Bathophobia & Acrophobia: Are They Linked?

[SlowRain]

Have never had a problem with either...did conventional airborne and was HALO trained as part of my military service...and have been below 200' quite a few times. Having said that, I was always a lot more apprehensive going out of a plane...because unlike being able to abort a dive and go back to the boat, once you leave the plane....well you are pretty much totally committed at that point.

 

[Damselfish]

I'm not sure asking this on a dive board makes sense, any more than asking it on a skydiving board. You need to ask someplace where depth and height are irrelevant. Divers are not the right population to look for people afraid of depth. Obviously there are some people who dive or want to learn and are afraid of depths because you see people asking about it occasionally. But I'd say most people who are afraid of depths just don't dive.

 

[ClayJar]

I have... how should I put it... a "healthy respect" for heights. The glass elevator at the Westin in Atlanta would not be an ideal place to do a blood pressure screening. :biggrin: The fact that I intentionally subject myself to heights rules out it being a phobia, of course.

Being at depth doesn't phase me in the least. The viz isn't usually enough to tell what depth I'm diving, anyway. Of course, going over a sheer cliff (or even an undercut cliff) underwater, where the bottom is far enough away that it is effectively bottomless... that creates a momentary spike in buoyancy. My conscious mind takes but a moment to slap the subconscious down and say, "Hello, McFly! You're neutrally buoyant!"

Of course, I've read too much Calvin and Hobbes, so I'm deathly afraid of *baths*.

 

[Doc]

:doctor: ahhh, no.

 

[drbill]

And here I thought Bathophobia was a fear of baths. I take showers. Wouldn't a fear of depths be bathyphobia?

 

[ClayJar]

And here I thought Bathophobia was a fear of baths. I take showers. Wouldn't a fear of depths be bathyphobia?

Actually, it's a fear of bathtub rings (or "O"s, as they're also called), but showers work against those, too.

According to one resource I checked:

"Bathophobia" is derived from the Greek "bathos" (depth) and "phobos" (fear).

Hmm... bathy- and batho-

From Greek bathus, deep, and from Greek bathos, depth (from bathus).

So, would bathyhydrophobia be "fear of deep water"?

 

[SteveAD]

Not afraid of heights

Not afraid of falling

Very afraid of hitting the ground at high speed

 

[timle]

If I could fly I wouldn't be afraid of heights.

In the water I can fly - therefore not afraid of depth.

 

[SelkieDVM]

Not afraid of heights

Not afraid of falling

Very afraid of hitting the ground at high speed

Yeah, sudden deceleration syndrome's a b###h!

I guess we should equate a fear of hitting the surface at high speed (ICBM or corking syndrome), or slightly worse, not at all.

 

[Kayla]

Afraid of heights? You better believe it. I get up high enough and I just freeze.. cant move, cant hardly breathe, its not pretty.

Depths.. Not at all. Never had a fear of being in the water at any depth, though I might now that I think about them being related... THANKS a lot.