Flying and Panic disorder do not mix

I love to travel. However, I am NOT a good flyer.  I actually get quite worked up about flying whether it is a short or long flight.

I recently went on a trip to Las Vegas. I love this city. I love everything about it: the weather, the hotels, the shopping, the food. Ah! Vegas! Anything you desire, you can have.

The flight was only two hours and twenty minutes. Ok. Doable, I told myself.

The closer to the day to fly out, the more nervous I became. Everything around me was stressful. My poor husband did not know what to do with me. I even freaked out at him five days before we left for no reason. Just felt stressed out and he bore the brunt of a slammed door after a yelling episode.

Now, I know flying is safer than driving or taking the train, but as an anxiety and panic sufferer, anything that you can think of go wrong, I did.

I even had nightmares about it. Everything I looked at around my house would create some sort of pang in me about not coming back to it triggering fear. Fear that at times I could not control. I wouldn’t even watch TV shows about flying or planes.

*SIGH* What’s a girl to do? Correction: What’s an anxiatic girl to do?

For safety sake, and my own piece of mind, I kept my back up plan in my purse: a bottle of Ativan. I even worried that it would be taken away from me at security and had visions of begging the officer for my bottle of ‘happy pills’.

Obviously all was fine and safe. A few bouts of mild (or so the flight attendant said) turbulence and we landed. The flight really wasn’t that long and I’d flown there many, many times before.

Even though nobody could tell I was nervous on the flights, I knew and I tried not to let it show. But man, what am I going to do when I want to go to England? It’s a nine hour flight. Just thinking about that now gives me anxiety and I haven’t even booked time off to go, let alone the flight!

All I can say is that it’s not fun feeling like you’re punching your way out of a wet paper bag while on a flight. At least I had the paper bag to barf into in case I got sick which I have before on a flight – but that’s a whole other story in itself!