Fear of Flying

6 Minute Read 

Is it ironic or just cruel that I enjoy traveling so much while having a crippling fear of flying? I haven’t decided yet. Maybe it’s both. I am flying from Texas to Tel Aviv today, a journey I've wanted to take since I learned about Israel way back when I was a devout Christian. Despite wanting so badly to visit Israel and Palestine, to see this ethereal place that has existed to me only in religious texts, the news, and political discourse, I am absolutely dreading the flight with every bit of my insides…and outsides. But, this time, as I told my wife self-assuringly, I have a solution to my intense, paralyzing fear of take-offs. This time, I will very literally write my fear away.

I haven’t always been like this, a stupid sloppy mess of a passenger, mumbling nonsense to myself and jolting upright in my seat anytime the plane loses altitude or makes a slight directional shift. I consider myself a rather reasonable person. I make informed decisions more often than not, I don’t take unnecessary risks (unless the payout is worth it), I respect human ingenuity and the training of the pilots, I trust that the designers and engineers of this particular aircraft took the appropriate steps to construct a flying machine that will, indeed, stay in the air for as long as I paid for it to be airborne. All of that is a reasonable approach to take to flying, I think. I also factor in airplane crash statistics compared to car crash statistics. Flying is the safest mode of transportation, the odds of dying are 1 in 11 million, yadda yadda yadda (somebody has to be the poor 1 sometimes). Somehow, however, no amount of rationalizing or leveling with myself satiates my fear demons. Those little bastards pop up without fail every time I buckle myself into my seat and prepare for departure.

It starts with the deep breathing. But, you see, this method is really just a pitiful attempt to calm myself through some variation of Lamaze breathing I’ve concocted for myself based on sitcoms throughout the years (Friends especially). It is quite ineffective. Sometimes I even incorporate the little paper baggie the airline provides in case you become airsick. I have never been airsick. My problem is the taxiing, the take-off, sometimes the landing, and always the turbulence. Maybe, what I have would more fittingly be called transition sickness. 

After the breathing fails me, I rock for a bit, ever so slightly. That exercise is typically combined with a body lock or, for fun, the Fear Freeze! where I close my eyes super tight and try to become one with my seat back. Please know that I do honestly try to maintain my dignity to the fullest extent possible while I am going through these panic maneuvers. You know, just in case we actually do survive the flight and I have to see these people again outside of the fuselage. I will also have you know that, while I do make several jerky motions for a few minutes while we’re gaining altitude, and I probably unnecessarily worry my rowmates, I really do go out of my way not to make noise while I’m sobbing. There truly is nothing worse than a rude passenger who won’t stop whimpering and vibrating while they wait for death to finally reach out and grasp them in its cold, disaffected fingers. I know this.

Once we’re actually in the air, 30,000 feet above the ground and everyone I care about, the panic begins to dissipate. Where there was gripping fear, a new feeling sets in. This is me coming to terms with my eventual death-by-plane. I have discovered that, for me, flying is sort of like going through the 5 stages of grief, but in rapid succession. There’s denial: The flight is nothing. I’m a grown, reasonable adult who has seen combat. I am sure I will conquer my fear of flying this go around. Then, there’s anger: Why am I like this?! It’s so damn embarrassing. Bargaining: I will buy myself a book or this fancy magazine and that will surely distract me from the inevitable onset of terror. I skip right past depression, mostly because no flight lasts that long. That said, if I were forced to face my fear with greater frequency, and my livelihood depended on my ability to fly, I do believe I would slip into a serious state of chronic depression. 

In the end, I always land on acceptance. I accept that there is nothing I can do about technical problems mid-flight, that there is a pilot and co-pilot who will do everything in their power to prevent the plane from falling out of the sky, and I accept that I am an irreparable control freak who can’t stand placing my life in someone else’s hands, even for an incredibly standard non-event like flying through the air at 600mph in a big, metal tube.