Phobias

This was not what I was going to post about at all.  I was going to (and am still going to at some point) post about Sophia's final swim lesson because she did so good and I got a lot of good pictures.  Anyway, that is a much happier topic.  But I was just watching Grey's Anatomy repeats (I put that on the TV every afternoon so I can get some things done and sort of half watch it...since I've really already seen all the episodes...sometimes I get sucked back in, but often I can get things done while Sophia naps) and they are showing the episodes where Izzy Stephens has brain cancer.  And they keep showing her getting MRI's.  And it really seriously freaks me out. 
Michael and I actually very recently had a conversation about my 'phobias' lately.  Such as how they've increased in number and intensity lately.  And after I thought about it for a while, he was totally right. 
I've been scared to fly since far before he ever met me.  Although I don't think my whole life and I still recognize that there are places you just have to fly to get to (like Hawaii...Jamaica, where we went for our honeymoon...I wouldn't NOT go to these places just because I am scared to fly).  As I get older though, I feel like I get a bit more scared of it.  And I guess other factors over time have gone into making me more scared.  9/11.  I am a parent now.  Things like that I guess. 
I am not scared of heights, so much, but a somewhat new 'phobia' I have is staying at a hotel with a high balcony and getting too close to the edge and either the balcony breaking away or just going over the edge to my death.  Even worse, my nephew or daughter falling over the side or through the rails or pushing against the rails and it breaking away and falling.  I literally almost can't breathe when I see someone walk close to a railing when they are holding a child.  It doesn't have to be my child, but it is SO much worse when it IS my child, or one that I care about.  When I was pregnant with Sophia, I had a dream that my nephew Cooper went over a rail and I just missed catching him....I can still picture it in my head and it is terrifying.  If you are ever holding my daughter near a rail and I irrationally freak out at you and you don't know why....well that is why. 
And my newest....claustrophobia.  An actual phobia that I really have never thought I have had in my life.  Little things in the last couple of years pointed in a vague way to it....on a roller coaster, after it stops and you are kind of just sitting there...I would start to feel very trapped and panicky.  And the more restrained, the more 'get me out of here' I would feel.  And on the few times I would ride on an airplane, I would notice how cramped the seating area was and how very little room there was to move my legs around.  Not that I expected a lot, but that it was super uncomfortable for me to not be able to move my legs around.  Almost in a freak out way, but not quite.  Before all that, if shoes were too constricting, if I couldn't move my toes, I would literally have to take my shoes off or I would feel like I could freak out.  So weird.  And then, when I had to have my c-section, and they upped my epidural and I literally couldn't even feel anything from my chest to my ankles and it felt like a ton of bricks on my body, the first thing I thought didn't really have anything to do with being crushed, it had more to do with being trapped in a small space.  Even though I was in a wide open room.  SO weird.  But the final thing to really make me think I'm totally certifiably claustrophobic was when I had my MRI's.  No getting around it.  No amount of 'relaxation' medication could slow down my racing heart and calm me down.  And, half an hour ago, watching Izzy Stephens, a completely fake person on a made up show, lay down on a moving backboard thing and get a cage put over her head (I didn't watch any further, I knew what was next), my whole body got the chills and my heart started to speed up just knowing that she had to get a fake MRI.  Yup, I'm a crazy, whack-job, claustrophobic weirdo.  :-(
Is this a getting older thing?  If you are scared of something, shouldn't you get less scared of it as you get older, not more scared of it??  Michael said, when we were discussing, that an actual phobia you really don't have that much control over.  So I would assume that I don't really have a 'phobia' of flying, I just hate it and am scared of it.  I can get on a plane, I don't totally freak out and cause a total scene or whatever.  Actually, I'm not scared of the plane so much...I'm scared of it crashing, blowing up, plummeting out of the sky.  Whatever.  Ok, so not a phobia.  And the balcony issue.  Hmm.  I really almost can't physically watch if someone is standing super close to a balcony with a small child.  I may not run over and grab the child (with my own, I very well might) but my heart does rise up into my throat.  I do totally envision the very worst.  Borderline phobia.  I can always try to book a room on a lower floor and make sure those I travel with know how scared I am and keep my kids (and their own) far from the edge. But the claustrophobia thing.  Even watching other people go through tight encounters, fake MRI's, the thought of being caught in a tight space (here are some examples....getting in an accident and caught in my car...being upside down would be even worse.  Being trapped under any kind of wreckage during a tornado or other storm in our safe space....being buried alive...ok, this one is super highly unlikely but it happened once on that show Las Vegas) is enough to make me feel panicky and nervous.  Just the thought. So I guess it might be an actual phobia. 
The thing is, I don't want to pass on any of these fears/phobias, whatever they are to Sophia.  And to me, the only one that I can see that I can control not passing on is the fear of flying, because I think that I can take her on a plane and present it to her as something fun (and then just internally hope and pray that we don't crash).  I don't know how I can stop myself from snatching her from walking out on a balcony and putting her hands on the bars and pressing her face between the two slats and looking through (I am sweating just typing this).  Or if I got stuck in some small closed in space, I wouldn't want to freak out in front of Sophia, but I honestly don't know if I could even control it.  And, given that I hate to not have control of something (haha), that makes me wonder how do people get control of their phobias?  Guess I will have to do some research.  Hopefully, the answer is not putting myself into small spaces on purpose, because then I will never be cured!