Electric nightmares
May. 25th, 2015 11:45![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI have determined that I am unable to do anything substantial related to electricity because I am absolutely terrified of it on a fundamental level. (That includes the field of electronics.)
I understand why I have a borderline phobia: my dad, hoping to keep us kids from electrocuting ourselves on his giant ham-radio rig, staged a demonstration where he shorted out its main capacitor. It made a tremendous ZAP as it arced. I was three or four at the time, and ran screaming from the room. My threadbare memory is only of the spark itself; I've collected the context from my parents.
As a result, while my brother has happily spent the intervening years working on circuitboards and hobby electronics projects, I have never been able to grasp the essentials. This is despite no end of trying, including a full semester of a basic electronics course at the local community college. The formulas and concepts just slip out of my brain at the first opportunity, and I'm never able to follow the logic of how any of it works. And when I try, if I hit any sort of roadblock I completely melt down. Like two-year-old I-need-a-nap-yesterday meltdown. It is one of two subjects which can reduce me to frustrated tears, and the only one that can accomplish it in less than a minute. (The other is pipe-fitting, and that only after repeated exclamations of "....REALLY?" and "well, fuck.")
It wasn't until today that I tried to really track down why it upsets me more than almost anything I've ever dealt with. It doesn't make sense... until you factor in that I'm dealing with an invisible force which will kill you instantly. Or at least so I've been taught my whole life. I've been zapped myself a handful of times, and it was no big deal, but the possibility of getting zapped again still looms in my mind as something to be avoided at all costs. Even the tiny currents in circuitry are still electrical in nature, and I can't think straight about it. Part of me just wants to get that crap as far away from me as possible.
I understand my dad was just trying to keep us safe, but it makes me angry that he sabotaged my chances to enter a world that he finds so simple and interesting. It has reduced my options to "hand it to someone else" or "throw money at it" when I want something that involves electronics. That galls my self-sufficient nature. But I'm really not sure how or if I can overcome something this deep-rooted.
Sam doesn't see what the big deal is... but Sam isn't strong enough to hold the floor when this comes up. Maybe eventually.
I understand why I have a borderline phobia: my dad, hoping to keep us kids from electrocuting ourselves on his giant ham-radio rig, staged a demonstration where he shorted out its main capacitor. It made a tremendous ZAP as it arced. I was three or four at the time, and ran screaming from the room. My threadbare memory is only of the spark itself; I've collected the context from my parents.
As a result, while my brother has happily spent the intervening years working on circuitboards and hobby electronics projects, I have never been able to grasp the essentials. This is despite no end of trying, including a full semester of a basic electronics course at the local community college. The formulas and concepts just slip out of my brain at the first opportunity, and I'm never able to follow the logic of how any of it works. And when I try, if I hit any sort of roadblock I completely melt down. Like two-year-old I-need-a-nap-yesterday meltdown. It is one of two subjects which can reduce me to frustrated tears, and the only one that can accomplish it in less than a minute. (The other is pipe-fitting, and that only after repeated exclamations of "....REALLY?" and "well, fuck.")
It wasn't until today that I tried to really track down why it upsets me more than almost anything I've ever dealt with. It doesn't make sense... until you factor in that I'm dealing with an invisible force which will kill you instantly. Or at least so I've been taught my whole life. I've been zapped myself a handful of times, and it was no big deal, but the possibility of getting zapped again still looms in my mind as something to be avoided at all costs. Even the tiny currents in circuitry are still electrical in nature, and I can't think straight about it. Part of me just wants to get that crap as far away from me as possible.
I understand my dad was just trying to keep us safe, but it makes me angry that he sabotaged my chances to enter a world that he finds so simple and interesting. It has reduced my options to "hand it to someone else" or "throw money at it" when I want something that involves electronics. That galls my self-sufficient nature. But I'm really not sure how or if I can overcome something this deep-rooted.
Sam doesn't see what the big deal is... but Sam isn't strong enough to hold the floor when this comes up. Maybe eventually.
