Fear of flying

My mom says that when I was little I loved to fly. I used to cry when we had to drive from Oaxaca (where my parents had an apartment) to Mexico City (where they had their main house). She says I used to cry, shout and scream saying that I wanted to go in the plane. I have some memory of it too, of the first times I went to the U.S. with my mom, and I remember how much I enjoyed the view of the cities from the top, the meals that Not any more.

From the time I was a teenager up until now I have this terrible fear of flying. I hate it. Just to think that I have to fly in a few days would make me restless and make my hands sweat. I intellectually understand that have a big control issue, that I am a control freak, and that it makes me very uncomfortable to be in a situation in which I have no control at all.

Of course that I understand that my fear is irrational, that flying is the safest way of traveling, the most comfortable way of doing it, the faster way to get from one place to the other, that it is by far more dangerous to drive… etc, etc, But I still hate it.

So I have developed a few techniques to mitigate my fear and I intend to try some others in the course of this year. This is because, even though I hate flying, I intend to keep on doing it and I intend to do it a lot. I refuse to be stop by my fear, so this is what I do:

·        I try to think all the flights that depart and arrive in every single city of the world in a single day, even in a single hour; and I try to compare that huge undetermined amount to the times we hear about a major airliner accident; with that I come to the intellectual realization that the chances of me dying in a plane are next to zero. According to the website www.planecrashinfo.com, the odds of being killed on an airline flight are as low as 1 in 29.4 million, meaning one has to be really unlucky.

·        I have a couple of drinks before boarding. Of course I never need a huge excuse to drink a couple of glasses of wine and this really helps me relax a little before getting into my most feared mean of transportation. In the case of early flights I usually avoid the drinking thing. Even for someone like me the thought of a glass of Cabernet or a tequila shot at 7 a.m. is not that appealing.

·        I use the aid off other drugs when anxiety is really high. I remember one time that I had to have a head MRI and in order to make sure that I would not move the nurses gave an IV shot of Valium 10 mg. Oh my God! I recall being inside of that tiny, claustrophobic loud thing and thinking: “this is what I need for planes.” Next time I saw my neurologist brother I asked him if he could prescribe some Valium 10 for my flights, of course as a responsible doctor he said decline my request, but he provided me with a milder dose of an anti-anxiety drug called clonazepan. This works, but as said before I try to use it only when anxiety is high.

·        I also try to be informed. I read and educate myself about how bad weather rarely affects a flight, and on how when bad weather is really bad most airlines have strict rules and delay flights, I also have read on how turbulences may feel bad but are rarely dangerous, all this information helps me understand (at least in an intellectual level) that my fear of turbulences is unfounded. One good resource is the Ask the Pilot column (www.askthepilot.com), if interested read his column on turbulence, it is great.

·        And then I try to realize that I am not alone, that many people share this irrational fear with me, that even people that have to travel all the time share this with me and they still keep on flying. I now that scientists, actors, artists, film directors, politicians, musicians, people from every walk of life share this me and they continue to fly.

I intent to do the same; I want to fly and fly a lot! So I’ll get my two glasses of wine, a good book, a nice podcast and jump in any plane that would take me to all the places that I want to see in the future… even if they are very far away!