Edges. Cas has it. As a kid, I did work up at the top of sailboat masts, on the water, while rocking around. Somewhat older, I did tree scaling to trim trees (without harness, as we didn't do that back then). Then, one day in college, I was working on a schooner in Rockport, Maine. My job was to ascend the ratlines, pass through the crosstrees, and scrape the masthead to be repainted. I couldn't get through the crosstrees, because, above them, there was nothing to hold on to except the mast. No rigging around me. I couldn't do it. All I could see was myself falling.

Ever since then, I have not been happy up high. I can do it, if I stay away from the edges. I've done roofing, am regularly up ladders, and love being in the mountains. Chairlifts don't scare me, nor does the Eiffel Tower.

But edges... I was touring the Aran Islands off Ireland. There is a hill fort at Dún Aonghasa, which is on the edge of a cliff that falls almost 300 feet to the North Atlantic surf. There is no fence, path or other warning. I was just walking through the fort, saw a ledge, and assumed that there was a short drop to another part of the fort. Nope. Straight TF down. I swear my heart stopped until I had taken about three steps back. My asshole was tight enough to forge a diamond. I was sure that the cliff was going to give way under me.

Edges are the end of me...

quote:

Originally posted by TomV:
I don't have a fear of heights, I have a fear of falling.

I don't worry about the falling, I worry about the sudden stop.

Yep. I work at heights for a living, never used to bother me, now it scares the shit out of me. The less stable it is the worse it is. Most of the time I can suppress it, sometimes I can't.

Mine started around 50 It takes everything I have to drive over a bridge. I was also a paratrooper.
Have no idea why it happened.

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
Always been afraid of heights. I guess because height can really hurt you.

Not to pick nits, but height can’t hurt you. Heck, it isn’t even the fall that hurts you, it is the sudden stop at the end.

I think it is becoming aware of one’s mortality and limitations. I’m not as limber as I used to be. My balance is still pretty good, but when you start to stiffen up, and every once in a while run into a hitch reachIng or moving a limb in a certain way, your margins go down a lot. That additional caution may just be your body saying, “Not only are not completely the rockstar athlete that we used to be, we don’t heal as well as we used to either. Let’s try to avoid any issues.”

You are not alone. I still do a lot of stuff that makes the wife nervous, but I am a heck of a lot more careful about it than I used to be.

In my twenties and thirties I was a volunteer firefighter. Never bothered me. One car dealership I used to work at in the mid to late 70's we had a hatch for access to the roof, used to like to go up there to stand and look over the city. When I was twelve they were putting up transmission towers in the woods behind our house, I was climbing those before the cables were put up.

In '89 after moving back to Michigan I had to take my Firefighter 1 training over as Michigan would not accept my FF1 and FF2 as being valid. Closed space rescue, that did not bother me. The night we were on top of a five story building in training suddenly I tensed up. I almost had to tackle the ladder to get off the roof when a real call for our station came in. Strange, never had that feeling before or after that.

For family reasons I left later that year, it was a paid on call department, that would have been in '90.

Our house at the time was a tri-level, never bothered me to go on both roofs. We sold that house in '04, moved into a ranch. Within a couple of years the ranch roof started to bother me. Presently at 68 I would rather stay on the ground and pay someone if necessary to get on the roof.

Part of it is balance, part of it medications that can make me woozy if I stand up quickly, part of it old age maybe?

65 and I'll walk a stud wall, go 135' up in a Genie and crawl up the roof and pull debris out of the gutter leaning forward.
Everybody gotta' die sometime.
Fear isn't in my wheel house.

I've never been afraid of "heights" specifically. I never worried as long as I was standing on something I considered safe and stable. I stay away from unprotected edges and have always been a little offish about ladders. My bum knee keeps me off ladders any more. I'm cool with gondolas, helicopters, and hot-air balloons. You will NOT see me sky-diving, bungee-jumping, or base jumping, though.

flashguy

I dislike being up on ladders. I don't do Christmas lights on the house anymore. Not fond of being on the roof.

However I am at the rock climbing gym twice a week. Don't care too much for bouldering, but 40 feet up a wall on a rope is fine. Go figure...

yes. i wrote about this here before as well. never scared of heights. but now i don’t like driving on roads with cliffs on my side. especially when i’m driving the truck. i don’t care for biking nor walking on trails with edges either. i’m not as sure footed, balanced and steady as when i was younger. i hate edges more where the outcome is likely pain rather than death.

As others have stated age is a big factor. Acrophobia hit me hard about 10 years ago driving over Trail Ridge Road here in Colorado. Claustrophobia is also a problem, but I never know when or where that's going to hit. For some odd reason the going through the car wash really sets that off. Perhaps situations where no escape is the key. Large hospital elevators are no problem. Smaller elevators equals big problem.

As a kid I would climb anything.

When I hit 30-40's, no thanks. I always thought it was my center of balance being altered due to aging or something.

quote:

Originally posted by goose5:
Claustrophobia is also a problem, but I never know when or where that's going to hit. For some odd reason the going through the car wash really sets that off. Perhaps situations where no escape is the key. Large hospital elevators are no problem. Smaller elevators equals big problem.

There's a sandwich shop not too far away that is on a second floor. It has an elevator not much bigger than an broom closet I take up w/ my mother who can't do stairs.
I'm not as bad as you but no sir, I don't like it.

I think there’s more internal calculus involved than there used to be. It’s not so much the height, as it is the perceived danger of the specific situation. And strangely, if it’s high enough that death is almost assured, I’m much more comfortable with it.

quote:

Originally posted by goose5:
As others have stated age is a big factor. Acrophobia hit me hard about 10 years ago driving over Trail Ridge Road here in Colorado. Claustrophobia is also a problem, but I never know when or where that's going to hit. For some odd reason the going through the car wash really sets that off. Perhaps situations where no escape is the key. Large hospital elevators are no problem. Smaller elevators equals big problem.

Yes me too. Found the claustrophobia is a big time problem when getting spooned into a cat machine. Much drugs are required Much!! I need to be almost out to be able to do a procedure. Another of my fellow FF buddies, macho,high angle and confined space rescue found this to be the case also as they put him in a cat machine head first and he clawed his way out the other side. Neither one of us had any problems with height or close spaces till we aged. Neither of us is much good over a 6’ step ladder. I get an all over body shiver when I remember things I have done no way in hell could I do those things again. Age is defiantly a factor for sure.

yes once I had kids, about mid 30's I started noticing it.

Went to NYC last year and did some rooftop views with the kids, yikes. I did it but no one better be getting close to me or move to quickly.

Its not the falling that scares me its the stopping.

HK Ag

This 'late onset' thing sounds like it has more to do with middle ear/balance changes as we age. I definitely feel the difference. When you're young, you feel like a cat sometimes, balance wise, all the time. At some point, that slips silently out the door.

I've never had an issue with heights. Still don't. But one time, on a job site, up in a scissor lift, maybe 40' up, I became VERY uneasy. Not sure why, no rational reason. Hasn't happened again.

Do you suppose this fear you've developed for heights might be anything like the fear I've developed for confined spaces? I know that in my younger years I was afraid of NOTHING - least of all cramming myself into a really tight space. But now, every time a doctor mutters "MRI" I go into a panic. After some 18-20 MRIs in my lifetime I developed an absolute TERROR of "the tube" and I literally cannot force myself to go into one of those anymore. (And "open" MRIs? They are no better) Nowadays, if an MRI is mandated then somebody better get out the sleepy shot - 'cause that's the ONLY way I'm going into one of those tubes. Silly, isn't it? And what's sillier is that this is a "fear" that I've developed. Who would have thought anything like this could have happened?

YES!

Not heights specifically. I love being in an airplane or on a flat roof of a tall building, but I can no longer handle angled roofs and the transition to or from a ladder makes me weak in the knees. Didn't have an issue at all when I was younger and nothing happened that would explain it.

Yup, it happens but for me it is highly dependent on what I am climbing.

I have always hating rock climbing but just went through our tower climbing course last year and had no issues climbing (well except for being out of shape).

But doing christmas lights on a 30' ladder extended is no fun at all.

In my younger days jumping or rappelling or Spies was fun as hell....still would be, in fact I really want to get free fall certified.

I think part of it is just realizing your mortality.