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  • Essay / Living with barophobia - 662

    I'm waiting for the injection. I just want to face my fears in the fear landscape as soon as possible and be done with it. In my entire life, I never really thought about my fears. Now I have this chance, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I can't think of any fear. I was never afraid of fierce animals like snakes and lions, nor of spiders and the like. The one and only thing I'm sure I'm afraid of is falling. I always had nightmares about falling from great heights. Once I even had a nightmare about falling out of a plane. I always woke up just as I was about to hit the ground. So it’s a fear. I hear the door. Someone walks in with a needle in their hand. This person injects me with the needle and whispers in my ear, “Be strong.” The next thing I see, I'm climbing this huge tower. I look around me. I see nothing but the sun. It's nice and cool, but my body contracts because the sun's rays overwhelm me. I don't really feel anything. Then I look down and see that I'm above puffy white clouds. It's an astonishing sight. The golden rays of the bright sun, reflecting in the mirror like the windows of the building, give the clouds a golden color. I have the chills. I feel the cool wind blowing on my face. It's the most alive I've ever felt. Then I hear the loud whistling of the wind, which alerts my mind and makes me vigilant because I'm hanging from a giant tower above the clouds, and the wind is bombarding the tower like it's a war total against the tower. Suddenly the feeling of alertness turns into fear and panic. I only have my bare hands and my sandals to hold on to the building. I start to slip and fall. I have chills running through the middle of the paper...drops of water on my face and palms. It's really foggy. I'm in the clouds. I have chills. It smells like an ocean breeze on a rainy day. This feeling is like swimming in a river in winter. A few minutes ago I was dehydrated and thirsty, but now I feel refreshed. Now that I think about it, it's actually not that bad. I'm not so scared anymore. I close my eyes. I think about lying in the pool in the cool water in the summer, and that's exactly how I feel right now. I open my eyes and smile. That smile turns into laughter. Now I laugh as hard as I can. I actually enjoy it. Time no longer slows down. I open my hands and shout “WOAH!” at the top of my lungs as loud as possible. Just as I'm about to hit the floor, I see myself back in the room with that person. This person is four years old. He says “Great job.”.