A Journal Entry

I can not tell you the difference between fear and intuition. I can tell you that fear can be a complete distraction. When irrational, it can suck the life out of you. Your time, energy, creativity, time spent thinking about being creative. Instead of thinking about how you want to be on said trip, you are thinking about what can go wrong. Instead of thinking, ‘I get to meet someone’s loved ones and maybe I could bring them a gift or gift them with my best presence’; I am thinking what is the worst thing that could happen.

I started doing things that scared me because I suspected some of my fears were irrational. At each time an event went well, I felt relief afterwards. I didn’t feel happy because the event itself, I felt happy because I had survived it! As strange as that sounds, it was true for me. Change is very slow in this case.

In particular recently, I faced a fear of flying in a plane. I can not believe I even agreed to do this. The only reason is because it was for someone else. The truth is I would not have never gotten on a plane again and probably would not have been sorry about it.

I was extremely nervous before and looking for reasons not to go. Before we left I became very emotional and it was hard to hold it in. I let myself feel it the whole way to the airport. The intensity filling the inside of my body like it was full of air pressure and ready to pop.

Once inside the airport, I still felt uneasy. I needed a hand holding. I knew I was going through with it. I felt like, ‘this is happening.’ The person I went with wanted to use the bathroom, I asked/told him to wait until we went through the baggage claim. I wanted that to be over with and was pleased that they were willing to wait. As soon as I made a joke about a strip search, things felt better. Getting the giggles helped to release a bit of pent up energy. Once we got to the area where our plane was taking off, I felt like I had completely faced the fear already. I felt wild relief and an early celebration feeling, even though I hadn’t gotten on the flight yet.

Even though I was really terrified because of one experience, the old associations were also there in my memory. The ones showing me that the airport is exciting. Everything was so normal about it: the people hustling by, the lady sleeping on the floor, the long line at the coffee place, the complainers that didn’t get their coffee yet or had a long layover, etc. My natural excitement for doing something new took over and just enjoying being a part of it. I became distracted by the trinkets to buy and the coffees to order.

I shared my iPhone charger with my young neighbor, who called me a real G. He said that means I am an original gangster. I ignored a few things that would spiral me down again and just went through the motions until we landed. It occurred to me that my feelings were not necessarily true. The day that shaped the fear I actually firmly believed I was making the right choices. I felt at peace in the moments before things went south. Perhaps you may call it, the calm before the storm. I remembered this when I was reflecting. So, if my feelings were not a correct gage of what would happen then, I couldn’t necessarily rely on them now. What was different was I was not alone and someone knew where I was.

That’s it. Fear faced. I felt okay for awhile. Because it was a red eye, I was distracted by the feeling of being completely wiped out.

It wasn’t until a day or two at said destination that I started thinking about the trip home…and my brain found some problems. This made me want to already be through the end of the trip, rushing things, because then I would be ‘fine.’ Facing the fear once certainly did help a lot, but it is one experience that flying is safe and leaving the house is safe. I think I will need to stack up a few more good experiences.

Telling someone you can trust, preferably two people, where you are and when you will be back is not just for kids, it is forever.

Unknown

I don’t actually need to believe flying is safe. I do want to believe living is safe. Unfortunately, after the trip went south that caused all this fear in the first place, I became afraid of many, many things. The fear crept in on me and started to spoil the good things. Every trip I took after that was a risk until I got ‘home safe’ again.

This took some energy to leave the house and take any trip. A trip to the store, trip to get Starbucks, trip to get gas, trip to hike in a neighboring town- risk. Sometimes I would just turn around and come home before it was all done. The problem is, after a bad experience, you are literally in overdrive deciding if it is safe. If that is the case, you will see problems, because you are looking for them.

Compared to who I used to be, being afraid to leave the house was a 180. I used to leave the house without a care except which traffic I would avoid or if I would need to pull over and take a nap. Holding someone’s hand helped me face the fear of flying. It made it a lot easier. The other thing that helped: someone else knew where I was and who I was with. Telling someone you can trust, preferably two people, where you are and when you will be back is not just for kids, it is forever. Another thing I would recommend if you have dealt with stalking, is to diversify the people you tell. Two different people from two different groups ensures the truth remains.

So am I better for the experience? Who can tell. I am just happy to be home.