HIGH LIFE A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT : Fear Itself Remains a Powerful Force for Teens

Remember the bogyman?

Or the nasty gremlins or even Freddy Krueger?

These monsters can haunt dreams and cause children to fear the dark. As children grow older, most can overcome such fears, but some cannot.

Lisa Branco, a junior at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, says she has acrophobia, an innate fear of heights. She distrusts her balance and avoids high places.

She remembers peering down from the Empire State Building when she was 6 years old and suddenly becoming dizzy and deathly afraid.

“Even though the building had tall steel bars to keep me in, I felt as if I was going to tip over and fall,” Branco said.

Realizing that she must try to conquer her fear, Branco recently decided to get on the Freefall ride at Magic Mountain, with her friends’ encouragement.

“I have to face my fears sooner or later in life,” she said, “because I don’t want to live with them.”

Branco’s reaction to the thrill ride that drops you from the sky? “I felt scared and excited at the same time,” she said. “My life felt like it was going to drop. I will never ride on it again.”

When fears become irrational, persistent, excessive, unreasonable and so overpowering that they disable a person, they are called phobias.

Phobias vary greatly in variety and severity, from the quite common fears of heights, flying and snakes to the not-so-common fears of money, eating and colors.

Most fears follow a biological timetable. A normal child has very normal fears--strangers, being stared at and falling into space--and usually these fears are overcome with growth. Phobias are the second most common mental health problem in the United States, according to Newsweek, second only to alcoholism.

The National Institute of Mental Health has found that nearly one in nine adults harbors some kind of phobia, and one in 20 adults suffers “from the most serious variety of phobia--agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces.”

In a recent Newsweek survey of more than 10 million Americans, 41% of those interviewed feared speaking before a group, 32% feared heights and 22% feared insects and bugs.

Further, women respondents were more afraid of death, flying or driving in cars than men. Men, on the other hand, were more fearful of financial setbacks.

Because people can usually avoid things that terrify them, phobias rarely disrupt life styles. However, for those with unusual or especially excessive phobias, fears begin to rule and shape their way of life.

In some cases, phobias are caused by a traumatic experience. When a Sunny Hills High faculty member who said she is afraid of flying birds (ornithophobia) sought the services of a hypnotist 15 years ago, she found that the cause of her phobia occurred in her childhood.

The teacher, who asked not to be named, remembers carefully gathering eggs in a barn when she was 3 years old. Once she was forced to struggle with a particularly feisty hen that was protecting her eggs.

“Knowing the cause of the phobia doesn’t cure it, but it helps me understand the reason why I fear birds. I wouldn’t eat in open cafes because of the fear of flying birds. I thought I was the only one with this problem.”

Finally, she found that her daughter-in-law shares the fear.

Sunny Hills junior Stacey White suffers from hemophobia. She is afraid of anything associated with blood, including hospitals, IVs, sick people and horror movies.

Last year, while reading about a little boy with a nosebleed, she fainted.

“I got up to leave and closed my eyes, and everything was black,” she said.

She said this was about the sixth time she had fainted at the thought of blood.

The first time was when she was 6, while taking a blood test and seeing her own blood rush into the syringe.

Besides childhood traumas, phobias can develop out of ignorance.

Many, for example, are afraid of flying because of misleading information, lack of knowledge and a general mistrust of aircraft.

To counter these fears, some airlines operate programs to aid those afraid of flying. They let participants “know why flights are bumpy and why the wings won’t fall off,” says psychologist Neil Johnson, a United Airlines training development manager.

Although a phobia is a mental problem, people can be physiologically affected by their fears. Along with feelings of impending doom, panic and apprehension can come nausea, vomiting, lightheadedness, impotence, hyperventilation, restlessness, sweaty palms and irregular breathing.

Psychologists stress the importance of bringing the phobia into the open and dealing with the problem that has brought it about.

DR, GABRIEL SALDIVAR