The Heights of Panic

It’s been years since I’ve had the nightmare. The one where I’m in a car driving or riding pleasantly along. In the mountains, or along a cliff, sometimes on a freeway or a country road. We encounter a curve and the mood changes. Our car fails to negotiate it and over the shoulder and downward we plunge. It feels like the rocks and waves are rushing up to meet us. I know it means death and a scream tears from my throat. And that’s when I wake up. Usually waking everyone else in the house too because the scream was out loud, not just in my dream. My heart pounds, my breath comes in gasps, I’m crying. The terror is so real.

It’s a dream I had repeatedly from childhood on into my adult years. Sometimes the end wouldn’t come until our car was fully underwater. With each repetition it felt more and more real until in my dream I would be saying, “It’s not a dream anymore, this time it’s real!” Fear overwhelms.

I’ve always had acrophobia, an extreme irrational fear of heights and falling. I hated riding or driving in mountainous areas as the reason for the fears from my dream was so in my face. But as an adult I would pray for God’s help and force myself to go in order to participate in activities I enjoyed such as women’s retreat in Big Bear, California. Even with prayer the nightmare preceded these events and I would border on panic the entire route.

One year the nightmare came with painful intensity. I woke both myself and my husband with my screaming. Sobbing, I said to my husband, “I can’t take it anymore. Will you please pray for me?” And he did.

I wrote Weapon of MassDestruction, a fictional story based on this incident, for the weekly challenge at faithwriters.com. And I’ve not had the horrible nightmare since. Mountain driving and high places were still challenging for me but manageable.

Until a couple weeks ago when my husband and I decided to spend a Saturday afternoon driving up to Artist Point in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, in the North Cascade Mountain range.

Artist Point is a mere 5100 feet in elevation. Mt. Baker, at 10,781 feet, holds its lofty white head high above. But the route, the only route, is about 55 miles long and the last sections of it are a series of switchbacks and hairpin turns with very few guardrails.

I had not been up this highway in over thirty years but my reaction took me by surprise. A painful, panicked reaction. We emerged from the heavily forested region where views of the precipices could not be seen to suddenly being out in the wide open vista of rocky cliffs above and below. 

My chest tightened, my heart pounded. I murmured, “Oh, this is getting hard for me.” Then as my husband negotiated a particularly tight turn, I felt the world tip and spin around me and without my seatbelt holding me upright I would’ve probably resorted to a fetal position—not an attractive look for a sixty-year old woman. It was the nightmare feeling in full reality. I yelled something, I don’t know what—the whole scenario is blurred in my mind now. Scared my husband half out of his wits. So grateful for his skillful driving.

My husband pulled over at the next pullout, which didn’t really reassure me as the edge was RIGHT. THERE. OUT. SIDE. MY. WIN. DOW! Or at least it seemed that way. Hubby asked me if we should turn around and go back down the mountain. I managed to calm my breathing. And I said, “No. I want to go as far as the road goes.” No way was I going to let this fear triumph over me. It’s been decades since I was last up here and I wanted to see beautiful Artist Point and the                                              other amazing scenes. 

Mt. Baker shrouded in clouds.

I felt bad for scaring my husband. I felt bad that it sounded like I didn’t trust     him; that it looked like I thought he meant to kill us both.

But that is the nature of a phobia. It takes over the senses and cancels out reality.

According to what I’ve read since this incident, the extreme fear of heights can be an inborn one, with some people more affected by it than others. In addition I have vertigo so constant changing of direction will affect my balance and make me feel that I am falling when I am not. An article in Wikipedia states, “The human balance system integrates proprioceptive [the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement], vestibular and nearby visual cues to reckon position and motion.” I am challenged in this area already so if you put me in a world where visual cues have receded, don’t be surprised then to find me in the fetal position.

I enjoyed our stroll around Artist Point 

once we got there, but fighting back tears of shame the whole time did detract a bit. 

Before we headed back down the mountain my husband reassured me that there was no shame to be had. We discussed the fact that as a child the responsible adults in my life had ridiculed me, for the fears I expressed on this very route, the scene of the crime, so to speak, and used the opportunity to frighten me further. Sort of a situation of traumatized trauma. I work on forgiving them and accepting release from this tyranny.

On our downhill trek my dear husband purposefully drove even more sedately and with a mind for my comfort. I kept my eyes looking up with the name of Jesus in my heart and quietly on my lips. Fear still lurked but panic stayed at bay.

I am confident that Jesus my Lord does not look at me as shameful because of my fear. (Psalm 69:33; Romans 8:1, 38 ) He gives me grace and tells me to have it on myself. No shaming from him. (Hebrews 4:14-16) Reminding me that it's in the middle of terror that bravery and courage are demonstrated. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

Earthquake-proof the Dentist Office

Where do you feel most vulnerable?

I think I have to say for me, it’s when I’m in the chair. Where dental procedures are performed. Where my personal space is invaded. Where pain is involved. Where my airways seem to be impeded. That chair. Compared to other circumstances I’ve faced, say, being in stirrups, (and I’ve given birth three times and each time was by a different method so I can honestly speak to a variety of vulnerable positions), dental procedures evoke a very extreme level of anxiety. The level that makes dentists wish they’d earthquake-proofed their office, such are the tremors that emanate from my body and encompass the chair I’m occupying. I’m not exaggerating.

A couple weeks ago a convergence of increasing pain in my mouth and available funds sent me to the chair. Since we moved last year, I had to find a new dentist. Add another level to the anxiety meter. So at the first appointment, which was for exam and x-rays only, I put it right there on the forms I filled out. About being extremely anxious in the chair and how I would be taking an anti-anxiety medication to get through whatever procedures needed to be done.

I felt hopeful with how the young lady at the counter greeted me and helped me with insurance paper work and forms. And her interest in me as a person came through very clearly.

When my new dentist entered the room, I so appreciated that he kept his distance as we first talked, and that he listened. He asked me from where I thought the anxiety stemmed. He didn’t interrupt as I listed a myriad of circumstances involving dental horrors in my childhood. Topping the list was my first visit at age twelve, a tooth that my parents refused a root canal on, insisting that I would lose all my teeth by the time I was twenty-one anyway so just go ahead and pull it, leaving me there alone because they had things to do, me sobbing with terror, the dentist pulling the tooth and dropping it down my throat, which I gagged and choked on but eventually coughed out, the dentist yelling at me and telling me it was my fault that he dropped it. Yeah, it was pretty traumatic. Other things on the list were fillings done without anesthesia, and being told what a baby I was for complaining about the pain because there are so many other things way more painful.

I’ve had a number of root canals, crowns, tooth extractions and deep cleanings since then that didn’t qualify for horror movie ratings but the initial incidents are ingrained and affect every single new encounter.

My new dentist listened to it all. And then he affirmed me. He said what I’d experienced was horrible and it shouldn’t have been done that way. The next thing he said was so unexpected I still almost can’t quite believe I heard my ears right. Basically he said, “There’s nothing I can do to go back and change what happened. But what I can do right now is apologize for the way those dentists practiced and for what they did to you. I’m saying I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

Really?!? Yes, really. I’m still processing what that means. And I am working through that forgiveness.

Yesterday was my appointment for the root canal. I took my little Lorazepam to take the edge off my anxiety. My sister became my TLC giver and chauffeur. She even offered to hang out in the tiny waiting room. I couldn’t do that to her. Just knowing she was close by at The Woods Coffee Shop was enough for me.

I still felt vulnerable in the chair. I still felt that my personal space was invaded. And hey, when the dentist said, “You’ll feel a little pinch now” as the needle was inserted into my locally anesthetized gum, I felt it. A few tears leaked out. And my body felt jerky (thankfully no tremors this time). But I also felt respected and heard. I felt the kindness, the care, the concern for my welfare, and the peace and presence of Jesus that friends and family were praying for.

I like what a favorite author of mine Steve Arterburn says in his book, Toxic Faith, “The true presence of God in my life does not provide escape from reality and personal responsibility. His presence should provide a firmer grip on reality and a hope that reality can be faced with all its pain and sorrow.”

The dentist also said he’d like to get to a place where I feel I can trust him. I’d like that too. It will take time. But what a relief it would be to approach the chair without a tremble, as there are more procedures ahead.

Stolen Identity?

Spotlight over here, please. Right here, down at the bottom of this chapter. Yep, that’s what I thought it said. I’ve read it, oh, who knows, a hundred times? Today it applies to my thoughts about where I find my worth. I’m talking about verses 22 and 23 in the third chapter of the book of First Corinthians.

Paul was writing to his friends in Corinth. They seemed to be all in a dither. One bunch was saying, “Hey, we’re buds with Paul. He’s our man.” Another clique said, “We cheer for Apollos so we are all that!” I’m not into sports but it sort of sounds like what goes on in ‘discussions’ amongst fans of ball teams. Which makes me roll my eyes. Until I look at how I’ve done it myself.

Yes, I admit it. I’ve been there, done that. With ‘church’ people. To my chagrin and pain. The trouble with lining myself up with another human being is that he or she is just that, another human being. As trustworthy as many are and can be, and I’m thankful for that, I’m learning that my ultimate trust for my own worth is to be in God. For me, seemingly faithful relationships crumbled and the fallible failed when I had different preferences in where I chose to worship the Lord. And by the level of my devastation over betrayal and loss, I realized I’d put my reliance on people for my own identity.

The phrase that spotlight picked out this morning (from the New Living Translation) is “Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” It accentuates the concept I’ve mused on for the past few years, that I belong to me. My thoughts, my preferences, my feelings, my choices, my central identity. It’s my responsibility that I don’t give anyone else charge over that. Except for, if I read the rest of that verse, Christ, who belongs to God. Who, by the way, according to what I’ve read in His word, is my Creator and thus calls all the shots. But anyone else who tries to take over is trying to steal from God. Not that they can, because, you know, God being God, I don’t think anyone can actually steal from Him. And I can’t lose my identity when I find it in Him no matter what opinions others have about me.

That being said, words of affirmation are still like music to my ears! J It’s a song I like to sing to you too.