Fear of falling
You appear comfortable now, tell me your fear. A nine (9) year old boy lays down on a couch, eyes shut begin to tell of his nightmare. “I’m running through the woods… Something is chasing me in the woods”. Then what happens Victor tell me you are completely safe here. “I get to the edge of the woods, my mom calls out my name but the person is still chasing me, then I try to run away but there’s a stone. I trip and fall into a big hole”. Do you wake up then? “No, I just keep falling for a very very long time.” And how does that make you feel? “Scared”. When you are falling or before you fall? “When I’m falling”. Are you afraid because you are not sure what will happen or because you are not waking up? “No, because I can feel a pain”. So how do you wake up? “I don’t know I just see myself in places…” You mean you just appear in places and don’t remember how you got there? “Yes” What about now, how did you get here, do you remember? “No, I’m still dreaming…”
Excerpt from a John Bitterman’s psychiatrist session.
“That was you?” “Yep, I was a textbook case for psychiatrist students for many years”. “Interesting, very interesting”. “You know what else is interesting?” “No what?” “Your eyes, no I’m kidding but they are kind of, actually they are interesting but seriously there are a pack of acrophobia cases over there”. “Yeah, let’s look at these ones”.
“Derek Waters, 54 years old, divorced 2 kids from a previous marriage. 2 from his current one. Was mildly scared of heights his whole life however, within the last 2 months developed acute anxiety attacks and suffers from acrophobia such that her can’t climb stairs to the second floor of his own house”. “Wow”. “There’s more, exposure therapy has been ineffective, obviously. Heavy benzodiazepine prescription just to avoid the severe panic attacks. Subject gets into a manic fit. Now in admission at the psychiatric wing of Royal Columbian Hospital, New Westminster.” “It just goes on about the dosage which seems to be upped, essentially he’s in a vegetative state now.” “Nothing to say what triggered his severe acrophobia?” “No nothing just happened suddenly. Woke up one day, went to work and just went manic at the train station”. “Oh wow.” “Let’s look at another one, this case seems hopeless”.
“Ok, I have one, it seems to be marked in the special pile, Team Canada Olympic ski-jumper Denise Whitman developed severe acrophobia.” “What! a ski-jumper?” “Yeah, hers developed in dreams like yours but more specifically falling of a ramp.” “There’s a description of a dream from a session.” I’m about to jump the whole of the world watching but I see my family cheering me on. I get set on the ramp but my legs start to vibrate as if there’s an earthquake and my whole body is vibrating then suddenly I’m going down the ramp and flying through the air. I’ve had dreams of jumping before but in them I felt free but in this dream I felt scared and then I land but I….(starts crying). I crash and all I feel pain in my legs. “Wow!” “It gets worse, she hasn’t been able to ski jump since then, she started walking with a limp, she even started using a wheelchair to get around before the news reported on it and now she doesn’t go out. She’s become an agoraphobe as well.” “When did this happen?” “In the summer, late summer. First episode was July same as the other guy.” “Same as most actually.” “What is happening?” “It’s as random as hell and within a specific window.” “What about place?” “All are in Vancouver.” “But where in Vancouver?” “Denise lives in North Van, Derek Waters lives in East Van, other cases are from Burnaby, West end, Coquitlam, Surrey, this is all Vancouver and Greater Vancouver, It’s all over the map.” “Strange, no pattern related to these cases.” What about an activity did they all visit the same place or region at a specific time?” ’That’s interesting, so you think it could be exposure to something that triggered their severe phobia? But their tox screen is quite normal.” “yeah, I’m thinking electromagnetically or some other invisible thing.” “Oh, that makes a lot of sense, that’s not bad Mr. detective, do you always crack the cases like that.” “No, actually sometimes but mostly I have dreams.” “I see.”
“Hold on, there’s something in a case I was looking at in another case, I think it was Jenni S…” “Jenni Spencer?” “Yes her, she had a large file. The therapist used hypnosis on her and got a lot of juicy details.” “Speaking of juice, more wine?” “Yeah sure, liquor me up” “Jenni Spencer’s regressed memories are incredibly detailed. She first had a feeling of something trying to possess her in a café around West point gray. She describes it as tiny spiders crawling inside her head on Tuesday evening. She was then seeing flashes of mountain views and falling off an edge. She had vertigo probably a symptom of her body fighting an attack.” “But what kind of attack, what would be attacking her and why?” “Exactly, what I think we can find in her file by looking closely at the details.” “Although, she developed the same acrophobia that these guys developed she constantly was driven to suicide attempts. Middle aged 54, worked for the government for 15 years, had several contracts with oil service companies, it’s not entirely clear what she did for a living it seems like a lot rich stuff.” Yeah, also she is the first person that developed a phobia in such a curios manner.” Really? We may be looking at patient zero.” “I think we need to study her in close detail, we need someone to analyze everything in this file.” “Who?” “I know a guy, I need to get this to him immediately.” “Ok, let’s go.” “Let me just take a pee, you need the bathroom?” “Go ahead I’ll wait.”
“Ok, your turn. Let me get my jacket and when you’re done we can get going.” “We have a problem.” “What happened?” Breaking news, Jenni Spencer has died. Police confirm that the suicide of the woman jumping out the hotel downtown is indeed Jenni Spencer. She jumped out of the window of a hotel from the 32nd floor. She is also a victim of manic attacks set about by suddenly developing an extreme fear of heights in July. Jenni Spencer is survived by her family a brother Edward and sister Tracey.
