(March 18, 2014 at 10:21 pm)Clueless Morgan Wrote: Wow, that's kind of fascinating. Was it only because you were thousands of feet above the mountain that you had such issues with the extra steps of the gift shop? In other words, are you also irrationally afraid of climbing a set of steps at sea level?
I think it must have been the sudden realisation of just how high I actually was. I can get a little shaky when I have to climb, say, a stepladder to reach the ceiling as I've had to do when helping Shell decorate, but I've never had the same reaction doing that as I did on that mountain. Actually, just to clarify, we weren't mountaineering, it's sort of a beauty spot and there's a roadway right up to it. There's also a flying school there. If you were a passenger in a car and happened to fall asleep and wake up once you got there, you wouldn't really have any clues about your being on a mountain at all, other than perhaps the insanely strong wind (hence the flying school).
There was also the time I wrote about a few months ago, when I forced myself to cross over a footbridge above a busy dual carriageway. I still get the occasional nightmare about that.
I even think I know what caused the phobia. From birth until I was about four, we lived in a block of flats on the same estate Sam and I moved into, on the fifteenth floor - one down from the penthouse, in fact. Apparently, when we were really young, my sister and I managed to open one of the windows and were practically sitting on the ledge looking out. My Dad found us and instead of panicking, he very carefully (so as not to startle us) inched his way into the room and snatched us to safety. Occasionally I look at how high that window is and just how far we could easily have fallen, and it's all I can do to keep from fainting.
Since Sam and I moved into our flat in a block opposite, I've sort of got inured to being on the fourth floor, but even now I can break into a cold sweat whenever I go out onto the balcony. Shell used to live three floors above us and I was never able to go onto her balcony. I just physically couldn't; it was like there was a forcefield over the door.
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.'
