Mental health poetry | Mental health awareness
Does the Void Really Call Out to Us?
High Place Phenomenon: A poem & information about a very common intrusive thought
Standing on the edge The brain makes a rapid pledge “I swear I won’t make you fall, you don’t want to die” Why is it then that the body feels like it’s about to fly?
For sure the thought is scary The realization makes the strongest person wary It is so fast the senses can’t really catch it The neurons feel like dancing in a trash pit
The void beneath calls out like a Siren The primal brain pretends to enjoy the view of the horizon Until it comes up with a simple explanation “You must have wanted to jump; I just don’t have all the information”
High Place Phenomenon is the feeling of a sudden urge to jump when standing in a high place, close to an edge (e.g. on a train platform), without necessarily having any suicidal ideation. It is broadly classified as an intrusive thought, which is a type of though that is involuntary and can become quite distressing. It can also manifest as having the intrusive urge to drop your phone or another item when you’re standing somewhere high.
Another name for this phenomenon is “the call of the void”, which is a direct translation of “l’appel du vide”, the French term for it.
It’s still a very under-researched phenomenon even though it’s quite frequent. So far, research results have shown that it is sometimes associated with anxiety and depression. However, it can be experienced by people who have anxiety sensitivity but don’t necessarily have a clinical mental health condition.
Some proposed explanations for it involve a faulty danger assessment. In other words, the brain senses the danger and signals the body to back away and to get on alert. In some individuals this instinctual process can happen too fast (perhaps due to anxiety sensitivity), so the rational part of the brain interprets it as a possibility that the person wished to jump.
The way I think of it is that our primal parts of the brain mess up and then blame the cognition (the most recent, evolution-wise, parts of the human brain) for over-reacting. Kind of like when an older sibling breaks something and puts the blame on the younger one.
Have you ever experienced something like this?
Thanks to RN Manchester for his comment on my previous article (“Stepping Inside the Void”) that reminded me that I had an unfinished draft for this.