Conquering My Fear of Heights: My Mental Health Issue
The Birth of a Fear
With May being Mental Health Awareness month, it’s time I share the birth of a fear as it relates to my own mental health issue. Now, check this out ….
All I could see were the twinkling lights of the bridge ahead and the harsh, glaring headlights behind me. It’s crazy: I swore the car headlights were literally talking, yelling at me to “GET THE HELL OFF THE ROAD.” My heart started to race…
I could feel the onset of both a mental & physical paralysis behind the wheel. My right leg stopped pressing on the gas. I guess my rationale was that, maybe if I go slower, this would somehow make me safer on a highway full of speeding New York drivers.
My friends, I was in full blown panic mode. Picking up the phone, I called her:
“Jenn, I think I’m having a panic attack. Please help me.”
I finally navigate my way back home through a tunnel and that night made it official. A mental health issue has been conceived and gave birth to a new fear: one of heights and driving over bridges. Gephyrophobia: my oldest son often reminds me there is a name.
As time progressed, my fear of driving over heights morphed into a general dread of driving; which I don’t understand as I’ve always been a bad ass behind the wheel. Philadelphia to Brooklyn drives were the weekend norm for me; and if my family were flying out of state for a vacation getaway, I’d be the cheapskate who drove across state lines.
What gave birth to this fear?
Thankfully, I’ve never been in a car accident on a bridge and I don’t have any other irrational fears. Perhaps, in my 30’s, two children in, mortality became real to me and a concern, is that what it was?
I really don’t know where this thing started; and that scares me. How can I overcome this fear of driving over bridges when I don’t know what sparked it?
My Name is Beans & I Have a Mental Health Issue
It was time for me to accept this for what it is: a mental health issue.
Let’s face it; my discomfort with driving over bridges has morphed into a full-blown phobia. I now have a physical response when faced with bridges or even heights in general.
I have to call the problem out by name. If I don’t put a name on in, I can’t fix it. My name is Beans and I’m afraid of heights. I have a mental health issue. It almost reads as a mental health quote.
My Reality
For me, this is a hard reality to face.
Cultural notions on both my Haitian and Christian backgrounds both create a narrative that refute the even existence of mental health disorders.
Quite honestly, the misconceptions surrounding mental health are staggering. This goes beyond culture. The fact is, most people feel as if it can’t or it doesn’t affect them, when in reality its closer than we may assume.
Sound mental health exists on a variable balance. On any day, our mental health state can go from healthy, to rocky or to diseased. There’s such a fine line; our sanity is held together by very little and most people don’t even realize it.
For example, I’ll never forget my brother seriously mentioning that in light of a close relative’s mental breakdown, he needs to be clinically checked for any mental health deficiencies; in case it’s hereditary.
I rolled my eyes, on the inside.
I grew up with my brother. From Attention Deficit to Oppositional Defiant Disorders, my untrained eye could pick out a host of mental health symptoms he was dealing with – my brother was never mentally sound. Yet, here is, posturing as one of the unaffected. He is an example of the general obtuse attitudes surrounding mental health and its ability to affect anyone.
Statistics show that tens of millions of people living in the United States suffer from mental health illness; only half of these people receive help (National Institute of Mental Health). That’s a scary number. You wonder why mass shootings are so rampant in this country? In addition to the world’s weakest gun laws, there are millions of people functioning who are mentally ill – and they don’t even know it.
Pray It Away, Sis
I have an interesting dynamic. Being of Haitian descent and a Christian puts me at two interesting and somewhat parallel perspectives.
Religion has historically been a stumbling block for Haitians and mental health needs. Just look at the economics – an overwhelming number of Haitians cannot afford a visit to a physchiatrist. Haiti’s government appropriates only 5% of the country’s budget to mental health facilities. There are little to no resources. If you find a Haitian self-aware enough to recognize a problem, for the average person living in Haiti, mental health treatment options are minimized to a trip to see a person of Voodoo to provide relief.
The Christianity side of me works in much the same way. Pray it away sis: the answer is to plead the Blood of Jesus, throw a verse at the problem and the expectation is that it will work itself out on its own. Now, don’t get me wrong, I 100% believe in the healing power of Christ, but at the same time, I believe God gives man the intelligence and talent to heal. He calls these super beings “Physicians” – and the healing power bestowed on them isn’t restricted to doctors treat the physical body. Mental health issues call for tangible, clinical help.
Reclaiming my Life
My independence is slowly being stripped from me. Driving, an activity I once loved, I am slowly beginning to very much dislike. But I won’t let this happen.
The good news is a mental health issue such as a phobia can be managed and I myself have taken steps to ensure that I don’t lose a core part of myself.
The following are some tips that have helped me and will help you overcome a fear of heights to help reclaim your life.
Tips on Overcoming a Fear
- Seek Mental Health Services – A qualified mental health therapist will help create a treatment plan for your phobia. If you are uninsured and are working with a limited budget, ask to see if a sliding scale payment is an option. Or, look for federally funded mental health facility where you can pay only what you can afford.
- Exposure – Exposure therapy, like the name, exposing yourself gradually to the fear helps to desensitize it. Since my phobia involves heights, I’ve been waking up on weekends to make a drive over a bridge to the beach.
- Breathing Techniques – If feeling anxious while you are dealing with a phobia, breathing techniques helps to reverse the physical reactions to the fear.
- Talk Through It – Give yourself a self affirming talk.
- Distract Yourself – A popular distraction technique with a bridge phobia is to read license plates. My personal distraction is music; there’s something about Jay-Z’s voice on his 4:44 album that makes me feel cocky and able to do anything – including driving over this bridge.
Mental health is equally as important as physical health. If we were brave enough to own our issues and seek help when in need; then collectively we’d be a lot healthier as a society.
Take care of yourself friends; body and mind.
Blissfully Yours Friends,
