Onset
Flying can become a problem after a bad flight. But in most cases, the problem begins in a different way, when a person discovers—to his amazement—that he just can’t get on the plane. What’s going on?
Anxiety is regulated by a combination of internal psychological resources, external support from others, and compensatory strategies. Flying becomes a problem when internal resources falter, external support is lost, or compensatory strategies lose their effectiveness. This can happen for a number of reasons, as we shall see.
No Apparent Reason
I flew for years with no problem. I never really liked it, but I could do it. Now I just can’t see myself getting on a plane.
It strikes anxious fliers as strange that it starts this way, but this is how the problem usually begins: After flying for years with little or no anxiety, suddenly it becomes a problem. Stresses can build up over time, often without the buildup being noticed. Compensatory strategies—possibly unconscious ones—keep us from noticing the buildup. If the accumulated load becomes too great, compensatory strategies—the various personal security blankets we depend on—may crumple under the load of accumulated concerns. When young, a person may know of only one plane crash. But as years go by, she hears about others. Each time the person flies, these crashes come to mind. When facing an upcoming flight, information about one additional crash can be too much. Just as one purchase—large or small—can put your credit card over the limit, one single concern can put you over the top when it comes to regulating anxiety. Suddenly and unexpectedly, you just can’t take the flight.
Onset Due to Loss
My father died suddenly of a heart attack. I flew to his funeral. There was nothing special about the flight. I wasn’t afraid, as best I can remember, but I haven’t been able to fly since. Though he spent his life doing everything correct medically and maintained a healthy lifestyle, he passed away at fifty-seven. Somewhere in my head I connected the possibility that the worst thing in life can happen despite your best efforts to protect yourself from it. From then on, my somewhat dormant fear of flying ballooned into a full-blown problem. Suddenly, I couldn’t board a plane much less look at them take off or land, not even on TV or in movies. It was that bad! I had to lie to get myself out of plans because I was too embarrassed to admit my fear. I felt terrible; I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I didn’t know how I lost a grip on a seemingly simple thing and I felt very alone. On top of it all, I was losing money on blown trips. I may never get back to see places like Costa Rica or Sweden.
In an optimal childhood, challenges become linked to parental support. In theory, if the supportive parenting were fully internalized, a child would grow up having little or no ongoing need for his or her parents. In practice, however, support is only partly internalized, and we never completely outgrow our need for external support.
For the sake of illustration, let’s imagine a person has internalized 50 percent of the emotional support he or she needs, and is dependent on the physical presence of the parents for the remaining 50 percent. Upon their death, the 50 percent provided by the physical presence of the parents is lost. Though the 50 percent that’s built in remains, it isn’t accessible. Until the cycle of grieving is complete, whenever the parents come to mind—which is often, at this juncture—there are painful feelings of loss rather than comforting feelings of support. He continued his story as follows:
I won’t lie: I didn’t follow the SOAR steps down to the letter. Though there were some bad moments, I was able to slowly trust the lessons in my head over the irrational fear I couldn’t control. Each time the fear came around I was able to combat it. On some rare moments, I even felt my love of flying and looking out the window come back. I just got back from my latest flight. Something strange happened before my flight departed: My normal level of fear was gone. That gnawing feeling of anticipatory anxiety was gone. It felt strange, almost like I missed it. I doubt every flight will be that smooth, but that’s not the point. I have my life back and the fear is now manageable. That’s all I ever wanted.
Childhood Onset
We’re planning a trip, and my child doesn’t want to go. He says he’s afraid to fly. I don’t understand it, because although I don’t really like to fly, I’ve kept it from him. When we’ve flown before as a family, I’ve always sat away from him so he doesn’t see me afraid.
When a child expresses fear of flying, it should be recognized as a wake-up call because the problem is not just flying. The child has not adequately developed his or her ability to regulate anxiety. Professional assistance is essential. Otherwise, as a teenager, emotional regulation will become a problem neither the child nor the parents can control. Whatever the teenager needs to do to get relief will be done, which may mean drugs and other self-destructive behavior. Parents are fortunate when the emotional regulation surfaces as a fear-of-flying problem, rather than a drugs, alcohol, or behavior problem.
When I was thirteen, I just started having panic attacks. I don’t want to get one on the plane.
For many teenagers, everything seems out of control. There’s stress from competition with other teens. There’s stress due to conflicts with parents. Indeed, the teenager’s body can be out of control. If panic becomes a problem, so does flying. On the plane, there is neither control to prevent panic, nor escape to relieve it.
Adult Onset
I had never really thought about being out in the world on my own. I guess I thought college was going to go on forever.
Onset when beginning college is due to inadequate internal replicas when physically separating from people needed for emotional support, and the uncertainties the young adult discovers in a larger world. In a commencement address at Harvard in 2010, Justice David Souter said, “Is there any one of us who has not lived through moments, or years, of longing for a world without ambiguity . . . ? I don’t forget my own longings for certainty, which heartily resisted the pronouncement of Justice Holmes, that certainty generally is illusion and repose is not our destiny.”
Parents offer children a simplified world in which behaviors are either right or wrong, and activities are either safe or dangerous. As children grow up, simplicity needs to give way to complexity. Parents who themselves have failed to come to grips with complexity cannot prepare their children for a transition into the real world.
Though absolutes exist only conceptually, the temptation to cling to them is strong. Belief is a life preserver that keeps non-swimmers from drowning in the Sea of Complexity. It is easy to find help when in need of an illusion to believe. We have not only newly fashioned cults but also long-accepted traditions that purvey their particular illusion of certainty as a commodity.
If unprepared, young adults develop anxiety when confronting complexity. As a child, following rules ensured success. As an adult, compliance means being overtaken by those with no rules at all. Where there used to be certainty, ambiguity abounds. The question needs to shift from “Is flying safe?” to “How safe is flying relative to other forms of transportation or to not traveling?” The young adult may not be ready for that shift. As long as a person frames safety in absolute terms, his Executive Function remains impaired by the logic that whatever is not absolutely safe is unsafe.
No matter how high the probability of safe arrival, probability is unacceptable. Impaired Executive Function requires absolute safety. Though absolute safety does not exist, impaired Executive Function operates on the illusion that control equals safety, and if control is not absolute, escape equals safety.
Onset Due to Recognition of Vulnerability
It never even crossed my mind to jog facing traffic. I always ran in the same direction as the traffic. One day, when I came to a dead animal in my way, I put just one foot out on the pavement to avoid it, and got hit by a truck. Until then, my favorite sport had been skydiving. But after that, I couldn’t even fly as a passenger.
The prudent jogger faces oncoming traffic in case a driver strays from the road. This person—an athletic young woman—had no thoughts of caution. She was—in her own mind—invulnerable. Until the accident, belief in her invulnerability kept fear and anxiety neatly in check. Though she developed physical strength, the illusion of invulnerability kept her from developing emotional strength.
Most youths share the illusion that they are invulnerable. Kids, particularly boys, compensate for an inability to regulate anxiety by identifying with superheroes who, being invulnerable, are fearless and equal to any challenge. The fantasy of invulnerability, like the belief that bad things happen only to others, may extend into adulthood. In time, collisions with reality shatter the fantasy. This may explain why the average age of onset for fear of flying is not until age twenty-seven.
Marriage Onset
I’m supposed to get married in Jamaica on June 1st, which requires us to fly out on the 30th. That’s only eight days away. I’ve played tough and tried not to think about it, but as it nears, I’m getting more and more scared. I have a contingency plan, which is to reschedule and have it on a beach somewhere in Florida, where I can drive. I am afraid of regretting doing that. And it’s going to kill me to tell her she can’t have her dream wedding she’s so excited about because of me not being able to handle a simple three-hour flight. I’m already thinking about boarding the flight. The dry mouth, the racing heart, stomach jumping up into my throat, the dings and dongs in the cabin, etc. I was thinking of staying up all night the night before so that I’d be so tired that I’d just fall asleep on the plane, but I’m not even sure that would work.
In both marriage and flight, some degree of control is relinquished. Living together, usually in a limited space, makes it harder to regulate anxiety by a change in physical distance. But how did it work out? Here is what this client said two years later:
I did the SOAR program and since then I’ve taken about twelve flights, each of which was better than the last. In fact, I feel the most stressful part of the trip now is getting to the airport and dealing with the rigamarole of checking in, security, and hoping the plane is on time. Once I’ve boarded I feel much more relaxed. I will say that the difficult part of the flight for me now is definitely takeoff. Sometimes I wonder “Are we climbing? Should the engines be spooling down already? Why are we turning this soon after takeoff? Is something wrong? Are we going back to the airport?” But inevitably after several minutes of worrying over nothing the “ding” occurs, the crew tells us it’s okay to get out our electronics, and I get out my iPod and watch something to help me laugh.
The program worked wonders for me. I had originally cancelled my wedding in Jamaica after failing to get on a plane at DFW during boarding. I’m not joking. I came home, did the program, rescheduled for a month later, got nervous at the airport. Called Capt. Tom prior to boarding, settled down, got on the plane, and enjoyed AA flight 1232 to Montego Bay without issues. Since then I’ve flown back to Cancun, San Diego, Ft. Lauderdale, Houston, Denver, and other places and have enjoyed the convenience and lack of headaches that flying provides. I feel like it’s the pilot’s job to get us where we’re going and that’s what he gets paid for, because I’m done scheduling days off work just for travel time, fighting through traffic, and risking the inherent dangers that come with road travel, especially in unfamiliar places .
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that some aspects of flying are just going to make me a little nervous, and that’s okay. Being in a metal tube, traveling 500 mph at 37,000 feet isn’t exactly natural, plus I’m not a pilot so I think it’s okay to be a little nervous every so often about it. But a little bit of nerves that subside quickly after takeoff is much different from a crippling fear that leaves you running from the airport on what’s supposed to be the eve of your wedding because you’re scared of a plane ride.
Onset When Learning to Care
The loss of someone dear to us hurts. One way to limit anxiety about losing someone is pretending not to care. Not caring makes it easier to take chances. By taking chances, we may get life to be the way we want it to be. Then we don’t want anything to change. We start caring again, perhaps more than we knew we could. Knowing we could lose someone we treasure can trigger the onset of fear of flying.
Pregnancy Onset
Ever since my son was born (nineteen months ago) I have had some trouble flying. I’ve never really enjoyed it, but now I’m starting to believe I am going to panic on my next flight (Italy from Chicago in June). I can get on the plane just fine, and I can act like nothing is wrong, but my palms are sweaty, and I’m sitting there listening very carefully to any sound that signals impending danger. I consider myself an ultracautious person. Anything “unsafe” bothers me. I make sure to drive a car with a five-star crash rating in order to protect my child.
Becoming a parent means greater responsibilities, loss of control, and increased caring. All of these stressors can explain onset. But parenthood can initiate fear of flying in a unique way. Brain scan research has shown that in the final weeks of pregnancy, hormones that cause an obsession with safety are released in the brain. Anything that remotely could be a risk to the baby grabs the expectant mother’s attention. Fortunately, this happens to some degree in the father as well. A few weeks after delivery, those hormones disappear. But the patterns produced by the hormones may endure. The increased concern about safety is generally protective for the new baby. However, reason needs to trump raw fear. Taking a flight—short or long—is equal in terms of fatality to a mere 10.8 miles of interstate driving. This is not to suggest driving is dangerous; it isn’t. It is to point out, though, that while it may seem counterintuitive, the family is far better protected when travel is done by airliner than by car. New parents need to know they are making a responsible choice when they choose to fly.
Each of us has a certain ability to regulate emotion. Strategies can compensate to some degree. But compensatory strategies that work on the ground may not work in the air. Fear of flying develops when the sum of built-in ability, plus compensatory strategies, become insufficient to bear the stress load.