Acrophobia.

[answerbok]

'heights' is a problem caused by lack of self confidence. I used to have loads, and did heights easily. Now i have less and don't. This is the top and bottom of the issue as i see it. Anyone know differently?

[Quizmonster]

I suspect it's just as much a matter of what might be called 'structure-confidence', A/B. Lumps of cliff do fall down, soles of shoes do slip on grass and handrails do sometimes give way. There is also the fact that heights actually are dangerous. Falling off the roof really can do you serious damage!

In that respect, I do not believe acrophobia is truly a 'phobia' in the sense of an irrational fear in the same way as, say, fear of spiders is.

[gilf]

Quizmonster I would'nt say that a fear of spiders is irrational. They can be very very dangerous, OK not in the UK but the common brown spider in Australia for example can cause serious problems.

[Kit]

Theory might work for you, answerbok, but in my case it's a bucket of tripe. I have no problem with confidence - it's an overactive imagination that does it for me. It's not that I might fall - it's what would happen if I did, The most scary bridge I know is the Pontcysyllte aqueduct in Wales - there you have the choice of falling into the River Dee a long way below on one side, or drowning in the Shropshire Union Canal on the other. And now my palms are going all sweaty.

[answerbok]

ah, memories Kit; i been on that pontcysyllte many times, walking it; the railings gap is wide enough for a child to slip through, how stupid is that; the other side, when you go through on a boat is more scary, you just got a 6 inch girder between you and 150 feet down, don't lean over too far there! oh. i used to girder walk for a living, construction; and that is almost tightrope scary, nowadays i won't even climb a ladder. spooky.

[Quizmonster]

I take your point of course, Gilf, that poisonous spiders exist. However, they're few and far between. Even the bite of the universally-dreaded tarantula is - according to the American 'Collier's Encyclopedia' - about as dangerous as a bee-sting. Nevertheless, you still find British people - and not all of them women! - standing on the toilet-seat shrieking, when a common house-spider appears in the bath!

I don't know the actual statistics, but fall-deaths must outnumber spiderbite-deaths by a factor of multi-thousands to one. I think, therefore, that one can confidently claim that acro- is vastly more 'rational' than arachno-phobia. Cheers

[gilf]

fair point Quizmonster. I think fear of spiders and snakes is something deep rooted in our minds from a time when man needed to be carefully of spiders etc. Yes I know that many spiders (the larger ones tarantulars, goliath etc) are harmless but there are many that are very dangerous.

[Squirrel]

It's the legs! For some reason, six legs is acceptable, seven is pushing it, but eight is too much to cope with. Combine that with the spooky eyes and the way they scuttle around with blood-freezing speed and you have yourself a monster. And it doesn't help when, at the age of five and in the middle of spider acceptance training, you get shut in a dark room with one of the colossal, hairy, mammoth-sized devils straight from the mouth of hell. Ask any spider-fearing person and they'll be able to recall dozens of similar incidents. For example, you may be typing an answer on the Answerbank when you realise that there is a thread leading from the 'M' key up to the ceiling. When you look up a spider will, naturally, jump on your face.