Let’s talk about anxiety today. Or more precisely, the anxiety of heights.

Roughly ten years ago, after a sudden panic attack that struck me out of nowhere (which is, I guess, what they always do), I became afraid of heights. It was never so bad that I couldn’t even step up a ladder, but it made it impossible to cross a grid floor bridge over a small gorge anymore or step outside on a balcony of a high building. Not to mention boarding a plane.

Needless to say, this often leaves you in an uncomfortable situation. If that bridge is necessary to cross on a hike, and an alternative route will take hours, you better plan some time in advance. It made it impossible for me to fly to conferences or on business trips, too. That’s why I never applied to speak at conferences that I couldn’t reach well by train, for example.

Obviously, I didn’t want to endure this for too long. In times of the climate crisis, flying is not really an option for me anyway, so that didn’t really matter to me. And surely, avoiding hikes with bridges and mountains is possible, but especially those routes in the mountains are among the most beautiful. I was missing out on activities I enjoyed the most, so I had to change something.

Self-therapy

Please note: I am by no means a psychologist! I just tell you my experience and what worked for me. Seeking help from professionals is no sign of weakness or anything else.

Not that I had many options. Fighting my anxiety with alcohol? Getting completely smashed on a business trip or in the mountains is not really a good idea, so I skipped that. Also, I get cuddly when I’m drunk.

How about therapy, you might wonder? Yeah, I considered it but wasn’t able to find sufficient information about good therapists to begin with.

I read about hypnosis, but I probably watched too many bad movies about it (aka being confidently ignorant) to consider it for myself, but I would definitely be open to hearing the experiences of people who tried it.

Another type of therapy I learned about in that context is called “exposure therapy“. You basically expose yourself to what causes your fears in small doses.

That sounded doable, so I started treating myself. On countless hikes, I tried to get higher each time. Cross higher bridges, taller observation towers, or mountain hikes with more elevation.

Sometimes, I just stood minutes in front of the obstacle but wasn’t able to overcome it. However, although every time I couldn’t make it felt like a failure, after a while there was a clear trend that it’s getting better. Little steps.

The worst part here is what I would call the “fear of fear”: What will happen if I freak out in a plane, 10,000 meters above the ground, or on a narrow bridge? The wildest thoughts come through my mind. Will I try to open the aircraft door, screaming like a maniac? Will I lie down, sobbing, paralyzed in the fetal position? Or will I even get a heart attack? You can’t argue with rationality when your fear is irrational.

My learnings

Spoiler: You will, most certainly, not die of fear (but please don’t complain to me in case you do).

Seriously, realizing that was a major point for me. Some more points that helped me:

• Accept that fear is nothing bad per se. It helps you avoid accidents.
• The adrenaline will eventually stop being produced after approximately 30 minutes. If the fear strikes, sit down, get used to it, and wait until the worst is over.
• Do it with people who you trust, who know about your fears, and who are not too mad (but mad enough to make it an issue) if they have to abort the climb.
• By the way, if you are one of the people who accompany someone with a fear of heights, comments like “But it’s not that high” will not help. No, they won’t.
• Avoid additional stress triggers, like heat, noise, overly crowded paths, etc.
• Sleep hygiene: I think my panic attack was also caused by sleep deprivation. For many years I did not sleep much longer than 5-6 hours, which is definitely not healthy.

Next try

Equipped with a solid experience of enduring fear and some sense of achievement, I was visiting a southern part of Germany. The town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen is close to Germany’s highest peak, the Zugspitze (approx. 2900 m).

Just stepping out of the train and seeing the massive mountainside with my own eyes for the first time was absolutely stunning. What a beauty!

Surely, climbing it was not an option. There is another mountain nearby, though: the Wank (yes, I know, but that’s what it is called). With its 1780 m, it rises about 1000 m above the town. It sounded doable, and it didn’t look that high from the ground, so I was willing to give it a try.

The climb itself was nice. Basically 1000 m uphill, which took me roughly 3 1/2 hours with some breaks.

If 1000 m doesn’t sound that high to you, I like to compare it with walking up the stairs to the top of one of those ridiculously high skyscrapers, like the Burj Khalifa. Just to give you an idea of what it does to my brain, and where the anxiety comes from.

As I was already used to a bit of height, the first few hundred meters were no problem. Around 600 m above the ground, it started getting interesting – I felt the fear slowly creeping in. Oh gosh, not again.

I kept going, mostly focusing on the next few steps before me, repeating the above learnings in my mind. Also, I didn’t constantly check my maps app to see at what elevation I had already reached, as I would usually do. I just kept going, but I made enough breaks to get used to the situation and let the adrenaline go away.

Going further up, I realized that, above a certain altitude, it doesn’t really make any difference whether you are, e.g., at 500 m or 800 m. I guess it’s a matter of perspective; the feeling of height didn’t get worse. That was a nice surprise!

Eventually, I reached the cable car station on the summit. The soup I enjoyed as treatment never tasted better. As a plus, I even dared to take the cable car downhill again – something I’ve also not done for over a decade!

Down on the ground

I’m writing this down since this trip was a huge success for me – another important milestone in fighting my anxiety. There were a few places where it went really deep, and I was scared. Yet, in hindsight, I think I was more afraid of getting another panic attack than actually having a real fear of heights (which is also called “anticipatory anxiety,” as I later learned). I hope I can conserve this thought for the next tour.

I don’t consider myself to be “healed” at this point, as some situations are still difficult. But I am confident that I would be able to board a plane again in the near future; I’m not sure if I want that, though, for the reason mentioned above. A far-fetched milestone would be climbing up the dreaded Zugspitze. Nothing that can be done within the next few years, though, but it’s something to aim for!

Hopefully, this little story can encourage others who suffer from the same problem to keep trying. If I can do it, you can do it too.