. I was retraining my brain to have a new reaction to a stressful situation, one that didn't involve mindless reactions learned through years of panic, but rather a logical, well-thought out process of talking myself out of learned behavior.
I find that there is a cycle of defeatism that occurs with my phobia (and experts in the field believe it as well). First comes fear of panicking in the situation. Then the situation happens, and a panic attack occurs, reinforcing the belief that panic would happen. The next time the trigger situation is met, because panic happened before the mind is sure it will happen... so it does. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's defeatist. It makes me mad that I, a rational human being, have let myself do and be something so illogical. So Pavlovian Somehow I had believed that I was above such conditioning. I also believed, in my heart of hearts, that something that is so simple on first glance (CBT), wouldn't work.
I proved myself wrong.
Monday, January 21, 2013
First Climb
If you listen very closely, you may hear a crackling sound. That's the sound of Hell freezing over, because I have now gone above the ground. Willingly.
My husband and I arrived about twenty minutes early at the Field House where our lessons were to take place. This, of course, gave me plenty of time to sit and look up at the dizzying heights I had paid good money to climb on - for no other purpose than to go back down again. Honestly, I couldn't figure out what people found in it. It seemed about as pointless as people spending money on those mechanical binoculars at look out points, that never seem to work correctly anyways.
It is kind of sad that just sitting in a cafe chair about twenty feet away made me dizzy with vertigo. It also got me angry. I am a fairly intelligent person. I am a logical person. Yet just looking at a wall made my breathing go shallow and my heart race. When the class started I told the instructor that I doubted that I could get more than three feet up... but in my mind I told myself that I was going to make it up at least ten.
The instructor (Christie? Christine? I was too busy having a mild panic attack to really get her name) showed us how to get into our harnesses She taught us how to make a figure eight knot - which my Eagle Scout husband was able to pick up on depressingly easily. Then she asked if I was ready to climb.
I shouted "NO!" and ran away to my car, leaving everyone behind me.
Just kidding. That's just the immediate thought that popped into my head while I was being hooked up to the rope. In reality, I nodded and made some kind of trite joke about possibly needing the fire department to save me from myself. I began climbing, and paused, and breathed. And moved another hand, another foot, another hand, another foot. I stared at the wall, about three inches from my face. I breathed in the slightly stale, musty odor of prefabricated psudo-rock that they make indoor rock climbing walls out of. I had the time to wonder what they exactly made it out of. Within a few movements, I could feel that I was off the ground. Not "feel" like one feels a warm breeze, or notices that the temperature has dropped. This is the feeling that one gets when walking in the woods just after dusk. You may know that the path you're on is safe, but your subconscious basically says, "Yeah, I don't care what you think... I believe that there may be something out there. And that something might have teeth."
I started to repeat my mantra; remember the one I talked about earlier? The one where I told myself that what I'm feeling was nothing more than a surge of endorphin running through my brain, and that this was a learned response? Yeah. I repeated it. A lot. And after a while, I didn't feel the need to remind myself the words. I just breathed through the panic and fear. And it was okay. Not great, but okay. The fear wasn't going to kill me. Falling wasn't going to kill me. The fear might stop me from going to the top, but it wasn't going to stop me from trying.
How high did I make it that first day? Well, I made it more than the three feet that I told the instructor. I made it more than the ten feet I told myself that I was going to make it to. At the end of my third climb, on my first day, I made it about fifteen feet off the ground. Fifteen feet might not be a lot to most people, but to someone who had never been on a step ladder before, those fifteen feet might as well have been Mount Everest to my fear-addled mind.
And Mount Everest felt good (or at least, my little tiny itty-bitty first step in climbing did).
Sunday, January 13, 2013
I hate lighthouses
To prepare myself for my first climb, I spent a few hours researching CBT (cognitive behavior therapy), immersion therapy, and other common therapies for phobias. For those of you who are unfamiliar with CBT, in essence it "focuses on examining the relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors." (NAMI's fact sheet on CBT) Simply put, one examines the situation that causes fear and panic and the responses to it/reasons behind it.
Logically I realize that being off the ground isn't intrinsically dangerous. Climbing a 6 foot ladder won't kill me. I realize that rock climbing isn't dangerous - especially indoors with a harness and an instructor. Try telling that to my primative brain, though. Whenever I'm faced with heights - an escalator, a glass elevator, the balcony in a highrise - my logical brain stops working. All of my thoughts are taken over by raw panic: my heart rate skyrockets, I start to pant, and I freeze.
There have been times where I've actually needed help getting down, like a cat getting stuck in a tree I'd freeze in terror. One time when I was a kid my family visited a lighthouse. It had one of those awful cast iron circular staircases spiraling up through the hollow interior. I hate those things. I'd like to find whomever invented them and kick them in the shin. I hate seeing all around me, and can despise the fact that I can literally FEEL the air and space; no nice safe earth anywhere to be found. Vertigo ensues, and I feel like I'm going to fall, but I'm not even sure what direction I'll be falling. For all I know I could fall up. Illogical, I know... but try telling that to my panic-ridden primitive brain. Forget "fight or flight," I'm pretty sure there's a third option: freeze. Like the rabbit who sees a hawk and freezes, all my muscles lock up.
Long story short, I ended up freezing about three quarters of the way up the lighthouse. While my family was up top, taking pictures and admiring the view I stood on the stairs, unable to move either up or down, with a vise-grip on the handrail. My dad ended up having to pry my fingers off and guide me down those evil stairs. From then on, heights went from being an uncomfortable experience to something to be avoided at all costs. It wasn't just being afraid of the heights, or freezing in a high place again, I was now afraid of being afraid.
Back to rock climbing. In order to do this, I had to know what I was going to do when the fear came, to keep my brain from short-circuting and getting stuck saying, "I'm high I'm high I'm high I'm high I'm high..." I came up with a script of what I was going to say to myself, a literal script that I would tell myself.
Logically I realize that being off the ground isn't intrinsically dangerous. Climbing a 6 foot ladder won't kill me. I realize that rock climbing isn't dangerous - especially indoors with a harness and an instructor. Try telling that to my primative brain, though. Whenever I'm faced with heights - an escalator, a glass elevator, the balcony in a highrise - my logical brain stops working. All of my thoughts are taken over by raw panic: my heart rate skyrockets, I start to pant, and I freeze.
There have been times where I've actually needed help getting down, like a cat getting stuck in a tree I'd freeze in terror. One time when I was a kid my family visited a lighthouse. It had one of those awful cast iron circular staircases spiraling up through the hollow interior. I hate those things. I'd like to find whomever invented them and kick them in the shin. I hate seeing all around me, and can despise the fact that I can literally FEEL the air and space; no nice safe earth anywhere to be found. Vertigo ensues, and I feel like I'm going to fall, but I'm not even sure what direction I'll be falling. For all I know I could fall up. Illogical, I know... but try telling that to my panic-ridden primitive brain. Forget "fight or flight," I'm pretty sure there's a third option: freeze. Like the rabbit who sees a hawk and freezes, all my muscles lock up.
Long story short, I ended up freezing about three quarters of the way up the lighthouse. While my family was up top, taking pictures and admiring the view I stood on the stairs, unable to move either up or down, with a vise-grip on the handrail. My dad ended up having to pry my fingers off and guide me down those evil stairs. From then on, heights went from being an uncomfortable experience to something to be avoided at all costs. It wasn't just being afraid of the heights, or freezing in a high place again, I was now afraid of being afraid.
Back to rock climbing. In order to do this, I had to know what I was going to do when the fear came, to keep my brain from short-circuting and getting stuck saying, "I'm high I'm high I'm high I'm high I'm high..." I came up with a script of what I was going to say to myself, a literal script that I would tell myself.
"This is just a physiological response to being off the ground. It is chemicals being released by my brain in a learned response to being off the ground. It is synapses firing, adrenaline being released. It isn't real. It is just fear. I am not in danger. I won't get hurt."I practiced this script, and then I went to my lesson, husband in tow. I looked up at the 40 foot rock wall and felt the fear wash over me, and I hadn't even started. Just looking up made me dizzy. And that made me mad. How could a rational, intelligent person be defeated by just looking at a wall? It was stupid, and I despise stupidity. At that moment I despised my fear, and decided that not only was I going to climb that evil wall, I was going to defeat it. Originally I had a goal of just going a few feet up. No more. I am going to make it to the top before this self-experiment is over. Hopefully without needing a new pair of pants.
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