Let me know if you need any recs for places to go.
I realized my fear of flying is actually the fear of knowing your going to crash, so its the same as you. I dont fear the actual crash, because trains and buses are more dangerous than planes and I still take them. But for those vehicles a crash is instant. On a plane there is a chance that for 5 minutes you are tumbling through the air and possibly experiencing that is what scares me.
That said, i fly all the time. A few drinks at the bar help me out, but thats not a solution for everyone. I also got a prescription for mild benzos from my doc but i never use them.
I have found that the more i fly the less i am afraid. Only a little but its noticed.
Yeah we’re very similar.
For whatever reason, for this particular flight I cracked open a beer at somewhere around 2 PM (flight at 7:40 PM) because I was already starting to panic.
I finished the only other beer around 4 PM and my husband was like “Do you need me to go get more booze?” I guess because I looked a little more stressed than usual. I couldn’t shake this one - so I ended up downing maybe 4-5 Old Fashioneds in the hour before leaving. I think I’m glad I did.
All that said - I can’t do this every time I fly, mostly because I’m starting to fly a lot for work, but also because I shouldn’t.
And I’ve done Ativan before - for a trip to Paris. I slept all the way there. But my opinion on Ativan in general is that it’s pretty weak at the dosages they’re going to give me.
Glad you’re OK…unlike the Coyote.
Good luck with future lights, not sure I have any advice for you though, just good luck.
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ketamine, great tranquilizer, for horses
Not sure hubby would want you to be a horse, unless he is descended from Catherine the Great
What measure are you using for trains and buses being more dangerous - frequency or severity? I’m guessing that trains and buses have a higher frequency per mile but most passengers will survive a train or bus crash. For many people, I’m guessing the fear is the fact that most plane crashes result in a total loss. Part of it is also due to the fact that for anyone who is currently an adult, commercial plane crashes were much more frequent when we were growing up than they have been since 9/11. Aircrafts these days are much better maintained than before, technology has done a much better job of preventing crashes, and of course major improvements in security.
IFYP
They reinforced cockpit doors. That’s an improvement. The rest is mostly theater.
It’s more than that - those 12-ounce shampoo bottles can cause some serious injuries.
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Yeah… I’m putting that in the “theater” column. Especially given how easy it is to sneak one on board.
Let’s not forget those cute doggies that sniff us and our luggage as we get through security. Over Thanksgiving it was an East German shepherd - very disciplined.
This isn’t actually true though. I agree that is the most common fear, but it’s misguided by sensationalized media. I think the majority of commercial plane crashes result in few if any fatalities. They’re more like rough landings. Those just don’t get the same type of news coverages as something like the 2 Boeing 737-8 max crashes.
Did I mention I watch a lot of Mayday? I believe it’s exclusively called Air Disasters in your country (and I’m sorry to report that they really dumbed it down in the U.S. version). This has taught me a lot about how many things have to actually go wrong before a plane goes down.
So basically when I got on Coyote Ugly and they said (1) we may not be able to serve you since we’re expecting turbulance for 40-50 mintes due to weather, (2) it was one of the pilots’ first day, and (3) we hit a coyote late enough in the takeoff that we couldn’t abort - I really thought it was gonna a bad day for me.
Oh boy, I’m also slated to fly to Orlando for an SOA symposium in January. Can’t wait.
Is anyone else planning to be at that symposium, living to 100 or something like that?
Yeah, a lot can go wrong and the flight will still land safely… as was the case with your coyote strike.
I was on a flight where there was a horrifying loud noise that started maybe 5 or possibly 10 seconds before takeoff and continued until we were airborne. The pilots circled pretty close to the tower, twice, so the tower could take pictures and send to maintenance who confirmed it was a flat tire. Which they told us about right away, but in a way that did less to put my mind at ease than it might have.
So I was nervous the whole flight… obviously we don’t need a properly inflated tire while we’re in the air, but … don’t we need it to land?!?!
Apparently… no. The landing was fine and you wouldn’t even know there was an issue with the tire if you’d been somehow beamed aboard the aircraft mid-flight and no one bothered to tell you about the tire.
The time I was most terrified though was extreme turbulence. I was flying back to Portland from somewhere back east, via Seattle. Coming into Seattle on a larger airplane was really really bumpy… probably the worst turbulence I’d experienced up to that point, but I fly a lot so I’m used to turbulence.
But the puddle jumper from Seattle to Portland was terrifying. I considered not even boarding based on how bad the turbulence was going into Seattle, but I had to be at church the next day as I was teaching Sunday school and I didn’t want to leave the youth director in the lurch and I figured the pilots weren’t going to risk their lives if it was really a problem.
But oh man… I had the air sick bag out of the holder and opened out and in close proximity of my mouth the whole time, and I was fervently praying to God to forgive my sins and take me into heaven because I really thought that was moments away. I was praying for the skills of the pilots, the airworthiness of the plane, the souls of everyone else on board… it was the most intense praying of my life.
I wanted to write to my mother and tell her that I loved her, but I didn’t feel comfortable setting the air sick bag down long enough to do that, nor did I want to stop praying.
It was orders of magnitude worse than the prior flight which was already the worst turbulence I’d experienced. And I fly a lot. I can’t even describe how bad it was.
But we landed safely. I took the air sick bag with me as I was still feeling pretty queasy, and I noticed a lot of passengers were carrying air sick bags… many of them full.
That’s also the only time I’ve ever experienced airsickness.
I haven’t been too terrified, but I do have a good story.
Me and the wife were on a small regional plane, like 2 seats on one side, 1 seat on the other type, sitting next to each other in the 2-seat side. Turbulence begins, she grabs my left hand with her right and holds on for dear life. I’m pretty calm and collected, using my other hand to hold my book and turn the pages. After about twenty minutes of this, I realize just holding one hand isn’t helping her, so I put the book in the seat-back pocket in front of me and offer my other hand.
“Here, hold my other hand too, it’ll help you feel better.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t let go.” - I look and see she’s gripping the bottom of the seat with her other hand.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m holding the plane up.”
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I once flew out of Newark into an oncoming storm. We were the last flight allowed to get out before the storm. I have never felt turbulence so bad, hope to never again. Things were falling out of the overhead bins, we were hitting air pockets and the plane was plummeting periodically, flight attendants were visibly nervous. It turned my fear of flying into a true anxiety.
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Yes, this was what my flight was like… except for the flight attendants. I have no idea what they looked like because they were never once permitted to unbuckle.
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