Posted on Wednesday, 22 December 2010

People don’t like to ride in elevators or wait for them. Many people can’t even get in one, or would really rather not. “They’re not psychotic,” Jerilyn Ross, a cognitive-behavioral therapist in Washington and the president of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, said recently. “It’s just a misfiring of the fight-or-flight response.” Elevator phobia is a kind of claustrophobia, and as such the fear is as much of experiencing fear—of having a panic attack, in an enclosed space—as it is of the thing itself. Hoberman said. “I don’t have a fear of dying in an elevator, or of the elevator losing control—I have a fear of being stuck with my mind.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_paumgarten#ixzz18ukrqNDO

“The New Yorker.” I haven’t blogged in forever, but this was literally the most I’ve ever related to an article in my life. I’m so, so, so terrified of elevators. And I’m not alone!

Notes