Fear

Fear is something that has always confused me - I understand the basic concept of course, that our brain is programmed to produce a reaction to prevent us from getting hurt in potentially dangerous situations and situations in which we have been hurt previously. In this sense I obviously have a connection missing somewhere as I suffer from what can really only be described as irrational fears.

Firstly, I have a strong fear of needles. By this I do not mean that I don't like needles (lets face it who likes having a needle stuck in them?) - I mean that the sight of a needle can make me shake with fear and an injection can reduce me to tears. Now this fear I can actually understand - I have had some pretty unpleasant experiences with needles in the past including a particularly unpleasant lumber puncture. So I could perhaps forgive myself this fear were I not recently forced to have a series of 12 injections over a few hours - during which I realised that they don't actually hurt that much. Great, I can imagine you thinking, cured! In fact, I am just as afraid as ever - only now I recognise it as an irrational fear. I suppose thats a step in the right direction!

My biggest fear however is by far the most crippling - I am terrified of flying. Every time I have to fly I get myself to the airport and onto the plane by simply ignoring what I am actually going to do. As soon as the plane moves I am hit with an overwhelming urge to run screaming to the front yelling "get me off, get me off". However, I sit quietly, read the paper and tell myself I am still on dry land. When the engines power up for takeoff it is only the fact that I am surrounded by 200+ people who would be very annoyed at me which prevents me from making them stop the plane so I can get off.

Take-off is hell. I have now learnt the best way to cope is simply to close my eyes and bury my head in the person next to me - which thankfully is usually my partner! This is a significant improvement on a few years ago, when said partner once stated he was never getting on a plane with me again after I suffered from a panic attack and began hyperventilating mid take-off.

Once I am up in the air and the seatbelt signs are off however I morph back into a normal human being and relax to a more or less normal level of panic - I simply don't think about the fact that I am in the air and manage to just about fool my brain into thinking I am safe.

Panic sets in once again during landing. In the intervening years since my fear began I have not been as successful at controlling my fear during landing as I have with the take-off. I am still prone to tears and a heartbeat somewhere in the region of that obtained during a vigorous game of squash. The relief I feel once I am on the ground is indescribable - it practically makes me giddy with joy!

Of course the problem with all this - apart from the several hours of endured hell spent on the plane, is that it ruins any holiday I ever take. The preceding month or so before the trip I spend with a quite worry at the back of my mind, and the actual holiday I spend with an acute awareness that I have to get back on a plane to return home again. All this leads to the fact that often the best part of a holiday for me is getting home and having a large cup of tea.

The strange thing about this fear is that it really appears to have no root. My dad was an airline pilot and I spent much of my early years on planes bound for various places. I loved planes. They meant going places and seeing things. There is no particular experience that I can pinpoint as causing the fear, although I know when it started. At 14, on a flight to Egypt I simply became afraid. My dad thought I had lost the plot I think, although he patiently sat with me and explained all the noises which suddenly terrified me, and how the airplane was working to stay in the air, go up, go down, turn etc. The outcome of all this is that I now understand what all the scary noises are. Unfortunately I still find them scary.

The point that I am trying to make here is that I know the fear I experience is totally irrational. The noises I hear terrify me, although I know that they are normal. I suffer from a truly crippling fear that the plane I am on will crash - and nothing rational like the fact that airplanes are safer than cars will get in the way of that. Perhaps my fear has become a phobia by virtue of being truly irrational.

People look at me like I am an idiot when I say I am afraid of flying and say things like 'its safer than crossing the road'. Of course they miss the point. I know that. Unfortunately somewhere in my unconscious clearly disagrees with that statement and thinks that there is nothing more suicidal than being 35000 feet in the air in a chunk of metal being held up by nothing but air!

I suppose it could be worse of course - I know someone with a crippling phobia of clowns. Do they not know its just a person in silly face paint?