Читать книгу Phobias: Fighting the Fear - Helen Saul - Страница 8

Phobias strike across the board, irrespective of intelligence, beauty or success. Kim Basinger and Sir Isaac Newton both suffered from agoraphobia. Sir Isaac was housebound for years up to 1684, after a period of severe stress. His mother died, a fire destroyed some important papers, he was exhausted after finishing his Principia and he was arguing with Cambridge University. All must have been distressing, but none restricted him as much as the agoraphobia that followed. Kim Basinger developed agoraphobia after the birth of her daughter. In some ways it is harder to imagine agoraphobia in an actress: academics can succeed with limited socialising, whereas actresses are subject to the most intense public scrutiny. But Basinger’s experience of agoraphobia is typical of many women’s. The hormonal and lifestyle changes surrounding childbirth are profound, and not even the most glamorous women are immune. This is explored further in chapter 8, on gender.

Arsenal striker Dennis Bergkamp has had a golden career. He has been voted FIFA’s third best player and the top European. But he is unlikely to get a game in Greece, Turkey or Eastern Europe. For Bergkamp has a clause written into his contract ensuring that his club cannot insist on his flying. While the rest of the team take short flights to matches in the north of England or Europe, Bergkamp sets off by car, coach or train. He has flown in the past, but the last time was to play for Holland in the 1994 World Cup in the US. Since then, he has refused to fly at all and if he cannot get to a match overland, he cannot play. Bergkamp’s fear is common knowledge in football circles but he will not talk about the reasons behind it. He has said that after he finishes playing football he may address his fear, but that for the time being at least, he is grounded.

Hans Christian Andersen was middle-aged by the time he developed his fear of fire, following the death of his old friend Jette Wulff in a blaze aboard the Atlantic steamer Austria. After that, Andersen always carried a rope with him, so that he could escape through a window in case of fire. He never used the rope, but it can still be seen at the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Denmark. His behaviour was exceptional even at a time when fires were relatively common because contemporary buildings were often wooden. But his fear did not prevent him travelling, it simply added to his luggage. He wrote about fire in at least three stories, ‘The Pixie and the Grocers’, ‘The Tin Soldier’ and ‘The Lovers’, but he never tackled his fear.

He had other, stranger fears. He was afraid of dying, of seeming dead while still alive and of being buried alive. He was also afraid of seeing the dead. These fears were not unusual for the time. The mid nineteenth century was a morbid era and many were fixated with death. At a New Year’s Eve party in 1845, he declared that dead people should mark their presence with tones. But then, both he and his hostess, Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish opera singer, were shocked and frightened when they heard a loud C ring out from an apparently untouched piano. However, he managed to capitalise on his fears. Twelve years later, in To Be Or Not To Be the hero hears a reverberating E and thinks it may be a sign from his dead beloved, Esther. So his fear was not entirely in vain.