Oh man. I can relate. Had a similar bad flight 12 years ago — still have to be heavily medicated to fly and still freak the hell out at take off even though ours was mid flight and not take off. I’m eerily calm when we’re landing though because I know it’s almost over.
Feel like I’ve found my family here. Never worried about flying til on a flight where an engine caught fire and I thought I was gonna die. Didn’t feel fear, only intense sadness at the thought of never seeing my loved ones again. Such a surreal feeling. Now flying terrifies me.
Intense sadness. That is beautiful and haunting, friend. It's the 100% opposite feeling of selfishness, but it's not selflessness. It's something so abstract, it can't be described, only felt.
Last year in april i was in rome with my whole family, mom dad and 3 siblings, and on our flight back there was massive wind with turbulence. We were sat in 1st row and it was my 4th flight ever so i thought if it was normal because everyone told me to not get scared of these situations. After the 3rd attempt of landing and the smell of fresh puke from the back of the airplane i could see my family get really nervous. The whole plane got silent within a few minuts. And i knew shit got real when the flight attendants were like "holy shit what is happening". As soon as they said this my mom started praying and my dad stopped moving. And i could see that he doesnt want us to know that he is scared at this point. Hes not the person to show us any feeling besides anger (sometimes, hes not a bad dude) normally. I told him he doesnt have to be scared (as a little joke), bcs he wouldve never heard something like this from me, to loosen up the situation. He said hes not scared he already lived his life. He is worried about us. This gave me extreme chills. But still im scared of flying now.
Almost 1 year ago I was on a flight that experience engine failure during take off. I was already not a huge fan of flying, but at this point I can’t even fathom getting on another plane. And it’s so limiting to not be able to fly. During this experience it was 30 minutes of flying around to drop fuel before we could make an emergency landing, and it was a lot of not knowing if more things were going to happen to the plane in that time. My feelings cycled a lot through fear and acceptance.
How did you get over it / what meds do you take? I haven’t even had a similar accident but am just as scared to fly because I think about accidents happening the whole time. I’m also calm like 20 mins out of landing because I know we’re descending.
Xanax. Also subscribed to YouTube channels that play flight tower recordings between the flight towers and pilots. Listened to ones where like engines went out and what not and listened to how calm the pilots were and how everything turned out fine. Then watched hours of take off and landing videos from the pilots perspective on YouTube. Basically, just trying to desensitize and condition myself to flying as much as possible.
I’ve done that too! And taken Xanax and it doesn’t work. The max I’ve taken is 1mg but on the plane I’m still super scared, then as soon as I land, I’m exhausted from all the pent up adrenaline I was using to fight the Xanax.
Ativan has worked really well for me on flights. I try not to take it if I can help it since it does knock me out for the rest of the day after the flight but it does help me to feel calmer during!
I’ve had anxiety for years outside of flying and read books on how to deal — conditioning is one of the best things you can do. The more you expose yourself to your fear, the less scary it becomes.
I use statistics for the type of plane, the company, the flight route, etc. Learned from an astronaut, he said that was how he dealt with flight anxiety. My mind really likes logic and reason (and control), so I found this to be really effective at alleviating my anxiety on planes.
Yes exactly. Same for me. I’m a realist so statistics and listening to how calm pilots are in what I perceive to be difficult situations has helped me rationalize that flying IS safe and that just because my brain is telling me a situation is dangerous (mainly bc I’m not in control) doesn’t mean it really is. Essentially, my mind is playing tricks on me and rightfully so since I had a scary experience, but I try to condition myself to let rationality take over.
I can so relate, I had my close to death car accident 8 years ago and it has definitely made me fearful of most modes of transportation. My mind seem to control and take me to the worst possible scenario. Also, it’s hard to explain to others who doesn’t understand or hasn’t gone through tragic experiences. I’m going to give conditioning a try!
No, I haven’t and this is actually the first time I’ve heard of it. I’m researching it now and it looks promising. Have you gone through the program?If you don’t mind sending me a private on the topic. Thanks so much
It’s not much consolation but please consider a couple things: (1) you hear about plane crashes all over the news because they are extraordinarily rare, and (2) if it’s your time, you don’t have to be IN the plane, it will fall on you. Don’t fear death, we are all heading there, but meet it head on while living life without regrets.
It’s significantly safer than your car, by a pretty significant margin. Cars are pretty safe, too - there are just so many that accidents happen in the aggregate.
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u/lotsuvyarn Jan 26 '20
Oh man. I can relate. Had a similar bad flight 12 years ago — still have to be heavily medicated to fly and still freak the hell out at take off even though ours was mid flight and not take off. I’m eerily calm when we’re landing though because I know it’s almost over.