It brings me no joy to admit this, but at the same time I consider blogging to be therapy of sorts, and when I post here about something that’s bothering me it instantly makes me feel better. As regular readers know, a couple of weeks ago I had what I called “the Royal Jordanian flight from hell.” I shared further thoughts a few days later and was surprised that my feelings towards flying still hadn’t changed.
Well, I’m currently enroute to South America and am just on a run of the mill domestic flight on American from Seattle to Dallas. This is my first trip since the one that contained my Royal Jordanian flight, and I’m simply in disbelief at my fear of flying.
During takeoff my palms were sweaty and I held my breath just a little. When we hit clear air turbulence I closed my eyes and held onto the armrests.
I don’t know what to do. I’ve flown 2.5 million miles and have never been scared. I understand how airplanes work, understand how safe they are, and aviation is what I love more than anything else. But somehow the feeling of helplessness that I felt for the first time on Royal Jordanian has stuck with me. If I were sitting in the cockpit jumpseat on these flights I’d feel totally at ease, but the feeling of hopelessness is overpowering when I’m on the other side of the cockpit door.
Will my fear go away with a time? Should I take some sort of a “fear of flying” course (not sure that’ll help since I know and can process everything they’re going to tell me)? Has anyone else been in a similar situation?
Gosh, I hope this goes away fast, or else this blog will be about driving. And I really don’t want to have to start researching gas station cash back credit cards. 😉
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