Acrophobia

 Damn you, Peel Tower, one day I will stand on that parapet!

Fear of heights is often and wrongly called Vertigo. It's actually acrophobia and only fellow sufferers get what all the fuss is about. I just bought a theatre ticket and being last minute could only get the upper tier. Stupidly I clicked buy before taking the virtual tour and found I'll be sitting on a cliff face facing the lighting rigs, it's so high. There is no way on this earth I'll even get up those stairs, let alone get to my seat and then back out of it. Last time I braved the upper tier was at the theatre with the husband who had to lead me to my seat, my eyes firmly closed. Every time I opened them the stage swooped towards me and really didn't know which was was up. I'm absolutely fine on the ground, can even go up so far without getting that strange tingle in the legs that tells me I'm going to fall off the side of the building, when everyone else seems to be perfectly happy and stable. It's an amazing example of mind over matter. Even when faced with sheet glass, where I can't possibly fall out, the feeling is the same. I freeze and can't move because I really don't know which way I'm stepping. Funny thing is that I can't even watch other people standing at heights. When the kids were young and went up castle towers with their dad and I stood at the bottom, they'd appear on some parapet and I'd be shouting, get away from the edge like a lunatic and panicking on their behalf. If I do venture up with them, I'm in the background shouting instructions on how not to fall off. It's a very odd thing. We have a tower on the moors behind us with a staircase to the top and a wonderful look out on the parapet, but in 27 years I've never once made it to the last turn of the staircase. My rational mind knows I won't fall off, knows it's perfectly safe and others are doing it no problem, but some little devil in there just won't let me.

I just asked my son's friend who works at the Evening News Arena what it was like in the upper tier and he shrugged and said, fine. People who don't suffer from Acrophobia have no idea what it's like or the disorientation that appears out of nowhere once above a certain height. Funnily enough, I dislike flying, but it's not the height thing, because it doesn't feel like being high up, really. It's more that feeling of helplessness once up in the air...but that's another story.

Ticket was very expensive, sadly, but having read other experiences of that top tier, there is no way I'll get up there without the bottom falling out of my stomach. That, coupled with circus performers bouncing and spinning all night - what was I thinking....??