Van Ree's Voice

Fear.

When I was younger I had an intense fear of heights. My father too said he had the same fear so at the time I felt a little better in knowing that the person I saw as the bravest man on Earth could have fears as well.

However when I was a kid I felt that fears would stay permanent and that there was no way you could get past something you once found terrifying.

But over the years I learned of the kind of freedom that comes from getting over your fears and what significant impact that can have on your life.

When I was a sophomore in college one of my best high school friends tricked me into going skydiving with him one day.

He literally had to make me get in the plane and the guys had to push me out of the plane as I sat in the fetal position on the cargo section floor. Yes, I was tied tandem to an instructor but that didn’t stop me from feeling that first weightless moment, not being able to breath and seeing my life flash before my eyes just like in the movies.

I told myself, “Well, I either die at this point or I don’t but there is nothing I can do about it now.”

My friend fell after me and said once he saw me on the ground he thought I was going to faint and debated taking me to the hospital just to get me checked out.

Though the shaking lasted for hours, after the initial shock was over I was glad to have done something I would never have dreamed of attempting.

I was once again up against my fear of heights two summers ago when I worked as a journalist for the U.S. Army at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. I was in luck to be the first writer that wanted to experience all of the training that future Army officers were put through and that they let me.

Though I was scared of the C.S. gas chamber, I knew the pain that filled my lungs would end sometime and though the ground machine guns bruised my shoulders, the feeling of hitting long range targets with those and bazookas was enjoyable.

The one training however that left me figuratively paralyzed was the water confidence course. I had mastered the rappelling course and figured my height fear had become minimal over the years. I was wrong.

As you first approach the course you walk across a half drowned dock tipping side-to-side with each step. This dock was the walk of terror that led me to the initial ladder. Once atop the first ladder, 35-feet high, you must then cross a narrow beam not quite the width of a medium-sized human foot. Though you are equipped with a life jacket there are no wires, no ropes and no nets to catch you from falling into the lake below.

The beam also has an added obstacle. In the middle of the beam is a block one must cross, carrying both feet over it without sideswiping.

Though it is just a block, 35-feet up in the air, the walk feels tightrope-like and the third dimension added left me feeling perilous.

My parents were there to watch since it was family day at the base for our public affairs office and my mother could barely stand the sight.

My knees shook like a rattlesnake’s tail as I somehow manage to cross the beam. As I grabbed onto the safety of the pole on the other side I was yelled at by drill instructors saying that I did it incorrectly and needed to go back across and attempt what I felt like was my doom once more.

Once I had walked back across, turned, slipped and almost plummeted to the water below I crossed once more and made it safely back to the other side. The journey up didn’t stop there however.

My mind blacked in and out during the rest of the climb as I ascended approximately 25 more feet and was told I needed to cross my legs over my head and shimmy myself laterally along a rope suspended above the water. The officers yelled for me to state my name and school before dropping myself into the murky, cold pond below.

The challenge did not stop there. After removing the earplugs I was issued so that my eardrums didn’t rupture upon water impact I climbed one last tower. I ascended an approximate 75-foot tower and held on to a zip line pulley long enough to glide across the lake and drop myself into the water once more.

The day before I had defeated this challenge, one Army cadet had fell from the top of the pulley tower, called the Slide-for-Life, and broken his back and legs. Another Cadet had been terrified to let go of the pulley and it bounded off the barrier at the end and broke her nose and many of the bones in her face.

After completing this feat I got in the van to go back to the office with my parents. They began to ask me questions and realized I couldn’t talk. I was in complete shock. I had gone into a sort of robot-mode as soon as my feet had touched the wood plank many feet above the water. I went through the motions but had no idea how I had. It was then in the van that I started crying and couldn’t stop. It was as if every tiny emotion I had felt so many feet above the ground came crashing down on me after I realized what I had done and how paralyzed I had felt. After a few hours I returned to normal, the shaking subsided and I realized I had won my own little battle.

I would complete the course again that summer, not just because that I was still deathly afraid to and wanted to conquer it, but also because one of the Majors on scene made every Cadet that passed call me a chicken until I got in line once more and completed it with the Soldiers.

I bring all this up because just recently I again attempted to conquer a fear. This one consisted of ice and elevation.

I tried snowboarding the other weekend. The last time a Van Ree had attempted a snow sport, my brother received a concussion while wearing a helmet.

The same feeling I felt a couple summers previous returned to me again at the top of that slope. I had no control and was sliding who knows what way and at times backwards down the mountain face.

I completed one slope slowly over the course of what seemed like hours, my boyfriend helping me up over and over again until I made it to the bottom and crashed into two people.

I swore I would never attempt something I was petrified of again. The first slope had defeated me. Not in a physical manner but one in which I had never given up on something after the first try before and my confidence as a person was shot. But I knew that if I never tried it again, I would always remember that one time that I gave up.

With the steady encouragement of my friends, I attempted skiing last weekend. It was significantly easier than snowboarding to me and I should have realized ahead of time that anything that deals with having to keep your balance or to be coordinated at all for that matter probably wasn’t for me. I even enjoyed the sport a little.

I am very grateful that I made the attempt once more. Against my mental panic, my tears and my shortness of breath, I took on the mountain and gave myself a chance to overcome my phobia.

We may think that our fears trap us and they bring us down. They do and sometimes we are not able to get over them. But preconceived fears also give us a challenge and if we can make ourselves attempt those challenges, the rewards can be one of the greatest personal achievements in one’s life.

Hannah Van Ree can be contacted at [email protected].