Have you ever been in that position when fear races to the top of your emotions and you know that it is controllable, but you just cannot control it! You know that it is just your mind racing ahead to the ‘what ifs’ and seeing visions of things that might happen, while all the time logically knowing that they would not really happen! But you cannot control it. You cannot see or feel anything else except the terror inside you…of this life-threatening position.
All you can feel is the fear and that is the strongest emotion of all.
It overwhelms you!
Today I was in exactly that position.
It was not nice and it definitely was not pretty!
My husband, on our holiday this week, suggested a walk to the ‘Pyramids’, which was about 2 hours walk in total. I love to walk and of course I consented. Eager to keep fit and agile in my 50 or more years, I took the challenge of this proposed ‘little walk’ in stride.
So – smiling, laughing, singing songs on our 40km drive from our cabin to Girraween National Park where we would commence our walk, I felt quite happy and contented. Simply enjoying being out on a beautiful day, about to walk in the fresh air and with striking sunshine on my back, with the man I wanted to be with…. what more could a girl want!
A much needed toilet visit before we began our walk….and that was when my joviality started to wane!
Looking up…ahead, was the rock I was about to climb.
It was not what I expected on this ‘little’ walk.
It loomed large, huge, enormous, stretching out its vast grey pretentious rock face, showing in all its glory its’ gradient, its steepness as it beckoned me to venture upon its colossal rock face.
“Just a little walk”, says my husband.
That was my first mistake!
And the journey began.
Striding out along the pathway, enjoying the sunshine, I could feel the cold hand of apprehension clutching my chest as I kept my eyes peeled on that rock face in front.
But I smiled.
I walked calmly beside my husband.
I held his hand.
The calm pathway slowly turned into a seemingly endless series of rock and concrete stairs, taunting my feet up its trail.
I walked slower.
I fell behind my husband
I let go of his hand.
I began to climb the rock shelf stairs.
Stopping for breath on these steps, quite a good few metres back from my husband ahead of me, he asked kindly upon my well-being.
Of course, naturally I smiled.
Of course I said, “I am OK”.
I waved my hand.
And as I uttered these reassuring words to the one I love, irrepressibly my teeth started to grit and clench together as I tried to calm my jagged breathing, listening to my much loved husband chatter in his calm, happy and nonchalant way about the track and the rock, reassuring me that, “we had all the time in the world.There was no rush.”
Struggling to smile at him while all the time, I am taking deep breaths of effort, trying to breathe normally, knowing that I am starting to struggle with the exertion, trying steadily to miraculously produce energy into my breathless body from this first ‘easy’ part of this trek. Yet I am thinking…yes I know I am carrying a little more weight than I should, but I am fit, but didn’t I decide last year that I would not do Mount Warning again…as that climb was hard and there was no need to again prove I could do it?
At least Mount Warning wound its way up, with plenty of ‘switch-backs- to ‘ease’ the climb!
This path was plainly simply Up!
What the hell was I doing on this path, on this much harder trail and trek!!
“The rocks are your friends”< I hear as I commence once more my ascent further up into the rock face.
Oh yes I have heard this phrase before, but that was about trees…!
Now I have to consider rocks – actually hard immovable granite – as my friend???
Really?
Who are you kidding??
The steps continue. Up.
My effort continues. Up.
My sunglasses fogged continuously as perspiration drizzled down the crevices in my face, blinding me as I struggled to see the path in front. Constantly taking them off, placing them back on, breathing heavily as my feet walk on its upward journey, continuously looking upwards, listening to that huge rock monster beckoning me forward, reaching out its unembellished arms, still taunting me to walk upon its holy grail of stone with its severe simple intense angles.
Up.
The rock steps finish and fall behind me.
The rock face is in front of me.
I begin to seriously climb.
Not the thirty degrees of Bald Rock successfully climbed a couple of days ago. No, that steepness was only for the first part of this climb!
Now we move into 45 degrees of inclination.
I feel my much loved, much used, so comfortable walking shoes beneath me, their soles’ relaxed smoothness now struggling to grip this so called ‘friendly’ rock as they espy my husband’s thick hiking boots dancing their way happily up the smooth rock face.
My head is now down.
My breathing is laboured.
My heart is racing.
Any calmness I may have had is melting fast as my slippery feet grip tentatively, uncertainly, falteringly to this intensely sheer rock face that was supposed to be ‘my friend.’
Tears are beginning to flow down my face as I move through the 45 degrees’ section heading to the 60 degrees ascent.My breathing is short, fast, exerted. My lungs begging for air to simply enter the airways but it just won’t happen. My breath becomes more jagged, crying desperately for any small amount of air to be sucked into them as I struggle to inhale as terror and fear grip firmly my lungs in one tight strangled hold.
I panic as fear overtakes me as I fight further upwards on this arduous grey horizon.
Fear gives way to terror as I stop mid-track on this leering rock face.
I cry out to my husband ahead, “I cannot do this”, “I cannot do this,” and tears give way to sobs.
Stopping abruptly, the worst fear of all ascends upon me. I begin to slip downwards.
Crying non-stop I call hysterically, “‘I am slipping, I am slipping,” and all I can now see in my mind’s eye is my body plunging downwards, descending rapidly as one small innate human being becoming a cannon ball tumbling down this shrewd rock face, laughing at me as I fall.
My Panic Attack is now in motion, in full acceleration!
Hysteria takes over.
I struggle with the calm gentle sound of my husband’s voice urging me to move, to sit on a ledge. I slid sideways, listening to that calm voice penetrating through my fog of fear. I move but I cry uncontrollably declaring I cannot go any further and yet fear is amplified even more as I realise I have to go Down.
Logic and reason are now completely gone as I face the decision of how to remove my frazzled body from this cold hard rock. How do I go down as I am emotionally dealing with the irrational fear of breaking every bone in my body apparently falling headfirst onto this granite landscape in my descent?
My husband all the time is talking calmly to ease my illogical, unreasonable fears and suggests ways of descending and the only choice in my terror is I have is to go down crawling backwards on my hands and feet.
And we start to descend.
Tears are streaming down my face, struggling to breathe as I descend slowly. I am upside down in appearance placing one toe hold on this cliff face after the other, one hand after the after, inching backwards down this terrain, listening all the time to the calm male voice pervading my panicking consciousness.
As I sit on the 30 degrees’ edge of the rock face, I cry once more as the panic starts to subside slowly in all its overwhelmingness, knowing that I am once again in an area that I deem safe, that I can handle.
I smile bravely as another climber comes forward to check on me…about to start on his upward journey. I am unaware until then that he had been watching me the whole way down, making way for me to descend in my own time, patiently pretending not to be concerned but available to give a hand if needed.
I look up at the short distance I had descended,
I felt safe.
I also felt quite stupid and silly.
I felt embarrassed as I watched my husband climb up where I had stopped and further to the summit. Aware that he had taken the steeper more difficult ascent just to stay within my line of vision so I would not be concerned. Not leaving my line of sight so I would not worry. Not add to my already frayed nerves. Finally waving to me happily as my camera clicked away with photos to prove he was there!
I am not prone to panic attacks . For example , something that would terrify most people, like performing or speaking in front of 2000 people would reduce most to being startled rabbits in the headlights , but I can do this with only a modicum of anxiety. I can generally handle fearful episodes but full blown Panic is such an awful thing.
Fear is such a strong emotion. It becomes panic when it becomes irrational, takes over your whole body.
It is that sudden sensation of overwhelming fear that is so strong as to dominate and prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and frantic agitation consistent with an animalistic fight-or-flight reaction.
My reaction to a climb that I could have undertaken quite successfully was not pretty.
The illogical part of my mind said I was going to fall and nothing was going to change that situation. No amount of cajoling, calming or reassurance could deal with my illogical mind. That fear raced to the top of my emotion and even though I knew I should control it, I couldn’t. My mind was racing ahead to the ‘what ifs’ and seeing visions of things that might happen if I kept going, or even while sitting on that ledge, while all the time logically knowing that they would not really happen! But I could not control it. I could not see or feel anything else except the terror inside me of what I considered a life-threatening position.
All you can feel is the fear and that is the strongest emotion of all.
It engulfs you!
It was only through dealing with it in a ‘flight’ reaction by descending in the manner I did that slowed that fear and ridiculous panic back to what I knew as normality.
That’s what happened to me.
And as once more with my husband, I walk, meandering back down the track, the sun once more shining benignly on my face.
I breath peacefully.
I take his hand.
I smile.
I step and walk calmly beside him as we travel happliy back down the way we had come.
I am wiser.
I faced my Panic.
I descended on my own power.
My fears were not realised.
And, I will never again trust at face value my husband again when he says…,
“It is just a Little Walk.”