A little over three months ago, I confessed that I had not been on an airplane in two years.
As usual, you were all lovely and understanding and flooded my comment box with tips and stories and advice. I was ready to get on a plane and make the trip for my best friend’s engagement party.
Except, when the big day arrived, I did not get on that plane.
I managed to get to the airport. I managed to wait in line. I managed to check in–while sobbing uncontrollably. But I never managed to even begin walking to the departure gate. The Xanax didn’t work. Somehow, my panic was no match for the chemicals.My fear had paralyzed me.
The next 24 hours rank right up there with the most traumatic experiences of my life. In all my adult life, I have not felt like such a failure as I did that day. In all my adult life, I have not felt less understood as I did on that day. Slowly, as the news trickled down to all the relevant people, my panic grew fiercer. The reactions were diverse. An overwhelming silence from the friends that were already on the island waiting to pick me up at the airport. Rage from my brother who believes in ‘tough love’. Anxiousness and guilt from my mother. My sister and The Best Friend were proud. “You fucking made it to the airport! You checked in! You took your first step!”
Over the course of the next month, which coincided with the first three weeks of my relationship with him, I self-medicated myself with Xanax every single day. I was chain smoking. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep without a pill.
I told no-one.
(I don’t recommend this strategy)
Sure, there were conversations had–here and there–about what happened. And all of them made me feel worse. He was a good distraction from all these things. My mind was filled with him; purposefully. If I allowed myself to not think of him I would have to deal with the plethora of guilt, disappointment and fear that I felt inside. What kind of person misses their best friend’s engagement? What kind of person can’t get on a plane? What kind of person can allow irrational fear to consume her in this way? But the one question that replayed itself over and over in my mind was the most frightening of all.
“Was this going to be my life for ever?”
I say I was at peace when I met him. And I was. But, beneath the peace was all of this. I was dealing with all of this while trying to begin a relationship. That it failed, therefore, is not surprising. That I broke down–completely–when it ended was inevitable.
I am not ashamed of my panic attack disorder or the depression. (The two seem to go hand in hand.) But, I do hate it. It gets in my way. It ruins relationships–friendships and romances, it causes tension in my family and it stops me from living exactly the kind of life that I want to live. But, it is here. Over the last year, I have tried to avoid it while also trying to defeat it. After the troubling summer I had, I realized that I can’t avoid it. I can’t control it. I can’t defeat it without the proper tools. I learned that this is one battle that I have to face on my own. That those around me will never, really, understand it. I learned that others will never really accept it.
These realizations were–and continue to be– isolating.
But, I know that I”m not alone. According to the UK’s National Health Service, at least 10% of the world’s population suffer from some sort of anxiety disorder. There are a lot of us out there. And so I wanted to put out part of my story. Its fragmented and all over the place, I know. But, its fragmented and all over the place in my head.
Perhaps, in time, I will be able to make sense of it; express it more eloquently. But for now, the admission that I am a phobic is all the sense I can make.
