Panic Attacks

This post is responding to the Learjet accident that happened in Florida over the weekend. It was an incredibly tragic incident that lost the lives of nine people in a private jet.

Invariably, after something like this happens, I receive emails and calls from people both looking for help with their fear of flying, and also to ask how things like this can happen and still feel like it's okay to fly.

When people see incidents like this, it has a way of validating their fear of flying. It means that all the worrying and fear has been justified all along, and that flying really is something very dangerous and that it's only the lucky few who manage to get away with flying without incident. It can be very difficult when the fear is activated to hold onto a sense of perspective when these moments happen, and it can become too easy to fall into avoidance of flying altogether.

Is Flying Dangerous? It Can Feel Like It Is

When a tragedy involving an airplane happens, it can be tempting to universally see flying as dangerous. I've talked about "reverse normalization" in various posts about fear of flying and flying phobia. This is the concept that the more negative you take in about flying, the more it starts to outweigh the positive about flying that you interact with. And since most news about flying doesn't show the positive (you don't see all the takeoffs and landings on the news or on social media), what people consume about flying is usually the bad. It leaves you with the internal feeling that flying is dangerous and it becomes difficult to refute this voice.

This is amplified when an actual tragedy happens. While the incident that happened over the weekend is incredibly sad, you will likely encounter many, many posts on social media all pertaining to this Learjet accident. Everybody comes out of the woodwork for a flying tragedy story -- pilots trying to figure out what happened, news outlets, people who are afraid of flying posting about it, etc. And even though it is actually one incident, every post you see about it is taken in by your brain as a new incident. So if you see 30 posts about this incident, your brain responds to it as if you've interacted with 30 tragedies. This becomes more and more convincing internally that flying is truly dangerous and should be avoided at all costs, and elevates your fear.

Fear Of Flying Seeks Validation, But Needs Perspective

It is very difficult in these moments for people to soothe the anxiety, or to take in all of the flights that this did not happen to. Like I said above, there is a part that feels validated when these moments happen. It justifies the fear and makes people feel there's really a reason they're afraid, rather than feeling anxiety around flying for no reason. It becomes important in moments where things do happen to zoom out, and really see how rare these moments are. How many flights took off and landed without incident even in the same day.

It can also be tempting -- when the normalization is reversed and flying is experienced as dangerous -- to feel that you'll be the one on the plane where something goes really wrong, and difficult to access the feeling that you'll be on one of the many, many planes that travel without incident. When the fear voice is louder, it seems like all of the bad news you encounter will be what happens to you.

All-Or-Nothing Thinking

People can easily fall into the black and white trap when thinking about flying. The assumption people often make is that one little mistake and catastrophe happens, leaving a very small window for any error to be possible. This often leaves people feeling they are on the verge of disaster at all times with flying. And, for many, this may reach into personal life experiences that can make the flying environment feel scary and unpredictable. This is part of working on fear of flying, understanding and working through life experiences that can make the flying environment triggering.

In this all-or-nothing mindset, it can be challenging to grasp that there is a large window where things can go wrong on a plane, and still not have it be disaster or catastrophe. When seeing a tragedy happen, you're encountering a rare time where many things had to go wrong all at once.

Life Without Guarantees

One of the hurdles that people struggle to overcome with flying anxiety is the lack of guarantee. And nothing triggers this more than a flying incident. It's a jarring reminder of the lack of guarantee that comes with life. It can be hard for people to really accept the lack of guarantee that comes with almost anything in life. When you get out of bed in the morning, nothing is guaranteed. When you take a shower, there is no guarantee you won't slip and hit your head. In the worst, most extreme moments, many normally benign things can fatal. The list of risks everyone takes daily (generally without even knowing it) can go on all day.

But a tragedy is always a painful reminder of how fragile life can be. And it makes sense that sometimes things do happen in the world (not just with airplanes), and we feel the impact of it. It's sad, it's scary, it's painful, it's devastating, it's triggering, and more. These feelings are well-placed right now with what happened over the weekend. And, at the same time, flying hasn't become less safe in the last week.

#fearofflying #flyinganxiety #Phobia #Anxiety #PanicAttacks

Anxiety can often look different from what you might expect. Though many people may associate anxiety with worry or restlessness, many symptoms can show up in ways that at first seem unrelated.

For example, you may struggle with persistent physical discomfort or with making decisions that seem simple to others. You might find yourself irritable without fully understanding why. These experiences can make it hard to recognize what’s happening. When anxiety doesn’t show up as racing thoughts or panic, it can masquerade as something else. This can leave people confused about why daily life may feel so exhausting.

Physical Symptoms That Seem Unrelated

Your body often signals anxiety before your mind fully registers it.

Chronic muscle tension: particularly in your jaw, neck, or shoulders.

Frequent migraines or headaches: these may seem to appear without clear triggers.

Digestive issues: such as nausea, stomach pain, or changes in appetite.

Persistent fatigue: that sleep doesn’t necessarily resolve; or difficulty falling asleep even when you're tired.

Unexplained aches and pains: that move through different parts of your body.

These physical experiences can feel disconnected from anxiety because they don’t involve obvious worry or fear. People sometimes seek out a medical explanation, only to find that tests come back normal. Physical symptoms can often show up with anxiety because your nervous system stays heightened -- even if your thoughts may be calm.

The Perfectionism Connection

Anxiety often drives a need for control that can appear as perfectionism. You might spend excessive time on tasks because nothing you do feels sufficient. The fear of doing something wrong or disappointing others can shape your choices in ways that constrain your life.

This perfectionism can often stem from underlying anxiety about being judged or failing. High-functioning anxiety traits like perfectionism can also make your struggle invisible to others. You may appear competent and together on the outside while simultaneously internally experiencing significant distress.

Decision-Making Becomes Exhausting

Decisions, even minor ones, can cause intense discomfort. You might spend hours researching simple purchases or change your mind repeatedly about plans, or bigger things like relationships, where to live, or career. The fear of making the wrong decision can create paralysis. It may feel difficult to commit to anything without attempting to find full certainty of the outcome of the decision first.

This pattern can reflect underlying fears in commitment and difficulty in accepting the unfamiliar. When you finally make a decision, you may continue second-guessing yourself long afterward due to the anxiety being carried.

Irritability and Low Frustration Tolerance

Anxiety can also include irritability that seems disproportionate to the situation. Small inconveniences may trigger amplified reactions. You may find yourself lashing out or being short or cold with people you care about, or feel overwhelmed by disruptions to your routine.

This irritability can stem from the internal tension that anxiety often creates. When you're anxious, your nervous system tends to be operating on high alert, leaving little capacity to tolerate additional stress. What others seem to be absorbing easily can feel intolerable when you’re already managing so much internal chaos.

Constant Mental Noise

When you're mentally anxious, your mind may feel perpetually busy without focusing on anything specific. It may feel like a simmering unease: it may not feel the same as intense worry, but it's also noticeable internally that you're not feeling at peace.

This mental noise can interfere with concentration and even compromise your memory. You may notice yourself forgetting conversations or missing details because your attention is divided across multiple internal concerns.

Avoidance Justified As Preference

High-functioning anxiety can also include avoidance that is disguised as making personal decisions. For example, you may decline social invitations and say you prefer staying home. It may feel easier to dismiss situations that are anxiety-inducing rather than to face the unwanted feelings. This subtle avoidance has a way of gradually narrowing people's lives until their world feels very small. It may be hard to realize just how much anxiety influences these decisions since they are disguised as voluntary, rather than the result of fear and anxiety.

Along with anxiety and other areas, one of my specialties is working with people who have a fear a flying. It can be very easy for people who struggle with flying anxiety to find reasons not to take trips, feeling that they're exercising personal preference, while deeper down these decisions are being guided by fear and anxiety. This can play out similarly with daily activities like avoiding socializing, avoiding conversations and feelings, certain experiences, and more. What seems like is choosing personal preference in these moments is really the avoidance of anxiety.

While some people may not see this as an issue -- why is it bad to avoid if avoiding makes your anxiety go away -- the answer is that it often keeps people more isolated, not doing the things they want to be able to do, shrinking their world, and living in fear. Eventually, your world diminishes without you realizing it. Avoidance can leave you feeling alone, disconnected and unfulfilled, depressed, and actually usually increases overall anxiety (even if it may relieve it momentarily), sometimes even setting the stage for panic attacks.

Moving Forward From Anxiety

When the internal experience of anxiety doesn’t match your expectations of what anxiety should look like, it can persist unrecognized for years, allowing it strengthen and start to take over in various ways. If you've noticed it becoming harder to feel comfortable in your own body, it may be a good time to start exploring further.

#Anxiety #MentalHealth #SomaticSymptomandRelatedDisorders #Headache #Migraine #phobias

Living with Anxiety virtual support group is for people who are living with anxiety. Develop coping skills, share common experiences, gain self-advocacy skills, and find community.

💻 If you'd like more information or would like to join, you can find the link here. Virtual groups are every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month, 6 to 7:30 PM Eastern Standard Time. Closed captioning is available:
naminycmetro.org/programs/living-with-anxiety

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below!

#Anxiety #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #Agoraphobia #SocialAnxiety #PanicDisorder #PanicAttack #PTSD #CPTSD #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #MentalHealth #BipolarDisorder #Depression #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #CheckInWithMe

Living with Anxiety virtual support group is for people who are living with anxiety. Develop coping skills, share common experiences, gain self-advocacy skills, and find community.

💻 If you'd like more information or would like to join, you can find the link here. Virtual groups are every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month, 6 to 7:30 PM Eastern Standard Time. Closed captioning is available:
naminycmetro.org/programs/living-with-anxiety

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below!

#Anxiety #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #Agoraphobia #SocialAnxiety #PanicDisorder #PanicAttack #PTSD #CPTSD #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #MentalHealth #BipolarDisorder #Depression #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #CheckInWithMe

(So sorry for disappearing on you, I was very under the weather recently. I've missed you all!)

Just a reminder that we can only regulate our emotions when we allow ourselves to feel them.
#Addiction #Agoraphobia #Anxiety #AnorexiaNervosa #ADHD #Autism #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #BipolarDisorder #BipolarDepression #BackPain #BingeEatingDisorder #EatingDisorders #FamilialHemiplegicMigraine #Fibromyalgia #FoodAllergies #Gastroparesis #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #JointHypermobilitySyndrome #Headache #Lupus #Migraine #PanicAttacks #POTS #PTSD #RestlessLegsSyndrome #SjogrensSyndrome #SuicidalThoughts #Selfharm #Selfcare

Fear of flying has historically been very complicated to treat. The foundation for fear of flying is different for everybody and part of treating this is learning each person and their own individual experience with fear of flying (and the various ways to respond to it). Most people with flying anxiety don't tend to find things like prepared videos or apps all that helpful. It's very hard to resolve a complex fear like flying with rational facts about how safe flying is, or using general phobia techniques and expecting it to truly access the depth of a person's fear (and the history behind it).

Most phobias, outside of flying anxiety, involve a sense of control. You can be afraid of snakes, driving, bugs, etc., and with each of these you are still on the ground, with the ability to walk away from the moment if it gets too overwhelming and frightening. Typical phobia and anxiety techniques take for granted this element of control still existing. Being in an airplane and the flying environment is very scary for many people to not have this same sense of control.

If you're wanting to learn more, you're welcome to read through my blog and around the internet about my approach for this issue. For this post, however, I'm going to focus on one type of personality that I've seen struggle heavily over the years with fear of flying:

The person who is in control in their daily lives, and most everything involved in their lives, but filled with anxiety and fear when it comes to flying

For the sake of clarity, each person in this group also comes with their own individual history and experience as well. Not everyone in this group has the same foundation, and their fears with flying don't all play out the same.

People who find themselves in this group often refer to themselves as a "control freak". These people tend to flourish with things they can control. Often the financially successful, or the emotional caretakers, the busy and driven, the high-achieving. If you identify in this group, you may have set routines in your daily life that are comfortable and secure; you can (or at least try to) fix issues right away that present themselves either at work or at home. You may find yourself staying busy however you can, with little time to sit and think. In life, you are in control, and when you come across something that is out of your control, this is okay because you can usually ignore or avoid it.

For people in this group, at least two things can often be difficult: relationships, and fear of flying (there are exceptions, so both may not necessarily apply to you). These are two areas where people who thrive with control often find they have very little control. Combined with this is often trust, vulnerability, and intimacy. Again, this may not all apply to every person.

The Vulnerability Of Surrendering Control

When people who are very good at knowing how to be in control in life come up against things that take their own shape, and require emotional flexibility—when you can't just fix the turbulence but have to ride it through—everything can suddenly feel like it's falling apart. When you're in the plane, you can't just leave the plane and you can't stop the turbulence either. This becomes one of the most vulnerable situations for someone who is routinely in control and looks to fix things right away. Having to sit with not being in control and feel incredibly uneasy or even terrifying to the point of panic.

However, this issue isn't as simple as having "control issues". It goes deeper than this. There are reasons that people who are usually in control in life tend to feel the safest when they are in control. This is often because of past experiences that have made uncertain environments feel unsafe, dangerous, and threatening.

The Illusion Of Control, And The Threat Of Sitting In Uncertainty

Every day, we do things in life that could ultimately harm us if things go very wrong. This isn't isolated to the airplane and anxiety around flying. Every time you get in the car, there's no guarantee, but when you're feeling in control of the car, you likely feel safe, no matter how risky driving really is.

When you're used to being in control, or follow a daily life script, and know how to respond in life to the various situations that come up, sitting in the out of control environment can feel like torture. Anything that goes off script—delays, sounds you don't expect, sensations you don't normally experience on the ground, unpredictable people who you don't know around you, emotions you can normally avoid by staying busy, etc.—all can feel threatening. It can feel like the shoe is going to drop and like you're on the verge of catastrophe at any moment. (This can also fuel anticipatory anxiety as a part of you becomes fearful when knowing you're going to enter this kind of environment. The out of control feelings from deeper experiences start to show up when the uncertainty sets in with no quick fix to it).

Fear Of The Flying Environment

When people are afraid of flying, they don't all fear the same parts of flying. However, in this one particular group—the person who is chronically in control in life—the scariest part of flying is often not about actual catastrophe (though for some this is part of it), but rather, the threat is usually having to sit with and feel the fear itself. Not knowing if their emotions—which are usually controlled or avoided—might overwhelm or completely consume them if they don't have room to move. Feeling out of control of the environment is something that brings these often neglected emotions forward, often in the form of panic attacks, or extreme worry and anxiety. This can often be for people who have lived through various types of trauma, or who were raised in a chaotic, abusive, or emotionally neglectful homes where there was an unpredictable parent, or sibling; or someone who's been through bullying, as well.

Surrendering control means vulnerability to harm, not being prepared, and defenseless. In flying anxiety, the airplane environment has a way of tapping into these vulnerabilities. Each person who comes to rely on control as a way of maintaining emotional safety in life develops this mechanism from various experiences, and understanding each person's experience informs what is needed to help be able to surrender control, and to learn to trust that things can still be okay. Maybe not only in flying; maybe also in relationships, and other areas of life too.

It Is Possible To Overcome Fear Of Flying

Flying anxiety and flying phobia impacts many people, and it's not only with the personality I described above. All types of people can be afraid to fly. However, it is possible to overcome this issue. I have seen people do it on a regular basis.

#fearofflying #flyinganxiety #Agoraphobia #PanicAttacks #Claustrophobia #MentalHealth #Anxiety

I love comic books and larping and MTG and fantasy books about dystopian worlds unfit for the style of procreation we know of in our world. I also really love drawing my character when I play table top games. My favorite game is Pugmire. I'm a major geek.
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