TV talk show wants to help you with your phobia!!!

"hvsparkles" wrote:
Nationally Syndicated daytime talk show is looking for guests with
extreme phobias to come on our show so we can help you start the
process to healing.

Are you afraid of driving? Are you afraid of illness? of leaving your
house?

I would love to hear from you and discuss this opportunity further. You
can call me toll free at 1-888-372-2569 x4296

I have a phobia of cats. When ever I see one I get all googly eyed and start
talking in a forein language. Then I fall to my knees and start petting and
rubbing the furballs uncontrollably. I need help, there are four of them
running around my house making me talk funny and doing things that no sane
person should be doing. PLEASE HELP ME!


Randy
http://picasaweb.google.com/crmartin1

http://kittenwar.com/kittens/74045/

Lesley wrote:

Joy wrote:

After that, I rode buses exclusively for about a year. I absolutely
refused to get on a subway train. But eventually I started to relax
a bit about it, and could ride trains again, although I was always a
bit anxious about it.

Actually, I'm the one who posted that, not Joy (I know our names are
similar!).

My phobia is lifts. I never liked them much but didn't have a real
problem with them until June 2004 when I got stuck alone in a small
lift where I worked.

I used to have a bit of a phobia of those, also. Especially being alone
in a small one! So I can imagine what you must have felt.

Actually, I remember seeing a therapist for about 2 years in an office
that was on the 8th floor of an old building with an ancient, creaky
elevator. I refused to get on it. So I used to run up those 8 floors
every week (ah, youth). I always thought it was kind of funny that I
had to take the stairs to see my shrink because I was phobic about the
elevator!

The downside is that I couldn't take a job where there were too many
floors for me to use the stairs (When I was facing redundancy recently
my big worry was they would offer me a job on the 16th floor and my
turning it down because of my lift phobia would not be considered an
acceptable reason and I would not get redundancy pay) and I obsess over
it.

That would be a tough one! Sometimes it helps to have to do something
every day, and you get desensitized and your fears lessen. But sometimes
not, and then you just have to live with that stress every day. I think
in a lot of places in the US, your phobia *would* be considered a valid
reason to turn down the job, and they might help you find another placement.

I used to work in the John Hancock tower in Boston. That's the 60-floor,
all-glass building where most of the windows fell out shortly after it
was built. Remember that? Delayed the opening of the building for a few
years, I think.

I worked on the 12th floor, and I didn't mind the elevators in that
building. For one thing, they were big, and also, usually had other
people in them. Plus they were modern - it's those old, creaky ones
that scare me.

However, occasionally I'd go to the 60th floor, which had an observation
area where you could see a panoramic view of the building. I did not
like riding the elevator because it was an "express" that didn't stop
on any of the other floors. This means there was no elevator bank for
that shaft on any of the other floors. What if you got stuck on the 30th
floor - 30 floors from an opening in either direction?? The ride was
only 60 seconds long, but it was one *looooong* minute.

Tell you the truth, I didn't really enjoy the observation area, either.
I just felt trapped up there. What if something terrible happened, and
I couldn't get down? What if there was a fire, or an explosion, or a
plane crashed into the building? Yes, I used to worry about that. And
everyone thought my fears were so outlandish! :-/

I'm happy to say that my anxieties are mostly gone now. The above story
was from 30 years ago, btw! I've had many phobias and panic attacks, but
I've been pretty much anxiety-free for the past 15 years or so. Better
living through chemistry!

Joyce

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 12:33:47 +0100, "Adrian A"
wrote:

CATherine wrote:


When you have a phobia, you can't control it. Not with logic or
anything. It is too visceral.

Just reading your description there made me feel uncomfortable, I don't
think I could have coped at all.

I was lucky to have family with me both times. If I had been alone, I
might have stayed on the stairs at the Falls till the management
rescued me!

--
CATherine

Randy wrote:
"hvsparkles" wrote:
Nationally Syndicated daytime talk show is looking for guests with
extreme phobias to come on our show so we can help you start the
process to healing.

Are you afraid of driving? Are you afraid of illness? of leaving your
house?

I would love to hear from you and discuss this opportunity further. You
can call me toll free at 1-888-372-2569 x4296

I have a phobia of cats. When ever I see one I get all googly eyed and start
talking in a forein language. Then I fall to my knees and start petting and
rubbing the furballs uncontrollably. I need help, there are four of them
running around my house making me talk funny and doing things that no sane
person should be doing. PLEASE HELP ME!


LOL! You obviously need help. So do I. I have the exact same symptoms.

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.
Stories and pics at http://koti.welho.com/mkurten/
Pics at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/
and http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki

Joy wrote:
Exactly. It always gets me when somebody tries to talk somebody out of a
phobia. You can't reason somebody out of a phobia, because a phobia isn't
reasonable. It just is. I suspect that most people with irrational phobias
know they're irrational, but that doesn't make a bit of difference. You can
know something in your head, but if you don't know it in your gut, it
doesn't count.

So true. My arachnophobia is completely irrational, because we don't
even have any poisonous spiders in Finland. And I'm not even scared of
being bitten, it's just the form of them that scares me. It is like evil
incarnate to me. I don't like them any better dead than alive.

I also have a fear of heights. Maybe that's a bit more rational. I mean,
if you fall down from a high place, you *will* get hurt or die. But
that's not what the fear of heights is about. It's that when you are
somewhere high up, you can feel yourself falling, though you are
standing on solid ground.

A former boyfriend once tried to cure my fear of heights by forcing me
to climb a steep cliff. Duh! He just made it worse.

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.
Stories and pics at http://koti.welho.com/mkurten/
Pics at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/
and http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki

Lesley wrote:
Joy wrote:


After that, I rode buses exclusively for about a year. I absolutely
refused to get on a subway train. But eventually I started to relax
a bit about it, and could ride trains again, although I was always a
bit anxious about it.

Obviously over here everyone is a bit nervous on tube trains. Recently
we had an incident where there was something on the track at the next
station so my train was stuck in a tunnel. At this point someone had
the brilliant idea that it would be easier to remove the obstruction
from the rail if they shut the power off

Of course the trains get their power from the rail as well so the
lights went out and the emergency lights came on....

And it never occured to the driver to tell us "Sorry about this. The
lights are out because the rail is powered down so we can clear the
obstruction quickly"

I don't think there was anyone in that train who didn't start sweating
at that point!

Oh, that is terrible! I get panicky on the metro, too. And now they are
talking of eliminating the drivers from our metro trains, because the
trains are so automated that the drivers don't even drive them, they
just sit there for the ride. shudder I hope I will never have to take
the metro again.

Just like you, lifts is another phobia. I've only been stuck in a lift
once, and there were other people there, and it didn't last more than a
few minutes, but I was on the verge of panic anyway. The other night, I
had a nightmare about being stuck on a lift. The next day, I had a
dentist's appointment. My dentist has started a new practice in a new
location, which I visited for the first time. I find she's on the 6th
floor, and the lift is an elderly one. Well, I got on it and it started
creaking its way upwards. The higher it got, the more it creaked. It was
very slow, too. I was near panic when we finally reached the 6th floor
(the lift and me - there was no one else in the lift). Then I step out
of the lift, and there is a window right beside the lift door, and I can
see the sheer drop outside. Agh! Fear of heights kicks in. Another
reason to be afraid of visiting the dentist. ;o)

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.
Stories and pics at http://koti.welho.com/mkurten/
Pics at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/
and http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki

Marina wrote:
Randy wrote:
"hvsparkles" wrote:
Nationally Syndicated daytime talk show is looking for guests with
extreme phobias to come on our show so we can help you start the
process to healing.

Are you afraid of driving? Are you afraid of illness? of leaving
your house?

I would love to hear from you and discuss this opportunity further.
You can call me toll free at 1-888-372-2569 x4296

I have a phobia of cats. When ever I see one I get all googly eyed
and start talking in a forein language. Then I fall to my knees and
start petting and rubbing the furballs uncontrollably. I need help,
there are four of them running around my house making me talk funny
and doing things that no sane person should be doing. PLEASE HELP
ME!


LOL! You obviously need help. So do I. I have the exact same symptoms.

If there's a cure I don't want it! :-)
--
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy and Bagheera)
Cats leave pawprints on your heart.
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk

Marina wrote:
Joy wrote:
Exactly. It always gets me when somebody tries to talk somebody out
of a phobia. You can't reason somebody out of a phobia, because a
phobia isn't reasonable. It just is. I suspect that most people
with irrational phobias know they're irrational, but that doesn't
make a bit of difference. You can know something in your head, but
if you don't know it in your gut, it doesn't count.

So true. My arachnophobia is completely irrational, because we don't
even have any poisonous spiders in Finland. And I'm not even scared of
being bitten, it's just the form of them that scares me. It is like
evil incarnate to me. I don't like them any better dead than alive.

I also have a fear of heights. Maybe that's a bit more rational. I
mean,
if you fall down from a high place, you *will* get hurt or die. But
that's not what the fear of heights is about. It's that when you are
somewhere high up, you can feel yourself falling, though you are
standing on solid ground.

A former boyfriend once tried to cure my fear of heights by forcing me
to climb a steep cliff. Duh! He just made it worse.

My fear of heights developed when I was nearly 30, before that I had no
problems. Now even seeing a high place on television makes me feel very
anxious.
--
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy and Bagheera)
Cats leave pawprints on your heart.
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk