Flying Stories

I've written about it before here. I hate to fly. I'm terrified of it. Like full on--days before flying--knees shaking panic attacks. Can't sleep. Tightness in the chest. Obsessive thinking about it. Imagining things that can go wrong.

People who fly all the time... who are used to it or worse LIKE IT, don't understand this. To them it's just like any other mode of transportation. They don't worry about it.

And when you tell people about your fear, they have two responses.

1) "You'll be fine." They say this as if a light bulb is going to click on in my head and I'm going to say, "Oh. You're right. What have I been thinking all this time?" Nope, doesn't work like that. You're better off looking at me when I tell you and saying, "Oh. Well that sucks."

2) They tell you about the worst flight they've ever had. I've heard stories of a plane in San Fran that had a bomb scare on it. I've heard about an engine going out on a plane and the plane flew to Hawaii only a few hundred feet over the water. I've heard stories about the landing gear on a plane not working until the last minute. I've heard about sliding down the inflatable slide. I've heard about bumpy flights, 300 hundred foot drops in wind pockets (wind pockets? I don't think those exist).. I've even had someone tell me that in this year of the Chinese Calender, it's the year of the plane crash.

This doesn't help. This doesn't make me feel better. This scares me. This makes me think about every possible thing that can go wrong.

Don't do this.

What helps?

I played around with a "Fear of Flying" website. Did you know that 96% of people survive airplane accidents? And 56% survive "serious" accidents?

It also talks about security issues, new ways to make flying safe and things like that.

Am I still freaking out? Yes. But now I have something to think about that'll calm me down.