I have always had an extreme fear of heights. No one else in my family has it, so it must not be genetic, which is unfortunate for me because I am in an adventurous family. I’m not saying that I’m not adventurous, but when my family wants to do something that involves heights, it’s as though my life has come to an end. Sometimes I fake sick, but that doesn’t always work because I think that they have started to catch on to my sneaky way of circumventing the activity. But, honestly, they know about my fear of heights, also known as acrophobia, yet they continue to force me to face that fear. I don’t get it. Most people with acrophobia experience the shakes, sweating or heart palpitations, but for me, I just freeze. Many people with acrophobia, or really any phobia, just avoid the situation, but that is not the case for me. Due to my families’ love of adventure, I am forced to indulge in these activities and face my fear head on. Biking across the Golden Gate Bridge, ascending extremely steep mountains, hiking to the top of waterfalls, and scaling some really sketchy staircases are only some of the things that I have been dragged into doing. But in the summer of 2010 for some unknown reason, I decided to face my fear of heights alone.
Why, when I’m completely content on solid ground and still breathing, would I ever want to jump off of a cliff? That was one of the many thoughts racing through my head as I made my way up to the top of the left wall of the canyon. As I peered over the edge I saw a steel cable suspended in the abyss that was bolted on to both walls of the canyon. The canyon must have been over 100 feet in length and a 500-foot plummet to the earth’s surface. As I listened to the climbing guide talk about how we were supposed to traverse the canyon I was relatively calm, which was surprising, until I heard him utter the words, “take a running leap.” My heart immediately sank and per usual in these situations, I froze. I literally could not move.

One by one, the kids in my group leapt off of the edge of the canyon while I sat there and watched in awe. I truly did not understand why they were excited to throw themselves into a gorge, then pull themselves across the canyon and back using a thin, steel cable. Then the moment that I had been dreading had come upon me when the guide said, “Who’s next?” Everyone had gone but me.
Frozen on the dusty rock on the side of the canyon, I mustered the strength to lift up my arm to take hold of the harness that I was meant to put on. Now, like a true acrophobic person, I was no longer motionless. Instead, I was shaking uncontrollably. I managed to stand up and start to put on the harness and I happened to notice that the fabric was fraying. “Of course it was fraying,” I said to myself, as if the situation could not be any worse. I sat back down on my perch, the dusty rock, and once again I froze. I couldn’t even imagine what I was about to get myself into.
Once again, somehow, I found the strength to get to my feet after my friends badgered me for fifteen minutes and kept on telling me how I had to traverse the canyon because it is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I remembered how the guide said, “take a running leap,” and that was just not going to happen. When I got to the edge, instead of doing what the guide had instructed me to do, I just slid off of the edge. That decision was probably worse than the decision of actually doing the traverse because instead of my “leap” taking my halfway across the canyon, I found myself about three feet away from the edge from which I had started. Dwindling on that steel wire caused my acrophobia to set in again and for the third time, I was frozen.
While I was suspended on that thin, steel cable, I had a lot of time to think. Most of my thoughts were concerned about me plummeting to my death, 500 feet below my legs, the fraying harness, and the thin steel cable, but one of my thoughts was what gave me the strength to pull myself to the other side of the canyon and back. If you think that I am going to tell you the great story of how I enjoyed the traverse and conquered my fear of heights, you would be completely mistaken. What I realized is that I’m not the kind of person who takes a running leap off of a canyon, I’m not the kind of person that would go skydiving, I’m not the person who likes crossing bridges, I’m not the kind of person who enjoys hike to the edge of a waterfall, however, I am the kind of person who likes to push themselves. While I may not enjoy heights at all, I am certainly capable of achieving my goals and I don’t let my fear stop my from completing a task – even if it leaves me hanging 500 feet above the ground.