Reassurance

[davidn]

The flight back was the first to leave on time that I've been on since summer 2010, and that was miraculous enough - I think I prefer flights during the daytime. It was, however, quite turbulent as we caught up with nightfall quickly - nevertheless, we made it and I don't have to fly again for another year. The student who was sitting in our row now has a story about constantly having to reassure the 27-year-old with a stuffed rabbit next to him - something that he really was very good at thanks to his encyclopaedic knowledge of all the unusual and worrying noises a plane can produce. And yes, I did have a stuffed rabbit with me, and it helped a lot, even if it was roughly hourglass-shaped by the time we landed.

I can't help but feel that the whole process would be vastly improved with a general anaesthetic - the best flight of my life was the one that I entirely skipped due to taking prescription temazepam, with the minor inconvenience that by the end I'd forgotten where I lived. Much like Mr. T, the only way to get me on to a flight without complaint is to make sure that I'm fully unconscious first. (NB. This is the only thing that I have in common with Mr. T)


Come on, Scott Hudson, seriously.
Even though I had plenty of entertainment - most of it this time spent on discovering how utterly malevolent Best of ZZT Part 2 is in parallel to the first one - I find myself unable to really concentrate on anything during a flight. I hadn't realized until very recently that not everyone just had a heightened tension while flying - I had just assumed that it was a feeling that everybody had, as thirty thousand feet in the air is logically not a sane place for humans to be. It's not even the thought of height that does it, because once you're beyond a few hundred feet up distance just becomes meaningless - it's more about not knowing what's happening, being trapped and not being in control (even though on balance, the plane would probably be worse off with me in control).

I looked at a page written by a pilot to help people get over their anxieties, at http://www.fearofflyinghelp.com/ - sometimes its sense of humour is a bit less funny than it seems to think, but that just makes him seem more human. Among other things, it pointed out all the cross-checked things that would have to go wrong for there to be an issue during a flight, like the flight computer, both pilots, air traffic control on the ground - whereas if you're driving, you've got a three foot margin of error between you and the cars coming head-on at you, which may be driven by people on their phones and looking over their shoulder. It did actually help my fear of flying, though it also made me significantly more worried about going by car.


And the people who wrote this game are all bastards.

Comments

[davidn]

My mother tried similar reassurance on me a couple of months ago, saying pretty much what you are now - that if anything goes wrong, it's already too late, so why worry about it? This doesn't help.

I never even implied that my thinking about it could affect anything, but this doesn't stop me worrying. If anything, the only decision I have in the matter is choosing not to fly, which already seems preferable when you consider it doesn't involve being shut in a box and breathing other people's exhalations for seven hours - I keep on feeling that I could just not do this and be rather happier for it. Also, peaceful about it or not, I'd still be dead, which is a suboptimal outcome.

It's as if we're speaking two completely different languages, when talking about our thoughts and reactions. This happened last year, as well, when you just couldn't comprehend why I would worry about my upcoming flight or why being made to wait for it made it so much worse.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Actually, an interesting point about breathing other people's air - you aren't (http://io9.com/5862234/why-flying-on-planes-can-make-you-sick-+-and-how-to-stop-it)! The air in airplanes actually gets replaced more often than the air in office buildings. I mean - if it wasn't, wouldn't everyone asphyxiate?

I guess it's because you keep changing the subject about what's bothering you - if you don't like confined spaces, that's one thing, but you were saying that the guy was reassuring you about the noises the plane was making, as though you thought they were a sign of danger?

[davidn]

Perhaps I'm not sure what I'm afraid of either, when trying to name it - I'm in a state where anything at all feels like it's a dangerous sign, any movement or noise outside of the background, even when it isn't. It's undeniable that I don't like being in confined spaces, or anywhere I know I can't just walk away - though when that space is up in the air, the feeling is amplified.

"Airplane Plague", what a fantastically reassuring title ;) But that's a very informative article, and it does make complete sense that you're not literally breathing the same air as everyone else for hours. I could certainly believe that just being in proximity to a lot of people for a fair amount of time could cause a bit of contamination.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Did you ever travel when you were young? When you say it like that, I realise that I HATE committing to things for a long block of time like that too - but for some reason, I've always come to felt like a car on a long trip is almost like a somewhat cramped ersatz bedroom; even if it's uncomfortable, I feel like I can be cozy there. The same feeling seems to have transferred over to planes, I guess!

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Er, to be more explicit about something I realise I didn't really touch on - my family used to drive six hours down to Maine for summer vacation every year, and it was such a cozy, cherished atmosphere (which dates back farther than I can remember) that I guess that supersedes all the reasons for me to be averse to it, even when I'm roadtripping with people other than my family.

[davidn]

My family used to pack four of us children in the back of a Ford Fiesta and drive all the way down the length of the country to Dover, where we would get a ferry to Ostend in Belgium, and then spend a night with all six of us in one compartment of a sleeper train to eventually get to Germany. It was completely awful. A sign for our different attitudes to travel, at least, is suddenly made clear.

The reason they did this - because I didn't want to fly. I'd done it once when I was three and had been very sick during a bumpy landing, which made me scared of doing it again. Actually, I can't believe that they would go to all that trouble because of an irrational fear I had - I'm forced to conclude that they did it that was because it was much cheaper once there were six of us.

However, even with that, I do feel much safer and more comfortable in cars - I enjoyed driving with Whitney when we went away for our anniversary, which took about five hours, and liked the company of myself and my music when I went to Furfright (just an hour and a half). They're as cramped, but they're generally comfortable, the space is your own and you're going at your own pace (I have to say here that I really dislike being stuck in traffic as well, specifically on a motorway where you can't leave and your only option is to keep crawling.)

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Shoot... that is a very big ingredient of this situation not to have brought up until now!

But as much as I think it might have been good for you to get back on the horse and see that it wasn't a big deal before this fear had a chance to fester for 20 years, what makes you say that your parents wouldn't have acted out of sympathy?

[davidn]

The strangest thing is that it wasn't a fear that just grew over that many years - I did it again when I was sixteen, and while I was very sick with nerves before flying that time, since then I'd gradually become... not fine with it, but not in actual fear, and I'd flown successfully since I started doing massive flights to America in 2003. I had a bad experience once, though, and that brought it all back again.

I don't say that about my parents because of any lack of sympathy I perceive in them - just that I feel there must be limits of inconvenience that people are prepared to put up with for the sake of an irrational fear in someone else! A journey of two days and nights versus an hour-long flight - there's no contest. And that my mother has a philosophy of "Sometimes you've got to sacrifice some comfort to save money", without considering that sometimes the reverse is true.