Precipice

I went out for a walk around the Manor and came to steep embankment. I pondered on it for a while.....

Precipice

I am afraid of high places. I only tolerate them if there is glass pane to keep me from falling or a railing I can grip. I don’t like window seats on planes, and I even get dizzy when I stand on a street corner and look upwards towards the tops of skyscrapers.

I am not certain where this fear originated. I remember when I was young, maybe about 4 or 5, my grandfather, who liked to fish, took my sister and I down to the pier. I remember he picked me up and held me partway over the railing to see the ocean. He meant no harm but I had not expected him to pick me up and it terrified me. However, I’m still not sure if this was the cause of my fear, since it did not seem to have an effect on me when my friends and I would go to amusement parks as a teenagers to ride the biggest, scariest roller coasters we could find. This fear of high places seems to have come on later as an adult and gradually, over the years.

I have read that the fear of falling from high places is caused by a feeling of helplessness, the feeling of being out of control. I suspect that this may be the case for me. As I get older, I am becoming more and more insecure about a lot of things, primarily about what the future will hold, personally or globally. Will I be able to live well when I retire? Will I be able to live at all?

We live in a world where we encounter much to make us feel out of control: war, shifting global weather patterns, civil unrest, terrorism, and all the rest. Indeed, we are all standing on a precipice and the view is frightening.

Lori Gloyd (c) April 24, 2006