It's slightly overcast. We show our slip of paper to the girl at the entrance, and she tells me I can't take my bag on the ride. She says the ride is too fast for anything loose, so make sure not to bring things like sunglasses with us either. We ask her where the lockers are, and she points behind us.
Another group of riders swings above us; screams can be heard.
My brother looks up and is practically shitting himself with fear. We're at Universal Studios Singapore, and above us is the famed Battlestar Galactica Cylon (Blue) ride. This is the ride my friend said is the; 'scariest ride he's ever been on.' And he's been on a lot of rides.
"Don't look at it," I say to my brother, as he stares, petrified by the sight of people swinging by in a suspended loop. More screams.
Sometimes I find it hard to believe he's ten years my elder.
"I can't," he said. "I need to know what I'm getting into-- it relaxes me."
I note skeptically that he doesn't seem relaxed, at all. I shrug. "I don't do that," I say, "it just builds up the ride in my mind... you know, if I stare at it and take in every detail. It makes it seem worse than what it is."
"Oh no, I can't go into the unknown-- it becomes scarier to me," he says.
I shrug. I don't believe him, at all. After all, when we went to Tokyo Disneyland he was the most relaxed while we were in Space Mountain queue-- I think because he couldn't see the ride since it's enclosed and in the dark. He tends to not recall this, however. Instead, I think him staring at it is making him jumpier.
I love rides.
I've always loved rides. Personally I think I could go on anything and do anything, provided it was relatively safe and wouldn't make me throw up-- I have a weak stomach sometimes.
And yet my brother, Jay is always like this; I always have to wheedle him into going on rides with me. The only thing I don't like is doing things alone; I like to share experiences. And yet, sometimes I revel in being alone. What can I say? I'm weird like that. But my entire life, I've never had a friend that liked going on rides with me. Even my ex boyfriend I had to cajole into going on things with me when we went to Castles and Coasters in Arizona. After the log ride, he felt so sick he disappeared into the bathroom for half an hour at one point. But at least he tried.
We find a locker, put our shit away, and make our way over to the ride. We have a fast-track pass, a kind of thing that lets us skip the queue. There's no real queue anyway, but we use it up regardless. The girl marks our slip of paper, and we head past her. As we wind our way through all the barriers to the upper platforms, there is nobody around at all. When we get there, there is no wait. In all, it took less than two minutes to get in. There's one coaster just about to leave, but the lady tells us we'll be on the next one. We wait a couple of minutes, and idly watch people harness themselves into the seats. The attendants make sure everyone is buckled up, and give the all clear.
Suddenly, solid ground disappears as the floor abruptly drops away from beneath them. In a second, they're off, and even though we're not on that run, it's still an epic 'hoshit' moment for me as the floor falls away. Excitement and panic wells up in me. We're next.
And suddenly, my brother says; "I can't do this."
I look to my right; he's trembling.
"What?" I say incredulously.
"D, I can't go on the ride." His voice is shaking.
"But we're right here," I say. I'm starting to frown. Is he seriously going to bail on me? Seriously?
He looks beyond panicked at me. "I'm getting heart palpitations," he says. He's pale looking and clammy. "My head is spinning, I'm getting vertigo." I've never seen him this shaken before. It's slightly disconcerting to see my older brother this scared.
"Okay," I say.
"What?" He says.
"Okay," I say "you don't have to go on the ride."
He turns to go. "Are you coming?" he asks me.
"No."
"You're going on it anyway?"
I'm pissed off at this point. "Well, yeah. I'm going on this ride with or without you," I say. "Fuck that shit. I didn't come all the way to Universal Studios Singapore and pay for a fastrack pass to not freaking use it."
"I can't go on it-- I just can't." He looks at me pleadingly.
"That's fine," I shrug. "Don't worry about it. I'll go by myself."
He looks apologetic and torn.
"Don't worry," I say. "I'll be fine."
I can't really believe he's going to abandon me-- his little sister-- to this ride. But he does.
And I'm alone.
I try not to feel like a loser, waiting by myself in the queue. There is only about six people waiting to go on, in a capacity of at least thirty, I think. Universal Studios Singapore is never that busy, somehow. I want to sit by myself in the back row, but instead decide to sit across this family of four so I don't feel as losery. I find solace in the fact there's a twelve year old girl with the family, which makes me mock my brother in my mind, even more. I pull the hand grip over my body. The attendant tests my seat belt.
The floor drops away-- it practically disappears into itself. Even the way it folds in is cool. And where solid ground was a second ago, suddenly, there's nothing. You're suspended, floating in mid air, your feet dangling. It's pretty awesome.
"Good hunting, brothers and sisters," the attendant says cheesily in a thickly accented voice. And suddenly we're slowly going up the first big incline.
The BG Cylon ride has a zero-g roll, a vertical loop, one extreme drop, and two corkscrews. It's 40 stories high. It's only 90 seconds long, but it goes about 56mph in that time.
It's much faster than it appears that video, in all actuality. The g-force is pretty high. When I was on it, I jarred my neck because of the g-forces, and because I didn't rest my head on the headrest.
And I fucking had to ride it by myself.
As I got off, I was all wobbly. I teetered over to the lockers, where my brother was waiting, looking sheepishly at me.
"I'm sorry." He says.
"It's okay," I say.
"Was it scary?"
I shrug, "Not really." I pause. "It wasn't that bad, actually."
"Oh, okay." He says.
He felt bad, so he promised he'd go on it the next day (we were going to go on it again the same day, but it began to rain). When we finally rode it together, my brother gets off and just looks at me like I'm insane. "You said it 'wasn't that scary!'"
"Oh, yeah. That was worse than I remembered it." I said.
My mother says I have an almost unnatural stoicism sometimes; and I know what she means. "You don't give me any satisfaction," she said to me, once. Because I don't get excited enough when things happen. Like if we won lotto, I'm not the group hug jump and and down type. Doesn't mean I'm not thrilled-- I am; I just don't show it all that much. Even though I feel extremely deeply, I sometimes appear superficially unemotional unless I'm around someone I can be myself around. For example, I find it incredibly unnatural to scream. You know like horror movie screams women do? They don't come naturally to me, at all. I don't scream on rides. I don't scream at all. So I just kind of sit there, taking them as they come. My brother once said to me-- while we went around theme parks-- that if I could have a monocle, and do a drinking tea pose and a 'mm, quite,' as I went on the rides, it would complete my stoic impression. It cracked me up, because that's exactly how I come across. Like I don't give a shit.
It's not that I don't get scared-- I do. That's why I like rides. It's just that I don't show it all that much, and I don't find it difficult to do scary things like go on rides. They don't faze me, at all.
And so, we were talking about this the other day. "You're really strange," my brother was telling me.
I said I knew, but in what way in particular. He said it was because I had no phobias at all, and yet, I somehow could become really anxious occasionally.
It's true.
Nothing scares me.
And yet; everything scares me.
What can I say? I'm weird.
When I was six, they bought a boa constrictor to school. When everyone shied away, especially other girls-- I didn't give two shits. There's a pic of me with it, six years old, draped around my neck-- I'm smiling. My friends on either side of me look like they're in the queue for the dentist.
Nothing 'conventional' really scares me, and yet, I'm can be shy and insecure. This is my biggest problem; and it's the biggest thing holding me back.
I've always been shy, and deep down inside--even though I'm a relatively capable woman-- I feel like a lost little girl most of the time. Like I'm not good enough. Sometimes this comes across in simple things: I'll get anxious doing something basic like parking the car, and sometimes the actual feel of facing that is hard to shake. Usually this stems from a bad experience doing the thing in question, or feeling inadequate growing up. If you guessed that when learning to drive ten years ago I actually scraped the fuck out of the car while parking it once, then you'd be right. When I get anxious, I can't think. I don't have a mind for rote memorization, maybe partly because I'm right brain dominant. So I'm bad at regurgitating facts quickly, or quick addition and subtraction. I can't function when I'm put on the spot; anxiousness gives me a mind blank, even if I know the answer.
My phobias tend to stem from insecurity, and I can be incredibly insecure. Like occasions where I need to take responsibility and lead. I don't like to take control, at all. I find it really difficult to take responsibility. I can lead (and I'm good at leading, I think) and occasionally I can be bossy-- but I don't like it, I'll only do it if no one else is leading. But mostly it's negative prolonged experiences I avoid. For example, I don't like going to the store in peak hours because it's a prolonged negative experience to be exposed to people pushing you around and scrabbling for sales and whatnot. I don't see the point of putting myself into a situation I inherently dislike on the whole. Especially if nothing beneficial comes out of it. But this doesn't mean I dread going there or get anxious. If I have to do it, I can do it. Do I want to do it? No, not really.
But essentially, regular phobias don't really scare me-- at all. And apparently the top ten phobias are: Snakes, sharks, heights, dogs, thunder, flying, germs, enclosed spaces, social situations and spiders.
I really don't care about most of those. Not that I wouldn't shit myself if I went swimming and there was suddenly a shark next to me going "heyyyy babyyyy... you gunna stay for dinner?" And chomping on my shapely hips. But the idea of sharks don't frighten me, and if it was a controlled situation, I could absolutely swim with one. I'd be more scared of how I looked in my wetsuit, than of the shark. And it's not like I don't get scared if a dog is being aggressive, but I don't get scared by dogs in general; regardless of breed. So I mean, it depends on the situation.
I was way more scared going on a date last weekend than I would be experiencing any of those things. In fact I could safely say I'd be less scared skydiving than I would exposing my vulnerability to a new partner. Being vulnerable scares me-- being intimate with someone new who might be judging me fills me with dread even now. I found it tough to say 'yes' to the guy that asked me out, and even though I went-- and even though I had been told he liked me beforehand and he indicated he liked me during -- I was mostly petrified the entire time. I found it hard to relax.
For me, social situations can be iffy, because they can fall under 'prolonged negative experiences', (depending on the situation) and I want to avoid them depending on what they are. I'm an introvert; not to bad an introvert but an introvert nonetheless. While I can socialize quite effectively and people tend to like me on the whole; (old ladies think I'm the shit most of the time) in nightclub situations I find myself with a 'fish out of water' sensation-- it doesn't come naturally to me to be there. But those kind of situations don't scare me.
On the whole, I am pretty adventurous for a non-adventurous person.
If you've been reading this at all, you should have already cottoned on that I'm really weird.
... I will admit I have a revulsion towards spiders and cockroaches and wasps and insects in general. But I like bees. They're cute and give me honey. Well not Africanized Bees. Not being racist; Africanized Bees are fucking scary. And that gigantic desert spider makes me cringe. But my inscet phobia is not so bad; I always wanted to have a tarantula crawl on me, sometime. Since I watched Home Alone, I think. So I wouldn't call it a phobia.
I found a spider on my ceiling one night, before going out. It was a big black thing with wispy gangly legs. It looked disgusting, and the thought of leaving it in my bedroom didn't sit well with me-- but I was running late and I didn't have time to either save it and put it outside (I get all sappy and do that sometimes) or Baygon its ass to kingdom come (for when I feel less sappy). So I left it, and when I came back a few hours later, it was gone.
Now my door was closed, so I don't think it just got up and decided to leave my room of it's own volition. I mean, it was there somewhere-- I just couldn't see it. And while I will admit the thought of sleeping in my room with a spider in a random corner that I couldn't see kinda worried me a little, in the end, I didn't really care. It certainly didn't hinder my ability to fall asleep that night.
My mom would have been totally and utterly freaked out-- she would have taken the room apart or slept somewhere else until she was sure it was good and dead.
I probably ate it in my sleep; who knows. It was gone the next day, I never fucking saw it again.
Lizards, mice, rats, molluscs and the like don't scare me, either. I actually have this weird penchant for cephalopods. I think they're cute. Especially cuttlefish. And it's been a dream of mine to have a pet rat; I adore them. And when I was little, a bobtail lizard wandered into our garden. I asked my Dad if we could keep it. He said no.
Heights, flying and thunder are all things I love. I have this thing for taking off in a plane; I get really excited, like I'm twelve. The moment of power when you're on the runway and the engines kick in full tilt and you accelerate down the runway-- that's always been my favourite part of flying. The moment you have the most risk of dying I guess, where the guy with the phobia is gripping the armrest, is the part I love. Even now, I still love planes. I like vehicles of all kinds, really. The bigger the better. I'm really partial to the jumbo jet, even though it's obsolete now. It was my favourite passenger plane.
So what's my secret? Why am I not scared of any of the top ten phobias? I'm not entirely sure. I've been thinking about it the past few days. I came to a kind of half-assed conclusion.
Not caring.
Not caring is the secret to not being scared, I guess, and it applies to pretty much everything. If you take something you hate, and you think, "well what's the worst that could happen?" and the result is "death" well, that's scary. But you can die just going out in a car tomorrow, and yet people do it without thinking. And that's basically the secret. Not thinking too much about it. My brother psyched himself out of the Cylon ride because he thought too much about it; made it bigger in his mind than it was. I didn't. So as a consequence, I go zen-like when doing scary things. My brother says I get a poker face.
So. Don't think about it; just do it.
That's the secret to not being scared. If you want to do it-- especially if your phobia is holding you back and it's something you want to overcome-- then don't think about it. If you do think about it, you need to visualize yourself doing it with ease and calmness.
This is how I know I could probably handle a tarantula, even though I don't like spiders very much.
Basically, the more humans are exposed to things, the more we like them. It's the same reason why psychologically we start to like songs that get stuck in our head, even though we initially disliked them. And it's the same thing with people; generally speaking you tend to like your neighbors more than you like the people all the way down the street from you.
So if you put yourself in the situation enough times, you'll probably start to not hate it as much.
And a big part of overcoming phobias is risk vs reward. Obviously going on a ride is much safer than going train surfing. I'd do the former, but not the latter. So you need to ask yourself is the reward (fun) worth the risk, and how high is that risk? Is the risk heightened because of other factors (for example, are you in a country with a poor safety record for rides?) Or is the fear irrational? Is there no real risk, or is the risk beyond miniscule? And is it interfering with your life? Do you wish you didn't have the fear? Then you need to get past it. There's a good chance I won't die going up in a plane, or on a ride, or bungee jumping. There's a better chance I won't die, than I will die. Is the risk of dying greater than the fun you'd have doing said activity? Well, it's different for everyone. Everyone's idea of 'fun' is different. For me, the pros need to outweigh the cons. Personally, I like theme park rides-- even lame kiddy ones and super intense scary ones. It's fun for me. If you force yourself to do something and it isn't fun for you, then I can understand not really feeling the need to want to do it. For example, I already know that I'd derive no enjoyment from hiking or climbing a mountain. I've done it before (well it was more like a hill, here in Australia). Regardless, I don't get a thrill out of it. I don't begrudge people that do love it -- more power to them-- but our point of views differ significantly on what 'fun' is.
I mean, I like camping and things like that, I just don't like certain things associated with survival. Being cold, being hungry, being in pain, being tired, being not-relaxed... negative prolonged experiences. Some people love shit like that. That's fine, they can do whatever they derive enjoyment from. But to me, there's no point forcing myself to like something that I really derive no enjoyment from. But I'm not scared of it, either. I just have a strong aversion to putting myself through something gruelling. Boot camp is not my thing.
So you need to figure out if it's something that's holding you back or not, and what to do to overcome it. Does it bug you that you can't ride roller-coasters? Does it bother you being scared? Decide if it's something you want to fix or not, and then visualize yourself deriving enjoyment from the activity. In the same vein, if you dwell on it, don't dwell on it negatively. Don't sit there and take in the entire track in awe, like my brother did, thinking -- 'it's so huge, it's so fast' -- you'll just psyche yourself out.
Secondly, in overcoming fears-- not fearing death is important. I don't want to die; but I'm not scared of dying. Again, it's prolonged pain I'd prefer not to experience. That's kind of why insecurity is a big thing for me. Prolonged anxiousness just feels bad in general. So even though the worst thing that can happen when parking is much more preferable to dying, it fills me with more fear than doing something where my life is at risk. I'm very much a 'rip the band-aid off' kinda gal. I like to get things over and done with; this is why I like rides and skydiving but would hate to give a two-hour lecture, even though doing the lecture is much safer.
Accept what the worst thing that could happen is, be okay with that, then let go. When I fly, I accept the worst-case scenario before I go. If I die, I die. Oh well. To make peace with life, you gotta make peace with death.
Bah, so zen-like. I'm such a ponce.
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