The Cattery

The Cattery

Fear Of Flying

11 June 2004
Filed under Text

I hate flying. I've hated it more each time I've flown since I was fourteen or fifteen. I can pinpoint the flight it started: we'd been stuck for what seemed like hours on the Bangkok tarmac in an un-airconditioned plane, waiting for repairs to enable our takeoff. It must have been 32 or 33 degrees in there, and the breath of 300 people condensed on the windows, forming first fog and then water. When we finally got off the ground, we flew straight into a long and seatbelt-signy night, and I gripped my father's wrist while he slept. Some three years later, flying from Melbourne to Rome, the nerves returned, more insistently. These days, I'm a honest-to-god basket case, ready to throw myself out of the plane rather than experience any more of that mortal dread (I'm the first to admit the contradiction here).

But I'm determined not to let it stop me doing things I want to do, so in a few short days I'm starting an 8-stop round-the-world journey, armed with a few prescription WMD, as well as some old-fashioned Good Advice, from an organisation called CRUFAD that deals specifically with anxiety disorders.

It took me a while to get to this point – before my last trip, I spent 5 weeks (and an extraordinary amount of money) in hypnotherapy, basically determining that I wasn't really suggestible, although I did actually fall asleep in the chair a couple of times. So rather than flying to Sri Lanka in a trance-like state brought on by successful self-hypnosis, I took a few valiums, drank several glasses of wine, and kind of got there anyway.

On Wednesday, we shall see what we shall see.

Views from the Floor

Naz says:

Good luck with the flying - don't worry. Personally having grown up on planes I'm used to it. I used to hate it as a kid, probably because the journey was so long (17 hours from London to Kuala Lumpur) but now it's second nature. My two favourite things? Take off and landing. Take off more though, that little g-force feeling, oh yeah.

Whare are you heading anyhow? I think you mentioned NY.

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