Fear of flying!

[chits_r]

Hey folks, I am an anxiety patient, and am coping up with my problems ( panic attacks, agoraphobia, nervousness ) slowly and steadily with the help of some medication and Dr. Claire Weekes ( may her lovely soul rest in peace!) book : Essential help for the nerves.

However, the major milestone for me would be flying! i am petrified!!!

My first attack was on the damn flight and i got the whole plane startled during take off. I was "sure" i was having convulsions!

It took a while before I could relax and life got worse since then ( 6 months of anxiety )

I get nightmares of flying , etc and i dont think I can ever take a flight again!

which isnt how I can live , if I want to work

what do i do?

It isnt the fear of plane crash or the pressure in the ears that bother me,

It's more of the horrible feeling of weightlessness or as if the head is going to be detached from the body when the plane dips suddenly. I hope you can understand what I mean by lightness ??

 

Please help any advice?

[verbatim350]

Hey chits, maybe I can help a bit on this subject. You may already know this, but the feelings of weightlessness, pitching, rolling, are all determined by fluid sloshing around in vestibular canals in your inner ears. It takes time for your brain to recognize those signals from the inner ear because flight is such an unusual and unnatural sensation. Flight feels like you are being suspended in a liquid, not something that the human body was designed for. Most people have had these strange feelings of flight at some point, I did and I'm a pilot. My first flight lesson, I thought I was gonna puke all over the instrument panel after about 20 minutes. My instructor encouraged me and assured me that I would get over it, I wasn't so sure and began to have thoughts of quitting. I even tried dramamine a few times (don't tell the FAA) and it helped but also gave me a strange feeling and made it a bit difficult to concentrate on flying. After maybe 5 or 6 dizzying flights that uneasy feeling just faded away. I can still feel everything, every little bump, and turn, but it doesn't bother me now. I guess the point of my long story is that your body will acclimate to flight, but I think it needs to experience flight enough to begin to interpret those feelings into ones which aren't fearful. Maybe you could try some flight lessons in a small airplane, it will divert your attention from that weird feeling to flying the airplane while your body acclimates. You don't have to get a license to do training either, but you might even end up having fun.

[norajane]

You're talking about turbulence (when the plane dips and bumps as it goes through winds and storms and such). That's going to happen sometimes, but most flights are usually without a lot of turbulence. I used to fly thousands and thousands of miles a year, and I can't recall much turbulence on my flights. Personally, I think turbulence is kinda cool, actually... I find flights to be utterly, mind-numbingly boring because there really is nothing going on - you don't feel much of anything when there isn't turbulence. There's more shaking and rattling on a city bus.

 

That lightness...how are you on roller coasters? It's the same sensation. Maybe you can practice on roller coasters before getting onto another plane.

[polywog]

Oh boy, Chits... you have my sympathy. I had terrible panic attacks for years and totally related to your post.

 

One of the therapists I saw for this stuff gave me very helpful advice, as well as a great coping strategy.

 

The advice: the same feeling we feel of panic is the same as excitement... increased pulse, etc... that's a useful thing to know. Like falling in love or anticipating something good. Same physical reactions as the "panic" feeling. Just passing this on to you for what it's worth.

 

As for the coping strategy, she gave me this and it helped me. She told me to just let the panic attack happen, not to try stopping it. Let it fill you with the awful rush and breathlessness, and just let it go through its thing and run its course. What happens if you don't resist it is that is just goes through you and simmers down. It isn't easy to resist its painful power, but it really does just pass through when you let it happen.

 

It worked for me, though it took some faith on my part.

 

Hope this helps. I still have the tendency to panic in situations like flying, but the coping strategy has made me able to face it.

 

The more you do this, the easier it becomes to live through the panic feelings... just embrace them, and let them flow through to the conclusion, which is not what it seems to be. They seem to rule you, but really they don't. Those feelings have a beginning and an end, if you just let them run their weird course for some minutes (which seem endless, but are not).

 

Peace,

polywog