Terrified of flying

I'll tell you a tale:

At 15 I became afraid of flying, was never great to start with but at 15 I stopped flying completely, oh and lifts wouldn't use them either!

About 2 years ago I had a think and decided I needed to try fix this fear as im 26 now and its impacting my life. So I began by going to the doctor and asking for pills, im not a fan of taking stuff but you have to do it sometimes. He superscribed clonazepam, at .25 dose.

I decided to tackle lifts first to see how it goes. So one day I took 3 pills and off I went. I got in a lift and WAS FINE! Said to myself well lets keep going, so I then wondered dublin city for 2 hours taking every lift I could find lol The next day in work I took a single pill got in the lift went up and down twice.... fine. I then stopped taking pills and over the coming days I got better and better.

With that success I wanted to tackle flying, but flying is a much bigger beast so I needed to make myself feel safe as much as possible. With that I signed up for counselling just to talk things out and work on how to deal with emotions which continued for 6 weeks, one perweek. For the first flight I went to liverpool where I spent 3 hours and came back lol I took so many pills I cant remember much of it........ but that was fine I did it at least.

From then on I flew every month going further and further slowing reducing the amount I took from 5 to the point where I flew to Canada last summer and didnt need any pills and was fine(mostly). Then about two months ago I decided to learn to fly, so far I've 5 hours experience and am booking more and more.

I think the lesson I learned is that we hype this **** so much in our heads which is what makes it hard. And it can be done and is worth it!

Doylers wrote: »

I'll tell you a tale:

At 15 I became afraid of flying, was never great to start with but at 15 I stopped flying completely, oh and lifts wouldn't use them either!

About 2 years ago I had a think and decided I needed to try fix this fear as im 26 now and its impacting my life. So I began by going to the doctor and asking for pills, im not a fan of taking stuff but you have to do it sometimes. He superscribed clonazepam, at .25 dose.

I decided to tackle lifts first to see how it goes. So one day I took 3 pills and off I went. I got in a lift and WAS FINE! Said to myself well lets keep going, so I then wondered dublin city for 2 hours taking every lift I could find lol The next day in work I took a single pill got in the lift went up and down twice.... fine. I then stopped taking pills and over the coming days I got better and better.

With that success I wanted to tackle flying, but flying is a much bigger beast so I needed to make myself feel safe as much as possible. With that I signed up for counselling just to talk things out and work on how to deal with emotions which continued for 6 weeks, one perweek. For the first flight I went to liverpool where I spent 3 hours and came back lol I took so many pills I cant remember much of it........ but that was fine I did it at least.

From then on I flew every month going further and further slowing reducing the amount I took from 5 to the point where I flew to Canada last summer and didnt need any pills and was fine(mostly). Then about two months ago I decided to learn to fly, so far I've 5 hours experience and am booking more and more.

I think the lesson I learned is that we hype this **** so much in our heads which is what makes it hard. And it can be done and is worth it!

No harm, but if I had to take that many pills to fly, I'd probably never do it.

I used to be a great flyer when I first started, and got gradually worse as the years passed.

I'm not mad keen on it now, but do it whenever I have to, like family holidays abroad. It always works out fine.

Its one of those things that people simply have an irrational fear of. Will always be like that.

I love flying, long flights over sea/ocean are a bit of a drag.
But window seat is important for me, if a long haul flight I do some preparation...track the same flight/airline in the lead up to the flight and know the general area where you will be flying over beforehand and what time roughly one is over a certain area. Had this done for a flight that went over Greenland and got to see the icebergs and the ice sheet, which does add to a holiday, will likely never visit Greenland so this was next best.
Take off is the best...

On a twin I like the big bump of thrust you get on takeoff roll when they turn the taps on, safe in the knowledge that it has twice the power available that it actually needs to take off. Yes I know they usually do derated/flex temp takeoffs to save on engine wear, but there's still a nice kick there.

I was only on an A340 twice, it's not called the "ground gripper" for nothing, and some say it only takes off because it travels in a straight line but the earth below it is curved it was a good bit quieter than the 330 we flew on the sectors before/after though, so you can't have everything.

I was on a plane and it hit the worst turbulence I have ever experienced. One of the air stewards was knocked out when she hit her head on the ceiling. People were screaming.
As it got really bad " Don't Fear the Reaper" started playing on my player. I start to laugh really loudly and the two people beside me who were screaming stopped and started staring at me.

bodice ripper wrote: »

Back at schiphol. Today's flight must be booze/benzo free, as I am heading directly to work from Dublin Airport. If I can manage this, I will feel like a golden god. Or perhaps an adult of some sort.

Best of luck to you.

I also have experience of a real bad flight.

Coming from Stansted into Derry one November night, I got a call before I boarded the plane from my brother, who knew I wasn't mad about flying, saying "its very windy here in Derry".

It was near windless in London, so I didn't worry too much.

About 15mins after take off the pilot had the cheek to come over the tannoy and say "its a bit windy in Derry tonight so we will probably head that way and make an attempt to land, and if we have any problems we may have to land at another airport".

You can tell I then started to get nervous. The flight was not that bumpy until I guess we got somewhere close to NI/Belfast area, maybe Isle of Man, I don't know.

It then got very bumpy in the cabin. Very bumpy. Constant shaking, no let up at all. Its got worse the closer we got to Derry, and some people were openly shaking, crying etc. Since I was on my own, I had no-one to hold on to!!

Anyway, as we came in to land, I was looking up the cabin to the top of it, and I couldn't believe just how much swaying to the left and right it was doing. I thought if we were trying to land there was a fair chance one of the wings would surely touch the ground.

The 1st landing attempt was aborted, it was very shaky, and the woman in front of me fainted and her head and shoulders flopped out over the arm of her seat just as the pilot hit the power. There was quite a few people openly crying at this point.

We swung around and were able to land on the 2nd attempt. Never as glad to get on the ground. I also remember the Ryanair pilot putting out another message after the landing to say basically he was within limits to attempt it. I think perhaps he feared a pile of PTSD claims!!

I was in the dentist the next day and overheard a guy in the waiting room chatting about the storm the night before, and said he knew a guy who worked ATC in Derry, and they had their highest ever gust that night. I think it was 95mph or something, but I remember laughing and telling them I was on a plane trying to land the previous night.

Anyway, I won't lie and I did think it might have been the end of me, as I had never been on a trip that had so much constant shaking and rattling of a plane before. And it was sustained for maybe 25min or more. A very frightening experience.

But the one thing it did show me was just how resilent those aeroplanes are to turbulence. If anything was going to fall off it, it would have that night.