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Fear of Flying
Fear of Flying
Not too long ago, I found myself in the Tampa International Airport, trying to get back home to Connecticut after being gone for a month.
I hate flying.
The entire flying experience, in my humble opinion, sucks rocks. This particular incident kicked open some old wounds and very unpleasant memories of somebody that I used to be. Somebody that I tried to kill off twenty-five years ago.
I got to the airport with my boarding pass already in hand, since my sweet Mary was kind enough to get it off the internet for me. I had no luggage to check in. So, all I had to do when I got to the airport was find out from what gate Southwest flight #3323 from Tampa to Hartford was departing, and go to it. Right? You would think so, wouldn’t you?
Well, when I checked the departing flights on the Big Board, there was no Flight 3323 listed. I checked again. Nothing. SSSOOOoooOOO, I had to stand in the five-mile-long line at the Southwest counter as if I were trying to purchase a ticket, and wait my turn. (There were a total of twenty-two Southwest Airlines Self-Service Ticket kiosks in front of me. However, only two were operational. Ergo, the long line on a Wednesday afternoon.)
When I was halfway through the extremely slow moving queue, I found a real, living, breathing, human being dressed in a Southwest Airline uniform and asked her if she would be so good as to tell me from what gate flight 3323 was departing. She did so, but as she said, "Gate C-36," her look added an addendum to that which said, "Stupid!" Then she informed me that departures were listed on the Big Board. I told her that I had already checked, and Flight #3323 wasn’t there. "Yes, it is," she replied.
"No, it’s not." I countered.
"Yes, it is," she insisted.
"No, it’s not," I repeated.
"Is too."
"Is not."
"Too!"
"Not!"
"TOO!"
"Show me!"
With that, she led me over to the Big Board, pointed to Flight 3933 and said, "Right there, sir."
"My flight is 3323, not 3393," I told her.
"Same thing," she responded.
"No. According to my boarding pass, flight 3323 departs at 3:30. The Big Board says that flight 3933 doesn’t leave until 4:45."
She shifted her weight to one hip with annoyance and said, "They’re both going to Hartford. So there’s no difference."
"Yes, there is," I insisted. "My flight leaves and hour and fifteen minutes before that one."
"It’s the same thing!" She demanded. "Go to Gate C-36!" With that, she spun on her heels and went back to her station.
I was worried that Flight 3323 had been cancelled and this stupid woman didn’t know what she was talking about. I was worried that when I got to Gate C-36 and showed them my Flight 3323 boarding pass, they would inform me that the flight was either cancelled or was boarding at Gate ZZ-4478882 in three minutes. I could feel the anxiety building in my body. My fingertips went numb. My legs started twitching. I had visions of being stranded in freaking airport. Snatches of the Tom Hanks movie Terminal started flashing through my mind. (The movie was a true story about a foreigner who was stranded in JFK Airport because of political upheaval in his homeland, and he secretively lived in the airport for like a year, camping out in remote corners and gathering food from the garbage containers in the food court.)
What if that happened to me? I HATE leftovers!!!!
So, after standing in line for thirty minutes at the security checkpoint so that they could look at Compaq Laptop and laugh at the holes in the bottoms of my socks, I raced to Gate C-36 and ran up to a very pleasant young woman behind the counter.
"Is this where I should be if I’m getting on Flight #3323 to Hartford?"
"Yes sir, "she beamed back, with a smile as big as all outdoors.
"Does it depart at 3:30?"
"Yes sir."
"What about Flight 3933?"
She looked confused and said, "What flight was that, sir?"
"Flight 3933."
She punched the numbers into her computer. She scowled. She typed again. Finally, she said, "I’m sorry sir, but there is not Flight #3933."
"Really?" I stated with surprise. "But it was listed on the Big Board Departures."
She shrugged. "Must have been a misprint."
"Oh. Thank you," I replied, and turned away to find a seat.
Why couldn’t Sarge at the ticket counter have told me that?
The rest of the flight-home experience was uneventful. The air was smooth, and the ride was pleasant. It gave me a chance to relax and take a close look at what had just taken place and how I reacted to it.
As I evaluated the situation and my actions, I became proud of myself. Even though I could feel stress and the sense of impending doom, I handled myself civilly. I didn’t overreact. Even though I was a boiling caldron of panic and fear internally, on the outside I was relatively calm and collected.
If the same scenario had presented itself twenty-five years ago, I’d have gone postal.
You see, I used to stress out too easily, and then I would be ruled by that stress. A shrink that I used to see once told me that I catastrophize. (He meant that I blow things out of proportion and worry excessively that the worst possible thing imaginable was about to happen.) He said that it could very well be an offshoot of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) which is a disease that used to plague me. It is a syndrome where the victim is ruled by ridiculous fears, and he or she tries to contain them by going through certain time-consuming and sometimes humiliating rituals.
Believe it or not, I beat that disorder, and I have been relatively symptom-free for almost twenty-five years. (If you want to see a GREAT portrayal of a person with OCD, watch Jack Nicholson in the movie As Good As It Gets.)
Since Dr. Gerry told me that I catastrophize, life has been a lot easier. He gave me a name, a handle, for my outrageous worries that I could grab onto and control. Now, I can catch myself on the verge of catastrophizing. When that happens, I step back from the situation and simply say, "You’re catastrophizing" and, believe it or not, the anxiety goes away.
It is a life skills therapy that I practice every day of my life.
Life is good now. In fact, life is absolutely fantastic. You just have to learn how to cope with it. As Walt Kelly’s classic comic strip character Pogo once said, "We have seen the enemy, and he is us."
My life experiences thus far have taught me many things, not of least of which is that absolutely nothing in insurmountable.
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
When the plane landed safely at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, CT, I put my head back into the seat, closed my eyes and softly said to myself, "Home again."
In more ways than one.
posted on May 1, 2008 6:28 AM ()
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I would have been a bit nervous as well about the different flight things, I wonder if they ever changed it because so many people were asking about it? She should have been a little less insistent and a little more compassionate. Maybe a lot more compassionate.
I hafta fly tonight. I get nervous too, but I always just think that crashing down into the ground will be a quick death and I should be so lucky...