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Phobias
| Article
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16177 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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6 / 1989 |
1,984 Words |
| Author
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Jon Queijo
Jon Queijo is a free-lance science writer residing in Boston,
Massachusetts. |
Donna Birtwistle was at a business luncheon when she suddenly began to feel warm and light-headed. Within seconds, her heart was throbbing and her hands were trembling. Overwhelmed by ambiguous terror, she bolted from the room. Over the next few years, these "panic attacks" struck with increasing frequency, forcing her to flee from stores, banks, and other public places. Birtwistle found that just worrying about an attack would cause it to happen, so she began avoiding public places altogether. "My world kept shrinking," she recalls, "until all I could do was go to work and come home. And eventually I had to take a leave of absence."
Doreen Powell's fear was focused on a specific situation: riding in elevators. Usually she could take the stairs, but sometimes she had no choice; that's when fear took over her senses. "As I approached an elevator," she recalls, "I would think, 'This is the time it's going to get stuck between floors.' And when I was in them I would tense up so much that when I got out my legs would be wobbly."
Like many people, Mark Hadley initially denied having any fears. With a little probing, however, he grudgingly recalled being a little nervous giving oral reports in grade school. He admitted he had rarely answered questions in his college classes because his hands would sweat and his throat would go dry. Finally, he confessed to refusing several job offers because they had involved giving speeches; his fear of public speaking had affected his career path.
Fears: when it's unhealthy
Fear can control our lives in a
... (1993 of 12224 Characters)
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