I knew it would come to this, but it’s so embarrassing. Here it is: I’m afraid of flying.
And that’s stupid, because flying is really safe. I read it’s more dangerous to put your pants on in the morning, because your foot might go in the crotch bit and you might fall over and hit your head and die. And I really, really hate being stupid and irrational. I’m not afraid of anything else at all. Nothing. Not spiders or dark alleyways or public speaking.
I didn’t used to be afraid of flying. I flew all over the world, I’ve been up and down the Atlantic all the time. Then I went to Africa and went gaga on the malaria tablets. I had hallucinations and panic attacks until I finally, finally realised that I wasn’t normal and went to see a doctor. My fear was that the plane would attempt & botch a landing on water (I’m genuinely so crazy that I’m not afraid of crashing into the water, because I know I would just explode) and then the water rushes in, I float up to the ceiling, take one last breath and drown in the plane. I told the doctor I couldn’t fly home, so he gave me some tablets. I grabbed him by his shirt and screamed at him that if he was giving me anything that would make me sleepy or relax my muscles I would come back and find him. I’m not joking, I said that! That’s how crazy I was
And now I’m still scared. I can fly over the North Sea (I need to do that regularly) and I have no problem flying over land. I’m going to Tunisia soon, I’m scared but OK, it’s not too much water.
But now my theatre company have been asked to take our latest play to New York, by a really, seriously cool person from an amazing company. And I don’t know what to do.
Help! Can I take a boat? Can I stop being scared? Do you know how I wouldn’t be scared? If I could take a cyanide pill that I could take if we started to crash.
Sorry for the crazy rant. Any advice would be appreciated
ETA: I also really, really want to go back to Brazil. I miss it so much. But I just couldn’t do it. I need to get over this.
I’m with you gracer. I had a couple of scares in the past and now I imagine every dumb scenario in the world before I fly, including but not limited to yours. And like you I’m not so worried about instant annihilation, but the knowledge of imminent death.
However I still do it because I love to travel. Strangely once I’m airborne it’s not so bad.
I just flew across the South China Sea to Indonesia. And I’m glad I did. How did I manage to get on the plane? I drank a lot of beer beforehand. I even worked the beer drinking into my preflight schedule. Not enough to be drunk, but enough that I didn’t give a shit. Not the best solution but it worked for me.
Maybe think about it - because it sounds like you shouldn’t miss this opportunity.
I too am afraid to fly. I hate it. I was gifted a cruise once that required me to fly so I asked my doctor for some help. He gave me Ativan. It worked really well. I had no fear, enjoyed the flight even. But it can be habituating, so you need to be careful with it. Or so I understand.
If you have some time before your flight, would you be able to try exposure therapy? (I’m pretty sure that’s the term.) It’s a good therapy for phobias, involves gradual exposure to what makes you and ever-increasing “intensity” of the experience, along with techniques for getting past the anxiety.
I never used to be scared of flying, but now I am, a little. Oddly, though, it’s the prospect of flying in a few days or weeks time that makes me nervous. When I’m in the airport and about to get on the plane, I’m fine. When I’m on the plane, I’m generally fine, although I do sometimes visualise the six miles of nothing underneath my flimsy little seat in the sky, or imagine the fuselage suddenly peeling open and pitching me into the void. (I’m not helping, am I?
But then I think of all the thousands of people I saw at the airport, and all the thousands of airports around the world, and all the planes I see overhead every day, all flying around the world without incident, and I feel ok. A really good book (or music, or video game) to pass the time helps a lot too.
Thanks guys, (and jjimm, you flew to Indonesia, WOW!)!
Maybe I should ask about Atvian, that sounds good, thanks not what you’d expect. It didn’t relax your muscles or anything? ('Cos, y’know…I’ll come back for you and all that ;))
I live in the UK actually, so I guess I could try the exposure therapy with Virgin. Only, like I said, I actually fly all the time. Usually up and down the North Sea about once a month. I’m scared but I can manage it because it’s only about 20 mins actually over the sea. Also, I would think it’s all about telling you the realistic stuff? My papa was an aeronautical & aerospace engineer and physicist, and when we used to fly he would take me to the cockpit and tell me everything about flying. So I’m not really sure what the exposure could contribute… I’m exposed to flying all the time and I’ve been exposed to lots of information about flying. Has anyone done this? What do they do?
ETA** Colophon**, I try to think about all those people who fly too. It helps a little. Like all the stuff about how planes work that my papa told me, including that if the plane goes down there will just be a few minutes of horrible fear, but then a big bang and nothing. The problem with fear though, is that it’s so irrational. I’m not scared of going down, I’m scared of my own perfectly constructed scenario in which I drown in the plane. Stupid brain.
NOT helping! seriously, I don’t pray to God for my survival but I do pray for blessings on all the airport workers that assist in my safe arrival. I try to relax, meditate and sleep or read.
Flying to Paris next year, I am so tempted to try and research flights that never reached their destination of Paris. why would I do that to myself? :dubious:
You can talk to a therapist if you really want to overcome this. I’m not sure why you haven’t already done so, given that you have to fly so regularly. Seek out one who specializes in CBT, because the spiral of negative thoughts is not going to stop without professional help. They will teach you techniques to stop negative thoughts before they spiral out of control and freak you out.
I too have a fear of flying, but I have finally learned to just get over it and admit it is totally irrational and thousands and thousands of planes fly every day all around the world without incident.
I have had a couple of horror flights, so that didn’t help - but my rational mind realizes I really do have more to fear driving to the airport and getting in a car wreck than I do flying anywhere in the world.
That probably doesn’t help - but having been in your position, all I can tell you is to let the rational mind win over the irrational and just relax. Take along a movie on your computer or a good book that is a real page-turner. I do like jjimm’s beer therapy and have done that quite often, but that is not always great for when you arrive hungover (unless it is a long flight and you can sleep it off).
chela I know what you mean… I can’t help reading the threads on this board about the AirFrance crash. Must…not…click…ugh…
I think I probably do need to talk to a therapist.
It helps somewhat if I just try to be rational and also focus on not allowing negative thoughts. But the hallucination that I got on the malaria tablets never really went away… they’ll just pop into my mind mid-flight. I grip the armrests and force my mind away from the bad stuff, try to chat to the flight attendants etc.
That sort of works for the North Sea. But the thought of the Atlantic Ocean… :eek:
Thanks for all the ideas everyone!! Anyone who has done one of those Virgin courses, I would love to hear more! I read up a little, and for a large part it’s talking you through it (like I said, I know that stuff; and I’m not scared of turbulence or take-off and landing at all) and then you just fly around. I’m not sure that would help me…
Sounds like: happy pills (though they did not work one iota when I flew back from Africa, I spent about 7 hours a quivering, sweating, heaving wreck) and therapy, or a boat. I’m really liking the boat… (stupid, stupid brain)
If they created some kind of routine for long flights where you take a sleeping pill, get shoved unconscious into a cubicle for the flight, then get rolled into a recovery area until you wake up and can boogey off on your own, I think there would be a great demand for that.
I’m not particularly afraid of crashing, but us claustrophobes don’t do well on airplanes, either. It’s not that I WANT to get out, it’s that I CAN’T get out.
Last time we were flying back from Florida we hit some bad turbulence. The plane hit one bad air pocket and we dropped a considerable amount and the plane went silent with a collective thought of “holy shit!”
The silence was broken by the one person who didn’t share in this thought. My 4 year-old son gleefully uttering “Wheeee!”
If you can fly over land, you can fly over water; ETOPS ratings on planes are such that the plane will pretty much always be able to reach a runway if it needs to, and full-out loss-of-control crashes are very rare and the outcomes tend to be rather similar regardless of whether impact is with land or water. Certainly the size of the body of water isn’t an issue whatsoever and the plane doesn’t care what type of surface it’s flying over.
I’m the opposite - not only am I not afraid of flying, but I WANT to fly as often as possible and I’m fascinated by aircraft accidents. I read crash reports, injury reports and survivability statistics for fun and I want to work in the air safety industry. It’s fascinating stuff.
haha, that’s so adorable. Reminds me of landing in Chicago the last time I flew, though. It was the only time I’ve ever experienced turbulence (there were severe tstorms on the ground), and I was thinking, “We’re gonna die, we’re all gonna die, oh god I’m gonna die,” the whole time. No four year olds to break the tension on my flight!
It passed though, and I’ve researched turbulence and ours wasn’t even very severe. I’d still fly again np.
I feel you, my friend. I really do. I spent nearly 30 years terrified of flying. Never took a holiday to a long haul destination, spent exorbitant sums on boat trips whenever possible, and, on those rare occasions when I couldn’t possibly get out of it, got absolutely blind stinking drunk. Nowadays, however, I actually rather enjoy it. I still get collywobbles on take-off, but after five minutes, I’m pretty well fine.
What did I do? I saw a hypnotherapist. One session. That was all it took. Now, I can’t promise that you will have the same sort of luck. For one thing, my hypnotherapist happened to be a good friend of mine, so there were no trust issues to overcome. You may find you need more than one session. When it comes to breaking destructive thought patterns, however, hypnotherapy is pretty well unbeatable. I’m confident that, if you see a hypnotherapist you feel comfortable with, you’ll be able to enjoy flying as well.
I used to be a very bad passenger, got the shakes and the trembles and the sweats. Then I took a 17 hour flight, non-stop from San Francisco to Hong Kong. I’ve never been (very) nervous since then.
Man, I hope you had an aisle seat. I’m tempted to try this approach, but I’ve got enough issues about peeing on an airplane. (On my last trip cross country, we encountered some bumpy air just as I entered the loo and they flashed the fasten-the-seatbelt lights. Meanwhile I’m trying to achieve the necessary state of zen calm required to pee while being shaken like a Bond martini.)
Hahaha, this used to be me! Until the stupid crazy pills. But I used to help other people relax if they were scared by pretending it was a roller coaster. I made one very good friend that way, who was terrified during the flight because the only time he had flown before he was fleeing Afganistan. We’re still friends, and he still tells people how I would just say “wheee” when there was turbulence! I’m still not the slightest bit afraid of turbulence though…
I would definitely go for an option of going completely under, Cat Whisperer, but it would have to be so that I wouldn’t wake up if I was drowning.
mnemosyne, that does make me feel better. But still, the problem with crazy is that it’s too irrational for that kind of stuff. Like I said, I know if we actually crashed into the water it would be the same as land. My fear is very specific: it’s a botched landing on water.
Stelios, can you explain more about the hypnotherapy? What does it change?
seriously, I don’t pray to God for my survival but I do pray for blessings on all the airport workers that assist in my safe arrival. I try to relax, meditate and sleep or read.