am98505
15-03-18, 23:33
Hi
When I was a kid, my family and I would often go on country walks, and up mountains and stuff. I climbed Ben Nevis with my dad and sister when I was 10 with no problem. But recently, I’ve been having pretty severe reactions to being on steep hills. A couple of years ago, I joined a group at school to complete my bronze Duke of Edinburgh award. We went up a local hill for the practise expedition, and we accidentally took the steepest route up. The others decided to keep going anyway, so I had no choice but to climb it. The slope was grassy and I kept feeling like I was slipping. Halfway up, I suddenly found I couldn’t keep going. I was just lying there, holding on to the grass, shaking. One of the people in my group told me we needed to keep going, and I just broke down and started crying. One guy offered to carry my bag up for me, but even then, I still felt like I couldn’t move. It was the most embarrassing time of my life (there’s a lot of contenders for that lol), and the guy kept bringing it up for months afterwards, which was frustrating. Anyway, since then I found that being on a steep incline makes me really nervous and shaky, even though I’ve never had a bad fall on a hill, and I don’t really have a problem with heights.
My panic attacks even affect my driving. I recently took up lessons, and, although I’ve been learning for 11 weeks, I still can’t do a hill start or park on a hill without panicking (and swearing many many times lol). The handbrake never seems to be on tight enough, and it’s really having a bad effect on my confidence as it takes me a while to recover from each badly handled hill start.
Can anyone tell me how to get rid of/deal with these attacks quickly and effectively? It’s the biggest issue that I have, and it’s preventing me from fully enjoying driving and hill walking, both of which I normally love.
Thanks
Amy
When I was a kid, my family and I would often go on country walks, and up mountains and stuff. I climbed Ben Nevis with my dad and sister when I was 10 with no problem. But recently, I’ve been having pretty severe reactions to being on steep hills. A couple of years ago, I joined a group at school to complete my bronze Duke of Edinburgh award. We went up a local hill for the practise expedition, and we accidentally took the steepest route up. The others decided to keep going anyway, so I had no choice but to climb it. The slope was grassy and I kept feeling like I was slipping. Halfway up, I suddenly found I couldn’t keep going. I was just lying there, holding on to the grass, shaking. One of the people in my group told me we needed to keep going, and I just broke down and started crying. One guy offered to carry my bag up for me, but even then, I still felt like I couldn’t move. It was the most embarrassing time of my life (there’s a lot of contenders for that lol), and the guy kept bringing it up for months afterwards, which was frustrating. Anyway, since then I found that being on a steep incline makes me really nervous and shaky, even though I’ve never had a bad fall on a hill, and I don’t really have a problem with heights.
My panic attacks even affect my driving. I recently took up lessons, and, although I’ve been learning for 11 weeks, I still can’t do a hill start or park on a hill without panicking (and swearing many many times lol). The handbrake never seems to be on tight enough, and it’s really having a bad effect on my confidence as it takes me a while to recover from each badly handled hill start.
Can anyone tell me how to get rid of/deal with these attacks quickly and effectively? It’s the biggest issue that I have, and it’s preventing me from fully enjoying driving and hill walking, both of which I normally love.
Thanks
Amy