Our fears and how they effect us..

I was just thinking about this due to a dream I had. Normally I do not have irrational fears, but there are two things I am terrified of that can literally cause me to go into panic attacks if I do not get out of the situation.

Fear 1 is stairs with no backs. Since many people have no clue what I'm talking about, look to your left to see the sort of stairs I'm talking about. Those absolutely terrify me. Many places in our world have these sorts of stairs, and that inhibits me from going to said places. My sister used to live in an apartment with these type of stairs (but they were metal, which scares me more than wood ones) and I couldn't even walk up them to give her some groceries. I panic, and go completely stiff when I'm being asked to walk onto these sorts of stairs. I honestly panic and break down and if I was forced to go too far up a set of these stairs I may actually start to cry. I have no clue why I'm afraid of these stairs, all I know is that I am and the panic that I experience from walking down or up these sorts of things cause me to not want to get anywhere near them.

Fear 2 would be thunderstorms. Or rather, tornadoes. I am freaked out anytime a storm happens because all I can think is "what if there's a tornado? will there be a tornado? will I die?" My body reacts in a violent way and for much of the storm I am in the bathroom losing anything I've eaten. This is why I generally do not eat before a storm and rather wait until after. When I was a little kid I absolutely LOVED storms, I would sit on the porch and watch. But one day that all changed, and that was the day when a freakish turn of events caused around 10 funnel clouds to hover over my town. I watched them from the porch and then one started to come down and my family panicked, and we all ran for the closets (because our basement flooded every storm). My cat ran out of the closet and outside and I started sobbing because I was so afraid he would die. Luckily, the tornado didn't touch down in our town and we were safe, but ever sine when we get a tornado warning I have anxiety attacks and begin to cry.

And now the entire reason for this post...

I had a dream where I was at my grandma's house. We went into a part of the house that isn't actually in my gram's house and my sister was trying to get me to go outside. Well, the stairs had no backs and of course, being afraid of them, I freaked out and told her I would not go down them. So I turned and started back the way we came, but then everything changed and the only way to get out of the place we were at would be to go down these stairs with no backs. As I was freaking out trying to find an exit a storm blew up and the entire house started to rock. Just as I looked outside and saw the start of a tornado, my mom woke me up. I was stressed, confused, and breathing hard and it took me a few minutes to realize it was all a dream.

In a way, it's pathetic what I'm afraid of, but for some reason unknown to me it effects me and causes issues with my life. I used to be fine with these things, but now I am not.

While I'm at it, I figure I should mention a few other things I'm scared of:
Elevators (terrify me, I can not get on one. Or an escalator for that matter)
Heights (I live on the 2nd story and am getting over this fear, but you would never catch me near the edge of a cliff)