Fear

I started feeling depressed at an early age. I was about eleven when it really began. In those days most people weren't paying attention to mental health in teenagers and didn't even recognize it in pre-teens. Highschool brought new stresses and deeper depression. The other thing that a new school brought was a new sport: diving. I had been a competitive gymnast for several years and my brother was on the swim team, so it was an easy transition. One thing that carried over from gymnastics was my fear of heights. It had been hardest on the rings and the high bar, especially once I was above the equipment as opposed to hanging below it. On the diving board my fear was mostly present on the high dive which was not where I competed but I would occasionally go up there to test out a dive. I remember one time I went up there and the room started to spin dramatically. I managed to do the do the dive before I passed out, but just barely. A new school meant new friends and a new social scene. The new school started seventh grade and I quickly built a large group of friends and we would have lunch together. I was home sick one day, and when I returned I learned that they had voted and I was no longer allowed to hang out with them any more. I was emotionally wrecked and went into my first deep depression. For several months I had a hard time going to school and I stayed home a lot, which my brother began calling the Monday Disease. My depression eased slowly over the next few months, but was ever present. The years passed but there were more ebbs and flows as various life events hit me. Suicidal thoughts were common when the depression was deep, but I didn't take them seriously because they were themed around making other people regret something they had said or done. That changed in my Senior year when, after I went on a date and it didn't go very well, I spent a couple of hours staring at an open twelfth story window. For the first time ever I saw death as an end to the pain of my depression. I didn’t climb out that window that night, but I did get some more help with my depression. I was perplexed, however, about how I could be suicidal and afraid of heights? What was I afraid would happen? My diving had been really negatively affected by my fear of heights. If I could get rid of my fear, it would make everything so much easier. Since it wasn’t logical shouldn’t it just go away? Maybe if I took my fear on more directly, it would collapse in the face of its illogic? I made a list of things that sounded like they would trigger my fear the most. I started with cliff jumping and bungee jumping, and added hang gliding and skydiving. Over the next several years, I did many of them whenever I had a chance. None of them seemed to have any real effect on me except skydiving. After my first skydive someone asked what me what it was like, and I had to admit that I didn’t remember any of it. I was so focused on everything that I had to do that I forgot to enjoy the experience or even be afraid. Maybe having something to focus on is the key to defeating my fear, I thought. I went skydiving again, and I was really scared on the way up to altitude. Once I landed from the jump, I realized that I hadn’t been scared since I exited the airplane. This would be the pattern for the next two dozen jumps but I started

Last updated: Sat May 04 2024 09:17:47 GMT-0400 (EDT)