Good Morning, it's Time to Confront Your Paralyzing Fear of Heights

This is not news for any of you who have ever had to, say, cross a bridge on foot with me, but I have a wee bit of a heights problem. And by wee bit, I mean paralyzing fear.

Mental health professionals have a whole process called Immersion Therapy to help people conquer phobias. A "fear hierarchy" is created and one slowly works up from the least terrifying thing related to the phobia to greater levels of exposure as the person becomes more and more comfortable. For me, there was not much of a "gradual building up to the top of the fear pyramid," as much as being simply dragged up it at a highly alarming speed. From previous posts, you may recall that Officer Training School has a just tons of obstacle courses. While I have no problem vaulting over walls and climbing rope nets, this obstacle course, known simply as the Ropes Course, or Ropes, is a totally different beast.

I mean do you see te gigantic blue ladder that is not even coming CLOSE to reaching the These stations start at maybe 15 feet and work up to 40 feet. These also require a great deal of agility to work through. Heights plus coordination. PERFECT.

There is not a single station on this course that I was okay with. It started with scary, progressed into "not afraid to start crying in front of my peers" scary, and then entered into a new level that I really don't have a word for. Probably would look something like "OHMYGODDDDDDDDDDDDD." There are two stations worth noting in particular. First, look at the Indiana Jones styled plank bridge in the upper-right of the picture. They are spaced in a way where you pretty much have to run, bounding, over them. There are a lot of things I do well in this world but loping like a gazelle 35 feet off the ground is not one of them.
Now direct your attention to the cargo netting. We were required to use a rope to swing from the station opposite it, into the net, and then hold on for dear life. This seemed absurd to me and I asked the Flight Commanders on top of the station if I should be swinging "like a pirate." The two looked at each other for a long moment turned to me and confirmed that yes, "you will swing into the cargo netting like a pirate." Had I not been scared to death, I like to think I would have given a loud "YARRRRRR" as I covered the distance.

I managed to survive the Ropes only to realize I was only half done with this Immersion Exercise from hell. The next came my walk on the Toothpick. By Toothpick, of course, I mean telephone poll projecting out of the Ranger Tower and suspended 55 feet off of the ground. I was forced to walk out on this thing, about face, and walk back. I seriously did not think I was going to be able to do this. Without question the most scared I have been in my life.

I'm flexing in this bottom one so you can appreciate how massive this tower is. Figure that I am totally huge and this thing is way bigger. I think it is important to have a scale for something like this.

The insult to injury here is that even at this point, I am not done. I then had to rappel down the Ranger Wall, run to the opposite side, climb back up the climbing wall, and then rappel down the climbing well. I have used up so much adrenaline at this point that I am just numb for the final part of the course.

ON BELAY!

+1 for Immersion Therapy. I was not scared climbing this wall. One might credit this to a complete and utter depletion of adrenaline from my body at this point but why quibble?