I have this fear of ladders that I can't really shake. I don't have any traumatic experiences with ladders that have forever scarred my psyche so that the very sight of ladders puts me in a cold sweat. It's just that every single time I've been on a ladder I've felt very uncomfortable. So much that my body wants nothing more than to get off of it, regardless of direction. Now the strange thing about this is that I don't have any problem with heights. I also don't have a problem with climbing things, such as trees or cliffs. I wouldn't say I'm exactly clumsy or bumbling, however, in recent years I've found that my clumsy factor has increased greatly. Still, there is no chance that I'll be mistaken for a ninja (fictional or otherwise). You put me on a ladder and my mind, which is taking its queues from my body, immediately realizes that I'm not even in the same zip code as my own element and begins that exceptionally fun process of freaking out. A couple years ago I decided that I would man up and face my fears head on. So for every day over the course of two months I would make a point to climb a ladder. Now granted I really liked being on the roof so I could look around, so there was some incentive. They say if you face your fears you can overcome them. Sometimes though when you face your fears you realize that they are justified for a reason.
The whole thing got me wondering about fears in general and why certain things scare us when they are nothing to worry about for someone else. If you get struck by lightning or nearly drown then it's understandable for a person to be afraid of thunderstorms or water. There are fears that don't have any sort of trauma associated with them that are just as strong in terms of fear. There is this term that I've heard before called Arachnid Reaction. Basically it's the reason why a lot of people are instinctively repulsed by the alien nature of spiders. Some people believe it's some old programming from our prehistoric brains that are attempting to warn us that spiders are not our friends. This reaction isn't limited to spiders though. Each of us has seen or experienced something where our brain knew something was very wrong. When that happens there is an overwhelming desire to be away from whatever it is. Now this could all stem from the fact that certain things like spiders or snakes can be venomous so throughout the course of evolution we've created a built-in warning mechanism that gets passed along throughout the generations. The question I have with that though is while some spiders may be poisonous, very few of them are actually dangerous to humans. This could be because their venom isn't strong enough to do more than ruin our weekend. Plus with the advances in anti-venom even those spiders who are dangerous can be countered with immediate attention. So how come some people still have this irrational fear of them?
Now not all fears are irrational, but there are phobias that override logic and reason. In those situations the brain is locked into a specific idea and simply can't break out of it. Part of me wonders if it's somewhat related to the same thing that causes obsessive compulsive behavior. For people with OCD they have to have things a specific way or they may not be able to function. People who don't have OCD may think that it's just a matter of not washing your hands five times before being able to start your day. Maybe it is that easy, but as I've talked about before, the mind is very powerful. Trying to convince it of something it doesn't want to believe would be about as easy as trying to bend a steel girder with your bare hands. Someone who is afraid of tight spaces, or heights, or mice may seem silly to a person who finds all those things to be enjoyable. Each of us have our own fears. If we wanted to explore why we have them and where they come from we might be able to move through the world a little easier. That is to say that at least we would understand why, but it may not stop the actual fear. A person who fears being alone may have figured out exactly why they are afraid of people abandoning them. It might come down to just accepting that the fear will always be there. At least by understanding it they may be able to cope with it better.
I think fear can be a good thing because it often serves as a warning for us. When I was four years old I went to my grandparents farm to visit. While I was there I ran headlong into the woods without a second thought. The world was mine to explore and the only reason I stopped tromping around was because my grandmother would call me back for dinner. About five years later I went back and it was a whole different story. The woods were this scary place to me, especially after dark. Now the forest hadn't changed, but I had. I was nearly twice as old as I was before and that meant I had more experience in the world. I knew there were potentially things in those trees that could hurt me. Plus at that age the world can be kind of a scary place because we have just enough knowledge under our belt to think we know what's going on. Skip ahead to another five years later and I laughed at my nine year old self for being afraid in the first place. Those same things that I needed to be careful of were out in the woods, but they weren't as overwhelmingly scary as they had been before. When I was four I didn't know I was supposed to be afraid. Up until then the world had been a pretty good place for me. They say we fear what we don't know or what we don't understand. I think that can be true. I also think that we can be afraid of what we think we know. So going back to the question of why some people are afraid of some things while other people aren't. Is it because the person who is afraid simply doesn't have enough information? This could be more than just mental knowledge. It could be genetic information. Their bodies could still be running on old information that mice are a threat of some kind and should be feared, not put on your lap and petted. Then again maybe people with certain fears have more knowledge than people without them. Much like my four year old self, maybe some of us don't know that we should be afraid.
