Bridges

For most of my life, I have experienced gephyrophobia (although, to be honest, this is the first time I’ve looked up what it is called). Fear of bridges. I remember the first time I felt it. The bridge is question is impressive and deserving of respect. It is the bridge that crosses the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis. My grandmother was driving and — well, she was never a good driver. She tended to press and release the gas repeatedly as if she were keeping the beat with a rock band. At the same time, she constantly adjusted the steering wheel so the car would rock back and forth a little bit. She planted us in the slow lane which meant that we were right above one of those expansion joints and I could see over the edge the whole time. The expansion joint made a weird noise for the entire trip. At the end of the long trip over the bridge, I was in a state of quiet terror!

Since then, on and off through my life, I have had a very difficult time driving over bridges either as a passenger or a driver. For the most part, I can control it — after all, I live in an area with a lot of bridges. There are five bridges over the San Francisco Bay and at various times, I have commuted over at least two of them. But it’s never been easy. I white-knuckle my way through it, force myself to have tunnel vision and just focus on the car in front of me and keep going. I hate being in traffic on bridges because what if it stops. Feeling that sway that bridges must have . . . no thank you.

And, of course, there is an inherent lack of safety in bridges that makes it hard to argue with the phobia. You are, in fact, quite high above the ground or the water. Should something happen . . . well, that’s going to make it worse. A road that fails is still on the ground . . . not so much with a bridges — as history has shown us.

Having children was the best thing for me to learn to control my phobia. I did not want to pass along this fear as some sort of a genetic imperative but knew that if I showed my fear around them, they would pick up on it and think that bridges were scary, scary things. So, I sucked it up and dealt with it — forced logic to prevail. And, it worked. The kids don’t even know that I’m afraid on bridges. I even conquered the Annapolis Bay Bridge — driving across it when Ruth was around 11 months without any incident — although I was close to hyperventilating by the time I was done! So, yay for me. Yay for logic. Yay for being mentally strong and not letting primeval fears control one.

And yet, when a bridge does collapse, a part of my mind thinks, “I knew it! I knew bridges weren’t safe!” Justification for my fear. Confirmation that a bridge is not a safe place to hang out. Bad things happen and I know they can happen anywhere at anytime and they just aren’t likely to but still I’m not afraid of anywhere and anytime, I’m afraid of bridges and what can happen to them.

My heart goes out to the victims of this nightmare. I hope the missing are found safely. I hope they find answers as to why this bridge collapsed so catastrophically. I hope the answers help to make other bridges safer in the future. And, I hope I can forget these images as I drive over bridges in the future.