I Dread Small Spaces (Amanda and The Worm)

My daughter Amanda is a fire-fighter and is still going course after course, practical after practical. On my Wall today there is a video of a thing they call "The Worm", a very narrow pipe like thing where it gets even narrower and you have lie straight and inch forward with your toes and push your hat and gear ahead of you with your arms stretched out. Plus on top of all this, you are wearing an oxygen mask which is enough all by itself to cause a panic attack.They tie ropes to your legs to pull you out just in case

I don't think so.... I am extremely claustrophobic and I don't trust anybody to get me out when I freak. Therefore I avoid small narrow places like the plague. I cringe when I see people creeping through caves and crawling through tight places on NatGeo.

God bless all coal miners and their families especially when there is a mine accident like the one recently in West Virginia. I've seen the coal miner documentaries on TV. This must be like The Worm with the ghastly knowledge of a whole mountain pressing down on you as you work in cramped, dark places.

I've had Edgar Allen Poe dreams where the walls have closed in sideways on me and also where the floor and the ceiling creep closer and closer to me and I am forced to lie flat out, terrified and unable to move.

Which brings me to the MRI machine. Most people have no problem with them. Once they have the headphones on and can't hear all that awful clanking noises the 1/2 hour goes by and it's over.

I was in one for my left knee and only from the chest down. Just the feeling of being trapped, even 1/2 way, with no way that I could see of freeing myself if I had to gave me panic attacks. I had my right thumb on the push button thingy and my left hand crushing some poor technician's hand in a death grip.Music didn't help.

They tell me there are open MRI machines but in some cases they need to put you in the tube anyway. Somebody told me back in the early days the tube ends were closed OMG.

I think a lot of this boils down to trust and one thing I have found out about myself recently is I want to be in complete control over what happens me and not have to trust anyone else to get me out (MRI example). They could all just get up and leave me there and I would be trapped forever.

Sometimes they sedate a person if they are afraid. This is supposed to take away the fear long enough for them to get the job done. Not for me. What happens if I wake up and they have all run away and I can't get myself out??? There's plenty of reason for them to flee. Fire, nuclear bomb, meteor strike, terrorist attack, anything.

So back to Amanda and The Worm. When I asked her this am before she went to work doesn't any of this bother her, the danger, closed in places etc. she just said "Somebody has to do it". She has a point I guess

So long as that Somebody isn't ME