I signed up for a rock climbing class this semester and it is definitely not going well. The one class I expected to be easy has now become my living nightmare.
You see I knew that I was afraid of heights but this class is taking it to the next level of fear. I spent roughly ten minutes crying this morning and then it took another hour of biting the inside of my mouth to keep from crying even more.......I hate this class. No scratch that I hate the Rock. The Rock is a rather large outdoor bouldering wall. It has a large cushioned pad on the inside for when someone falls and the entire thing has about five feet of ground tar bits surrounding it (and if you don't know tar bits are actually really springy & definitely better to land on than normal ground). It's actually a really nice bouldering wall.
So you’re probably thinking "What the heck is wrong then?” Well there are many things wrong and they are all combing to create a perfect storm of panic.
Let's start at the beginning. I am profoundly afraid of heights. This stems from a natural fear of heights but has been magnified in recent years by a sever imbalance in my inner ear and nerve damage in both of my legs and feet. The nerve damage causes me to randomly and severely lean in one direction, while the inner ear damage causes extreme vertigo (if you don't know anything about vertigo then know that when I get near the edge of something, like the edge of stairs, I feel like something is pulling me towards the edge.) This is not a pleasant combination.
Next on the list are my knees. I have shallow knee caps. They slide more than jelly in a clean bowl or a sea cumber after you've poked it a couple of times (go look it up, kinda gross right?). And sometimes they pop out of place. This is always a very painful experience and in many cases happens at the least expected times. Like stepping out of a car, walking across a parking lot, or jumping down less than six inches. So the thought of jumping off the side of the bouldering wall, even into very squishy tar bits, is very scary.
Last but certainly not least is my slight phobia of new groups of people. I am aquatinted with several of the people in class but I only know one, Autumn. So the thought of falling/failing and then hurting myself in front of so many people is also terrifying. For goodness sake I only ate once in two days when I went white water rafting with a group from the college because I was so nervous. I was very Very sick when I got home, primarily from dehydration.
I was going to talk to my instructor, Kyle, today but in talking to several older students the general consensus was basically that I was just going to have to get over it. After hearing that again this morning that's when I broke down and started crying. So no I am not going to talk to Kyle because I figured he would basically tell me the same thing. I am now faced with the choice of either dropping the class or failing when I can't/possibly won't climb the rock wall.
I'm not quite sure what to do.
And I swear if any of you tell me that "I can do it", "I just need to get over it", or "blah blah blah you need to strengthen certain muscles" I will find you and slap you up side your pretty little head.
I am so tired of everyone at school that I tell this problem to trying to fix it. I AM A GIRL!!!! Sometimes all I want is for someone to give me a hug and tell me that it'll be ok. I maybe a girl, but I'm a big girl I can take care of myself. Eventually I will figure out my own solution to this problem. But in the mean time I only want to be comforted.
And so my music for this post will reflect my mood:
P. S. my mood is frustrated : )
Hey you climbed sugar loaf with a group of strangers!!
ReplyDeleteBut I feel ya people scare me too