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Fear of elevators?


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I've lived in buildings of all sizes, usually on higher floors, and never thought much about it. So today I was very surprised to meet a woman who has an acute fear of elevators!

She lives on the third floor of a building, and is on the elderly side, so she has to take the elevator to and from home. But she dreads it. So much so that she plans her life so that she only has to use the elevator twice a day -- once when leaving in the morning, and again when returning in the evening.

I don't know her employment status -- she's old enough that she could easily be retired, and therefore able to stay in for days at a time. But she did tell me this -- She spends hundreds of dollars a month on parking tickets because she won't park in her assigned space deep in her building's underground garage. She parks on the top floor so that it cuts down on the time she spends in the elevator. That's actually how all this came up -- I saw the parking ticket in her hand and asked her about it.

I know there are lots of people with lots of phobias, but I'd never heard of a fear of elevators before. I wonder if it's somehow related to claustrophobia.

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Wow - I wonder what her situation is to be living on a third floor in the first place. If it were really extreme (assuming she is financially independent and/or has a say where she lives) I'd think she would plan her life around making sure she lived on a ground floor..

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To bring up an old-fashioned term: is she merely claustrophobic?

I've always found escalators terrifying.

There's a step...and then - there isn't!

That's "Escalaphobia", by the way.

Fear of elevators is related to Climacophobia, the fear of enclosed places from what I can see.

I had a relative that had the same phobia and we found it a bit entertaining when she'd do an about face or peel away from our group to hunt down an elevator.

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Wow - I wonder what her situation is to be living on a third floor in the first place. If it were really extreme (assuming she is financially independent and/or has a say where she lives) I'd think she would plan her life around making sure she lived on a ground floor..

I got the impression that she didn't have a choice about where she lived, like she either lived with a son/daughter because of her age, or if she's still working that she has to live in that place because of her job.

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Elevators have become boring, anyway. Those of us who remember ones in older buildings that still had mechanical controls could thrill to that weightless feeling in the stomach when they'd descend and feeling ones knees slightly buckle when ascending.

Can't say if they actually were faster than modern ones, but they sure felt that way.

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