Phobia Busting
This time last month, I had a phobia of flying. Now I do not.
It wasn't that I disliked it or would rather not do it. I flat-out refused to do it. The reason I want to stress just how much of a phobia it was, is only so that other people out there might read this and actually be able to relate to it; so that perhaps it will inspire hope that they will one day fly, or do whatever freaks the ever-living hell out of them, too.
I knew the statistics. There was nothing more frustrating than admitting to someone that I had a phobia of flying only to be told; "more people are killed by donkeys each year than in airplane crashes", as if I was going to suddenly be 'cured' by their infallible logic. A phobia is an irrational fear. I was fully aware of this. It is this factor that I think makes having a phobia so fucking heartbreaking. I knew with near certainty that if I got on a plane I would not die. And yet, I spent the last fours years of university traveling from Wellington to various locations by bus, train, and ferry. I eventually became so sick of the cramped and tear-inducingly boring travel conditions that I ceased returning to my home town, a 12-hour bus trip away, altogether.
People offered various helpful solutions to my problem, including therapy and the flying phobia workshops they run at the airport. The truth was, while I accepted these suggestions with as much grace as I could muster, I did not wish to overcome my fear of flying. I truly, from the bottom of my heart, did not. Because then it would mean I would have to fly. I'm pretty sure when I told my mother this, over the course of one of our many fraught flying-related skype discussions, she cried in frustration over her stubborn little wingless kiwi-bird daughter. But that was the crux of it. I hated not being able to fly, but not as much as I hated the idea of getting over not being able to fly and therefore inevitably ending up in one of those heavy-as-fuck-metal-coffins soaring through the air, thousands of feet above safe land.
No, I was deadset against flying. My phobia was a cage, but that cage was my home, and it was comfortable.
You know what's not comfortable? The two-day bus trip from Nelson to Dunedin I had to endure in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I'm used to shitty bus trips. I put up with them without much complaint usually, accepting that it was my chosen method of transport. But stepping off the bus in Dunedin I was sweaty, exhausted, and my prematurely arthritic hips were aching. I had two weeks scheduled in Dunedin, before I would be required to leave. The first week I spent in denial, refusing to think about where I would go next and more importantly, how I would get there. I did not want to spend another minute on the Nakedbus. The only other practical option was to fly out with the friends I was staying with when they left for Christmas. And so, it was towards the end of the first week that I made a decision, and that decision became the first step onto an airplane. Of course, my motivation did not come solely from wanting to avoid a long bus trip - additionally I am starting a job as a Mental Health Nurse and thought that I would feel like a hypocrite if I was required to encourage my clients to confront their fears when I was not doing the same myself. A week later I did step on that airplane, and since then I have been asked the same question by people as I have been asking myself: How did I do it?!
Step One: Don't Have a Phobia of Flying
Sounds a bit stupid, like, why didn't I just think of that earlier? But truth is I credit this sentence with my success. It might not have worked in previous times, but the space I was in, I was ready to accept it as a strategy. It was simple, though not easy, and involved repeating the same internal dialogue with myself at least 20 times a day, always having to work hard to convince myself that my fear was not of flying itself but the fear of the anxiety itself. Once I had done that, my heart could resume it's normal resting rhythm (until the next time I forgot about the impending trip and then remembered it again).
Step Two: Write a List
My list was titled 'Positive Flying Thoughts' and included an array of calming thoughts, affirmations, as well as all the awesome things that I could do once I was over my phobia - such as visiting friends in Australia. I intended to read this many times in the lead up to and during the flight, but ended up needing it far less than I expected.
Step Three: Transform Anxiety to Excitement
Once I had booked the flights, every time I thought about the impending flight and began to feel like any second I was going to vomit my lungs right out of my chest (the closest metaphor I can think of to describe how anxiety feels for me), I would pretend that I wasn't anxious at all, just really excited. I would talk out loud to myself: "Wow, feel how excited you are for your upcoming flight! You are so lucky to be going on a flight, seeing our beautiful country from above, experiencing the miracle of a little thrust and pull. What a time to be alive!". Part of this involved embracing my inner child, a strategy I first realised could work for me at an Outward Bound course a year ago. Six year old me was fearless, she was adventurous, and in fact, she loved flying. She contemplated a career as an air hostess, believe it or not. She was the perfect role model, and I wanted to make her proud.
Step Four: Lorazepam and a Supportive Flight 'Crew'
The first flight I took 2mg of lorazepam, and thus I don't remember too much of the afternoon after landing, went to sleep at 8pm in star fish position and woke up at 3am with my headphones still on playing the High School Musical Soundtrack. I was lucky to be staying and flying with a GP and psychotherapist - both well equipped with different strategies to prevent me bolting the opposite way down the tarmac from the plane.
What Actually Happened:
I figure that if I were to go back in time and imagine my slightly younger phobia-afflicted self reading someone else's story about overcoming their fear, the part that would be most interesting to me would be the flight itself. To be honest it was pretty uninteresting.
It was a rainy day. By the time I got to the airport I had taken the first lorazepam, which eased the anxiety somewhat. The fear was still there, but I think it mainly lessened the physical manifestations of anxiety - I wouldn't underestimate how much difference this can make though. After checking in we hung out in the café where I had a chamomile tea and attempted the cryptic crossword to distract myself. It all just passed in a bit of a blur after that really, I couldn't believe what I was doing. It didn't feel real until we were running across the tarmac to get to the plane and out of the heavy rain and then it was right there and I was walking up the steps and it just felt so normal, everyone looked so relaxed. I had the same incredulous feeling I used to get when characters on a movie were catching a plane and part of me couldn't quite understand how they weren't freaking out. The plane was much smaller than the one I was expecting, which threw me for a bit of a loop. Whenever I previously talked of plans to fly, I always maintained that even once I had ridded myself of the phobia I would never fly on a small plane, and never land in infamous Wellington. Yet there I was, about to do both, on my first flight no less.
By far the most difficult stage of the flight was take off. To me that is the part that feels so unnatural and dangerous. I had anticipated that during lift off I would probably have a panic attack, but instead I gripped my friend's hand while tears somehow passed unbidden past my tightly closed eyes. Very soon after the wheels left the ground there was no fear, only an immense sense of relief and disbelief. The rest of the flight passed in fits of elation and discomfort, but even a turbulent landing was not able to muster up anywhere near the anxiety I would have expected.
Once we landed we had to get straight on another flight, but by this time I think my phobia was already gone. It was a gorgeous day further north, and the view over the Marlborough Sounds made me feel giddy with excitement, thinking of all the sights I never thought I would see, that now I could see.
I have been on three flights now, and am pretty confident that I won't require lorazepam for the next one. I no longer consider myself to dislike flying, let alone have a phobia, which is an outcome I didn't expect. I'm actually really looking forward to the next time I get on a plane. Honestly if you'd told me two months ago that this would be my attitude now I would've laughed in your face. But I feel like it's good to acknowledge that, because there might be people who read this and think 'she's different to me, I can never do that with my fear', but I want them to know I felt the exact same way. You never know though, when you will reach a place in your life when everything comes together and the circumstances are right and things are set into motion and you just go with it because you feel strong enough.
While what I achieved this summer will have a significant impact on my life, and has certainly helped contribute to an increased sense of self confidence, there are some things that remain the same.
I guess I thought that once I didn't have the phobia anymore, I wouldn't be scared of anything anymore. You'd think that having faced my greatest fear, all other fears would seem easy in comparison. But it didn't work like that. As I write this, my face is not yet dry of tears cried this morning in an externally melodramatic (but internally nausea-inducing) episode of anxiety over the thought of sitting my restricted driving test. There are still hurdles to overcome, and it remains a daily struggle to challenge the predominant governing voice in my brain that says "I can't, I'm too scared".
But this summer I could finally say "I can". And I did. The power of that has added so much fuel to the fire that lights the darker hallways of my mind, with the light of that hallway spreading into rooms I could never enter before. Tomorrow I might book my driving test. At least it will be on land. ▼
