Hi-
I just wanted to pop in to introduce myself. I've been lurking in these forums on and off for quite some time so I thought I'd post to say hello.
I've been a fearful flier since 1996. Before that I probably flew 40+ times without a worry. I had to take a business trip to Washington DC and the flight there was fine. While there, a combination of stressful meetings, a lack of sleep, and when I did sleep a nightmare about flying had put me at unease. Flying back to upstate NY we took off out of National Airport. Being south of DC and needing to go north we had a really steep takeoff since we couldn't fly directly over DC. To add to the growing anxiety, thunderclouds were building.
Finally we leveled off and got up to cruising altitude, but I couldn't shake a feeling of dread. I had never experienced it on a commecial jet before. As we headed into the Southern Tier of NY we flew through a cloudbank for what felt like forever. It got a bit choppy which built on my nerves even more. All of a sudden there was a sensation of the plane dropping. I thought... this is it. I don't remember too much about the flight after that... it obviously smoothed out and we landed safely... but it left a scar on my psyche. After that all I could think about for days...weeks... months... was that bad flight.
Several months later I had to fly out to LAX. The flight was exceedingly smooth... just like coasting on glass. But my nerves were so shot I kept expecting the worst. I spent the entire flight from LAX to Chicago watching the second hand of my watch.
The only other time I've flown since was for our honeymoon to the Bahamas in 1999. I took Xanax for that flight and on the way down it wasn't too bad. On the way back though, the medication didn't work at all and the terror resumed (it was a fine flight... no problems, yet I was still keyed up).
I haven't flown since. We actually took a Greyhound to California and back... that was an experience and a half!
Over the last few years I've decided that the time has come to start taking control of this situation as the anxiety, which previously was isolated just to flying, started to creep into other aspects of my life. I tried the medication route, and thought things were going better. So much so that I actually reserved a flight last fall to fly to Carolina and had no qualms about it. Then the old anxieties and terrors broke through and in desperation I ended up cancelling the flight (and eating a good chunk of $$ to do so). I felt like a failure.
This year I decided to take a more holistic approach. I got off the medication and started participating in cognitive behavior therapy. It's been a god-send. I've also actively pursued as much knowledge as I can about flying. I'm an engineer by trade and typically depend on factual, rational data; yet I've been hampered by this irrational fear for a long time. What was really helpful was that I was actually able to find out what happened on my flight in 1996 that started this whole shebang.
I had been under the "false" impression that we had hit an "air pocket" and the plane dropped. I read an excellent book called The Fearless Flyer's Handbook which was put out in conjunction with Qantas. One of the things I learned was that there is no such thing as an air pocket... the plane was flying the whole time. Likely what happened was we were just temporarily caught in a down draft, caused by friction between rain drops and the air. This downdraft pushed us down, probably less than 100 feet, which is nothing considering we were probably 20,000+ feet up in the air.
Reading that created a paradox for me. I have built the last 13+ years of fear up on something that was not real. We were never in any danger. Eye-opening to say the least!
I'm actively working towards flying again. I've been visiting the airport to try and desensitize myself. I hope to participate more actively here in the future.
I know I've been rambling a bit... if you're still with me, thanks for reading. Hopefully I can become one of the many success stories I've already been reading about on this site soon.
-Pat
I just wanted to pop in to introduce myself. I've been lurking in these forums on and off for quite some time so I thought I'd post to say hello.
I've been a fearful flier since 1996. Before that I probably flew 40+ times without a worry. I had to take a business trip to Washington DC and the flight there was fine. While there, a combination of stressful meetings, a lack of sleep, and when I did sleep a nightmare about flying had put me at unease. Flying back to upstate NY we took off out of National Airport. Being south of DC and needing to go north we had a really steep takeoff since we couldn't fly directly over DC. To add to the growing anxiety, thunderclouds were building.
Finally we leveled off and got up to cruising altitude, but I couldn't shake a feeling of dread. I had never experienced it on a commecial jet before. As we headed into the Southern Tier of NY we flew through a cloudbank for what felt like forever. It got a bit choppy which built on my nerves even more. All of a sudden there was a sensation of the plane dropping. I thought... this is it. I don't remember too much about the flight after that... it obviously smoothed out and we landed safely... but it left a scar on my psyche. After that all I could think about for days...weeks... months... was that bad flight.
Several months later I had to fly out to LAX. The flight was exceedingly smooth... just like coasting on glass. But my nerves were so shot I kept expecting the worst. I spent the entire flight from LAX to Chicago watching the second hand of my watch.
The only other time I've flown since was for our honeymoon to the Bahamas in 1999. I took Xanax for that flight and on the way down it wasn't too bad. On the way back though, the medication didn't work at all and the terror resumed (it was a fine flight... no problems, yet I was still keyed up).
I haven't flown since. We actually took a Greyhound to California and back... that was an experience and a half!
Over the last few years I've decided that the time has come to start taking control of this situation as the anxiety, which previously was isolated just to flying, started to creep into other aspects of my life. I tried the medication route, and thought things were going better. So much so that I actually reserved a flight last fall to fly to Carolina and had no qualms about it. Then the old anxieties and terrors broke through and in desperation I ended up cancelling the flight (and eating a good chunk of $$ to do so). I felt like a failure.
This year I decided to take a more holistic approach. I got off the medication and started participating in cognitive behavior therapy. It's been a god-send. I've also actively pursued as much knowledge as I can about flying. I'm an engineer by trade and typically depend on factual, rational data; yet I've been hampered by this irrational fear for a long time. What was really helpful was that I was actually able to find out what happened on my flight in 1996 that started this whole shebang.
I had been under the "false" impression that we had hit an "air pocket" and the plane dropped. I read an excellent book called The Fearless Flyer's Handbook which was put out in conjunction with Qantas. One of the things I learned was that there is no such thing as an air pocket... the plane was flying the whole time. Likely what happened was we were just temporarily caught in a down draft, caused by friction between rain drops and the air. This downdraft pushed us down, probably less than 100 feet, which is nothing considering we were probably 20,000+ feet up in the air.
Reading that created a paradox for me. I have built the last 13+ years of fear up on something that was not real. We were never in any danger. Eye-opening to say the least!
I'm actively working towards flying again. I've been visiting the airport to try and desensitize myself. I hope to participate more actively here in the future.
I know I've been rambling a bit... if you're still with me, thanks for reading. Hopefully I can become one of the many success stories I've already been reading about on this site soon.
-Pat
