(March 11, 2013 at 6:03 pm)NoraBrimstone Wrote: A fear of heights will keep you from getting close enough to the edge of a cliff to fall off and die.
I can't speak for the other phobias you listed (though I am dreadfully arachnophobic), but in this case it's quite the reverse, bizarrely enough. While it is true that acrophobia will make a person less likely to deliberately put themselves in such situations in which they will have to face their fear, should that person find themselves in that situation the phobia is more likely to cause them to behave in ways that could potentially increase the danger of harm. I need only refer to to my recent(ish)adventure on the footbridge; I had to almost physically fight against every instinct I possess to remain focussed on not going over the edge. Not just the fear of falling off, but actually making it happen. Paradoxical, I know, but such is the nature of irrational fear.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
