#tall buildings

If I could fall into the sky: My experience of Casadastraphobia

“Casadastraphobia is the fear of falling into the sky. It is a relatively recently identified fear, having first appeared on urbandictionary.com” - Phobia Wiki.

I’m relieved to have learned the name for this particular phobia, because recently I had an episode which convinced me I have it.

Before I go into that, I must explain that my fear of falling into the sky seems to be linked with being around extremely tall buildings; I believe this has been made worse by dreams where I’ve looked up at a skyscraper and I just lose all sense of balance and start getting sucked up into the atmosphere.

The other day this fear leaked into reality when I stood right underneath a 25-storey high rise in Manchester and made the mistake of looking up at it. My knees went completely weak and my heart began to race, sweat collecting on the palms of my hands. I was queueing at the time and I grabbed the nearest metal barrier in an attempt to steady myself. I really did feel like gravity was going to switch off and I was going to plunge into the vast blackness of the night - maybe holding on to a heavy object would keep me grounded. Although I knew the whole thing was ridiculous, I also felt an immediate urge to stand under the canopy at the building’s entrance or somewhere with a ceiling so that I literally couldn’t fall into the universe.

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If I could fall into the sky: My experience of Casadastraphobia