h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I once had a fear of heights, but when I was younger I got a summer job painting a huge smokestack at a mill. We started at the base and painted it in large red and white checks at the rate of about 5 vertical feet a week, with it getting quicker as the diameter became smaller. By the end of the job I was hundreds of feet in the air and I no longer feared heights!

my fear of heights started at the age of 8 years old when my mum fell off a ladder,what actually made that worse is that i dreamt about it the night before,as soon as i get 3 rungs up a ladder my knees start knocking so much that i cant move and ppl have to help me down,i have tried many times to get over this by going up 1 rung at a time but as soon as i hit the third one the same happens again.strnge as i only feel this way with ladders!!!

That must be inconvenient. Do you have trouble at the top of stairs or steep escalators?

hellooo zoomer...i dont have that prob with stairs and that,
as long as im on stable ground im fine,its just ladders thats the prob,it is quite a prob when it comes to decorate high places like stairs (which is the next thing i need to decorate) i have to get a friend to help,which is annoying to me as i enjoy doing it myself.

Pity. Do you think you could ever aclimatise yourself as I did?

hellooo zoomer...well i dont know if i will get over it but i would certainly like to try as i hope to become a qualified painter and decorator and to do that i need to get over my fear...wish me luck...lol

Best luck and wishes!

I wonder if a fear of something can be genetically passed? My mother has a terrible fear of heights. 2 rungs up a ladder and she totally freezes. I used to be scared of heights as well but could not help being fascinated by them at the same time.

Perhaps I was 'programmed' to be afraid simply because I grew up with that notion in my environment (in the form of my mother)?

Anyway one day I decided I had to do something about it so I booked myself onto A parachuting course! A jump a day for 6 days. My hearts starts beating faster just thinking about it. But I did it, I jumped (well they sort of threw me out the first time), and now I LOVE heights! Never repeated the parachuting though. that was properly scary esp as I had never even been in a plane before. I dont think words can ever explain how I felt prior to and during that first jump.
I froze up and died, and then fell into a black hole. 7 min. later I stood on the grass again. I needed the rest of the day to recover, only to go through it all again the very next day.

Fears Can be conquered! and it feels very satisfying to do so (afterwards anyway)