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Nurvous of Heights/ladders climbing? is it an aspie 'thing'?

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15 Mar 2006, 11:02 am

I don't fear heights per se, but I am really clumsy and always afraid that I will fall. I have never fallen from a height, but I often trip over things.



magic
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15 Mar 2006, 2:25 pm

I used to have a strong fear of heights. At the same time I liked hiking and climbing mountains. So I was forcing myself up and down rocky outcrops and across rock walls, usually trembling and crying of fear. Not only I had to battle the fear but also embarrassment if any onlookers were present ("I didn't know that men could be so frightened" - one of the comments I heard). But the sweet "I did it" feeling made me conquer more mountains. One day in my early 20s I hiked a place that was particularly difficult for someone with a fear of heights (traversing a vertical rock wall on metal supports fastened to the rock, with nothing but river below). The trauma was so intense that it flipped some switch in my head, and, as I discovered later that day, my fear of heights was gone. It has not bothered me since.



ed
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15 Mar 2006, 7:25 pm

I am very afraid of heights. Can't even go near the window in a skyscraper observation platform for fear i'll fall.

Strangely, it wasn't always like that... as a little kid, age 6 or 7, I loved to climb trees, would go way up in the pines near our house. Nothing traumatic happened, I just changed.

btw... as a 3-4 year old i stepped into a yellowjacket nest, had to go to hospital. was thereafter allergic to them... but wasn't stung at all between ages 8 and 16, and during that 8-year hiatis my allergy went away. :D


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15 Mar 2006, 8:23 pm

ed wrote:
I am very afraid of heights. Can't even go near the window in a skyscraper observation platform for fear i'll fall.

Strangely, it wasn't always like that... as a little kid, age 6 or 7, I loved to climb trees, would go way up in the pines near our house. Nothing traumatic happened, I just changed.

btw... as a 3-4 year old i stepped into a yellowjacket nest, had to go to hospital. was thereafter allergic to them... but wasn't stung at all between ages 8 and 16, and during that 8-year hiatis my allergy went away. :D


******i was about 11 or 12 when i stepped on that nest. the docs told me never to get stung again and if i ever did to go right to the hopital..im 37 now.
i wonder if my alergey has gone away in all these years like yours did. im not going to get stung to find out though! :D


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15 Mar 2006, 10:37 pm

The only heights I'm afraid of are stairs without hand rails, particularly gym bleachers. We were doing a run up and down the field house bleachers during a college phys ed class. I got to the top, looked down and froze when I saw how far down it was. I finally got the courage to go down but I still didn't feel safe without something to hold onto while going down.


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16 Mar 2006, 11:02 am

I don't like ladders but if I'm not climbing heights (ex I am in a roller coaster) it is fine. I also don't like walking down stairs; I walk fast all the time save for going down stairs.



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16 Mar 2006, 3:08 pm

nirrti_rachelle wrote:
The only heights I'm afraid of are stairs without hand rails, particularly gym bleachers. We were doing a run up and down the field house bleachers during a college phys ed class. I got to the top, looked down and froze when I saw how far down it was. I finally got the courage to go down but I still didn't feel safe without something to hold onto while going down.


Sports statiums are even worse one little railing by the steps I alway worry about falling over the seats if front of me tumbling down off a balcony.



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19 Mar 2006, 7:23 pm

I have a phobia of heights, only I have T.S., not A.S.



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19 Mar 2006, 7:32 pm

Someone told me to imagine a spider on me all day and it didnt help.



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19 Mar 2006, 7:35 pm

Im not scared of heights in a plane.



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22 Mar 2006, 7:12 pm

Petrified. I don't even like standing on a chair, and I once had a panic attack on some stairs - they were really wide, with very few people (we were on tour, so there were about 40 of us straggling along) and I was in the middle. But I had a full-blown panic attack nonetheless; they weren't particularly high either. I've almost had panic attacks on the stairs at school too.


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22 Mar 2006, 7:32 pm

Musical_Lottie wrote:
Petrified. I don't even like standing on a chair, and I once had a panic attack on some stairs - they were really wide, with very few people (we were on tour, so there were about 40 of us straggling along) and I was in the middle. But I had a full-blown panic attack nonetheless; they weren't particularly high either. I've almost had panic attacks on the stairs at school too.
This is like me, and I'm scared of down escalators as well. I'll do them, but I'm very tense and awkward.

I'm not afraid of planes or skyscrapers because I can't fall. It is really a fear of falling rather than a fear of heights for me.



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22 Mar 2006, 7:46 pm

Quote:
This is like me, and I'm scared of down escalators as well. I'll do them, but I'm very tense and awkward


I realy hate the ones that cross open spaces like at some malls were you can look down several floors



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22 Mar 2006, 10:15 pm

Sorry, but fears like heights are a normal human thing.


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23 Mar 2006, 10:58 am

Litguy wrote:
Musical_Lottie wrote:
Petrified. I don't even like standing on a chair, and I once had a panic attack on some stairs - they were really wide, with very few people (we were on tour, so there were about 40 of us straggling along) and I was in the middle. But I had a full-blown panic attack nonetheless; they weren't particularly high either. I've almost had panic attacks on the stairs at school too.
This is like me, and I'm scared of down escalators as well. I'll do them, but I'm very tense and awkward.

I'm not afraid of planes or skyscrapers because I can't fall. It is really a fear of falling rather than a fear of heights for me.


Aah! Escalators ... ARGH! :? I have almost-panic attacks on those too!


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25 Mar 2006, 1:38 pm

yeah, scared to death of heights. and being on a stepladder. get a kind of vertigo thing going.

but when i was a little kid i climbed trees like a monkey and it didn't bother me at all. i just came on when i hit my teens and fell off the roof.

duh.