facing my fear of flying alone

0:08 Want to hear something scary?

0:12 Tomorrow at 9:20 p.m.

0:16 I'm going to be getting on an airplane.

0:20 [Music] [Music] I'm just getting frustrated because I feel like I've done

0:37 everything right to overcome this fear and yet I'm not overcoming the fear.

0:41 I thought that the way that you overcome fears is by facing them.

0:45 And I face my fear of flying all the time

0:47 and yet I'm still deeply frightened to get on a plane.

0:52 I've done all the research on how safe planes are.

0:55 Listen, nothing's perfect, but planes are pretty safe.

0:58 I feel like I've tried everything and it's not getting any better.

1:01 And it's a huge issue because I like traveling and there

1:04 are a lot of things in my life that require traveling.

1:07 It's causing me so much unnecessary psychological pain

1:11 being so afraid of flying on an airplane.

1:14 But I think I figured out the problem.

1:15 Since I developed this fear of flying,

1:17 I picked up an emotional crutch specifically for when I fly on airplanes.

1:22 And this emotional crutch is bringing other people with me on the airplane.

1:27 When I start to have a panic attack, I have someone's arm to grab.

1:30 When I start crying, I have someone there to look at me while

1:33 I'm crying cuz there's something really like comforting about that.

1:37 I I have someone there to comfort me.

1:40 And I think that's why I haven't been able to overcome the fear.

1:42 And so I'm going to New York tomorrow and I'm not bringing anyone with me.

1:45 I am going to get on that plane by myself so that hopefully I can get over it.

1:51 This is so annoying.

1:52 It's annoying.

1:54 Like having a fear of flying is annoying.

1:56 I'm just hoping that this helps.

2:02 Hi.

2:04 This is our last night hanging out because tomorrow I'm going on the plane

2:08 and I wish you could come with me because then we could be scared together.

2:12 But I usually try to take redeye flights

2:16 so that I'm not awake during the flight.

2:18 Like if I get on the plane at 9, 10, 11:00 p.m.

2:21 I'm too tired to stay awake anxious.

2:24 And it's weird like considering I have such a fear of flying.

2:27 It's interesting that I can fall asleep on the plane.

2:29 Well, I guess it kind of makes sense.

2:31 It makes sense because the part of flying that scares

2:33 me the most is the takeoff and the landing.

2:35 Once we're at cruising altitude, I relax significantly.

2:39 And it's also interesting because my flying anxiety doesn't

2:41 usually start until I'm on my way to the airport.

2:45 Like I feel pretty chill right now.

2:46 It's the night before.

2:48 Maybe it's starting to creep in a little bit, but I feel fine.

2:51 It It's going to get bad tomorrow.

2:54 Or maybe it won't.

2:55 See, maybe that's part of the problem.

2:58 Maybe because I expect to be anxious, it actually makes me more anxious.

3:03 Like, what if I just decide, no, I'm not going to be afraid of flying.

3:07 What if I just decide that?

3:09 I mean, I guess maybe that could work.

3:13 Although, I keep forgetting that I'm doing this by myself.

3:20 I'm so used to having someone on the plane to rely on.

3:23 It's weird because there are some flights sometimes that for whatever

3:26 reason just feel fine to me and like I'm not as anxious.

3:30 It's not like I cry and have a panic attack on every single flight.

3:34 It's just the majority of them.

3:35 But it's inconsistency confuses me.

3:38 You know, it's interesting when I think about it.

3:40 I feel like the times when I've been more relaxed on a flight is

3:43 when I'm with somebody that I'm less

3:46 comfortable having a panic attack in front of.

3:48 I'm like, Emma, you can't panic in front of this person.

3:50 That's embarrassing.

3:51 So, I have the self-control to like calm myself down.

3:55 It's in me.

3:56 Like, I have that in me.

3:57 Ideally, doing it alone will force me to figure out how to overcome

4:01 it because I'm the one that's going to have to calm me down.

4:04 Nobody else is going to be there to do it.

4:05 I have to do it.

4:06 And if I have to do it, then I'm going to approach the whole thing differently.

4:09 I already am.

4:10 I'm already planning how I'm going to calm myself down.

4:12 I'm already starting to calm myself down now because it's in my control.

4:16 I was putting it in other people's control.

4:38 [Music] I'm feeling a bit dissociated today.

4:46 Like I'm not panicking, I'm just dissociated.

4:50 I traveled somewhat recently, like a month and a half ago,

4:53 and that's helping me a bit.

4:55 I found that the less frequently I travel, the more anxious I get when I travel,

5:00 but I wouldn't say I'm in a great mood right now.

5:02 I'm not having a bad day, but I feel a bit off.

5:04 I have a few things that I'm going to pack

5:06 in my bag that I think will help calm me down.

5:09 I'm going to bring this in my carry-on.

5:13 It's this little facial wand, depuffing wand.

5:16 This is an anxiety relieving wand.

5:18 You can make it cold, you can rub it on your face, or you can make it hot.

5:22 and just rubbing it on the face is so relaxing.

5:27 There's something about this that just makes me feel calm.

5:30 I'm also going to be bringing my iPad.

5:33 On this iPad, I have downloaded 5 hours of YouTube videos.

5:37 With that, I have my AirPods.

5:39 And then last but not least, I'm bringing a sleep mask.

5:42 So, imagine me on the plane, AirPods in, iPad,

5:46 playing a YouTube video, this thing on, rubbing my face.

5:50 like the plane's going to take off and I'm not even

5:52 going to notice cuz I'm going to have so much going on.

5:54 It's almost like my brain was anticipating the anxiety

5:58 I have today and so just shut off

6:00 and now I'm just there's there's like nothing like

6:07 knock who's there like nothing's in there right now.

6:18 [Music] I'm getting quite superstitious.

6:29 My anxiety can sometimes manifest itself through superstition.

6:34 Like for example, I was just talking on the phone with somebody and I was like,

6:37 "All right, I'm getting on this flight.

6:38 Talk to you later.

6:39 Bye." And then I was like, "Wait, not bye.

6:41 Not by talk to you later.

6:42 Bye." Insinuates that we're not going to talk

6:44 again and and that something bad's going to happen.

6:46 And then I'm knocking on wood and then

6:48 I'm doing so I'm definitely feeling superstitious which

6:52 is annoying but I'm not having a panic

6:55 attack and I've been sort of plotting my plan.

6:58 I feel like when I get on the plane I should just try to fall asleep immediately

7:02 so that I'm not awake for the takeoff cuz

7:04 that's one of the parts that makes me anxious.

7:06 But I'm also kind of feeling like that might be a bad idea because if

7:10 I fall asleep before I take off

7:12 and I don't experience the discomfort of taking off, I'm just avoiding it.

7:16 I'm not facing it headon.

7:18 So, I'm sort of conflicted on whether or not that's a good idea.

7:20 Does kind of feel like a copout.

7:21 Maybe I'll wait.

7:22 I'll stay awake through the takeoff, handle it,

7:24 and then reward myself with some sleep.

7:26 And I could also reward myself with the piece of banana bread.

7:31 Funny story about this banana bread.

7:32 I got in the car, started driving, and then realized, "Oh, wait.

7:36 I have one more piece of banana bread in my fridge.

7:38 I would be so sad if that went to waste.

7:40 I need to go back home and get it and bring

7:43 it on the plane and eat it as a little dessert." So,

7:46 I fully turned my car around and went back

7:48 home to get that one slice of banana bread.

7:51 It's not even like a thick slice.

7:54 I've always been an anxious person since I was a child.

7:57 But as a child, I wasn't afraid of flying.

7:59 Even though I was an anxious kid, I had this sort of beautiful delusion,

8:03 this blissful ignorance that prevented a lot of anxieties for me.

8:06 This delusion and blissful ignorance made me

8:09 feel like rare tragedies couldn't happen to me.

8:12 But it seems the older I get,

8:13 the more terrified I become of the general dangers of day-to-day life,

8:16 the firmer I grasp that bad things could happen

8:19 to me or to anyone I love at any time.

8:22 And this is a reality that has been very challenging for me to accept.

8:26 And I think my fear of flying is a great example

8:29 of this fear and anxiety manifesting itself in my day-to-day life.

8:34 Anyway, I was too impatient to wait until takeoff to eat my banana bread.

8:37 So, I ate it.

8:38 My thought process was, you know what, once we're in the air,

8:40 I'm going to want to go to bed immediately,

8:42 so I'm just going to eat this now so that the second we're in the air,

8:44 I can go to sleep immediately.

8:46 Or perhaps that was just me justifying eating my reward early.

8:50 Whatever.

8:50 The panic didn't start to set in until the plane started moving,

8:53 until we started taxiing.

8:54 But then it really set in.

8:56 Usually at this point,

8:57 I would rely on the person or the people I'm traveling with to calm me down.

9:01 But for the first time in a very long time,

9:03 I was alone and I had to find a way to calm myself down.

9:06 So, you want to know what I decided to do?

9:08 I decided to pray, which is something

9:11 I do occasionally to combat really bad anxiety.

9:14 Even though I'm not technically a religious person,

9:16 I'm not aligned with any specific religion.

9:18 I don't go to church.

9:19 I consider myself to be spiritual.

9:21 I have my own sort of religion going on in my head.

9:25 And when I'm scared,

9:26 I will pray to whatever higher power there may be out there.

9:29 I don't know who it is.

9:30 I don't know what it is, but I don't care.

9:33 When I'm scared, I will pray to it.

9:35 It's like praying to a bunch of question mark.

9:37 I don't know what I don't know whoever.

9:38 I don't know who's listening.

9:39 I don't know what's listening.

9:40 I don't know if anything's listening,

9:41 but it doesn't even matter because the act of talking to some

9:45 sort of higher power hopefully is comforting to me and it helps.

9:49 But despite the praying, I still panicked.

9:52 The second we started taking off, my heart started racing.

9:55 My eyes welled up with tears.

9:57 Every bump in sound from the plane convinced

9:59 me that I was literally going to die.

10:02 And I was filled with terror as per usual.

10:04 However, I will say that having to deal with it alone made the emotional

10:08 response far less dramatic than it is

10:10 when I'm traveling with somebody I'm comfortable with.

10:12 But I still had a tough time and I

10:14 was still really upset until eventually I wasn't.

10:16 My heart rate slowed down and my eyes welled up with tears again,

10:19 but this time, as ridiculous and dramatic as this sounds,

10:22 with gratitude that I was alive.

10:26 [Music] To my surprise, I was much more calm during the landing.

11:19 Compared to takeoff, I was feeling much better.

11:21 I was definitely on the edge of spiraling, but I wasn't in a spiral.

11:25 To keep my emotions regulated,

11:26 I prayed again and I took deep breaths and it worked pretty well.

11:30 No tears, no shaking.

11:32 The landing went pretty smoothly.

11:34 And I will say, even though I had some challenges,

11:37 especially on the takeoff, this flight felt much easier than usual.

11:40 As I suspected, relying on myself to regulate my emotions was significantly

11:45 more productive than how I usually rely on others to regulate my emotions.

11:49 Heat.

12:04 Heat.

12:17 [Music] Oh, heat, heat.

12:53 [Music] I did it.

13:01 Yay.

13:04 I'm here.

13:09 [Music] I am so happy to be here.

13:29 Yay.

13:31 I was only supposed to be here for like 48 hours.

13:33 I'm so excited to be here, though,

13:35 that I feel like I'm going to want to extend my trip.

13:37 I mean, listen, it's the first day.

13:38 I've been here for one hour and I'm like, wait, I want to extend my trip.

13:43 The reason why I came to New York is because I have a meeting today,

13:46 an in-person meeting, hence why I flew to New York for the meeting.

13:50 And so, I'm doing that today.

13:51 And then other than that, I'm just hanging out.

13:55 [Music] I am [Music] [Music] I didn't even know this when

14:21 I planned this trip cuz it's a work trip.

14:23 My two best friends are in New York right now and they

14:25 live in LA and right now and they're in New York.

14:27 So, not only do I get to hang out in New York,

14:29 but I also get to hang out with my friends.

14:31 I'm so stoked.

14:33 I'm actually so tired.

14:35 I'm like, I'm so stoked, but I'm actually exhausted.

14:42 I think I just ate a moldy blueberry.

14:49 [Music] This is also so me.

15:06 So you it's actually never been less me.

15:12 That's cute.

15:14 Here's the thing.

15:14 I do have a bald spot on the top of my head.

15:16 So this is really triggering for me.

15:18 I'll blur it out.

15:19 I have to go like this.

15:20 I'll blur it like this.

15:26 [Music] I have pit stains.

15:37 I'm not going to show you, but I do.

15:38 Very hot.

15:39 Very hot out.

15:40 It's sweaty.

15:41 Do we turn right or no?

15:42 No, we keep going straight.

15:43 Okay.

15:43 Oh, it's okay, Emma.

15:45 You can cross.

15:45 There's no one come.

15:46 Emma has a fear of crossing the street.

15:49 I don't know how to cross.

15:50 It says walk right.

15:51 She looks both ways as you're supposed to and then stops

15:53 in the middle of the street to make sure no one's I go.

15:55 Well, now you're going to get hit.

15:57 Are you going to put it back in after?

16:00 Mhm.

16:00 No, you're not.

16:01 You're going to have a new one.

16:03 Are you going to have a new one?

16:04 You going to put that back in?

16:05 For some reason, the Zin and the Parmesan.

16:08 [Music] Here's the deal.

16:16 My favorite time in life is when I'm in New York with Emma.

16:19 Me, too.

16:20 We don't ever have a destination and let's just walk

16:23 and we didn't even know we were going to be here together.

16:25 This was not planned.

16:26 Coincidence.

16:27 Coincidence walking around at the same time walking around.

16:29 No plan, no agenda.

16:31 No, like literally no agenda.

16:33 We have a full agenda and a full night plan.

16:35 Love you.

16:39 All right.

16:40 I had my fun, but the party's over and now it's time to go home.

16:48 And I'm feeling kind of the same way I did when I was coming here.

16:52 I have brain fog.

16:54 I feel dissociated.

16:55 I feel weird.

16:56 There's a few things causing me anxiety.

16:58 Number one, I'm taking a really late night flight.

17:01 My flight's at like 9:40 p.m.

17:03 and I land at 1:00 in the morning.

17:05 The idea of flying in the darkness for 6 hours makes me uncomfortable.

17:10 For some reason in my brain,

17:11 the idea of taking off at night and landing in the morning with daylight feels

17:14 less scary to me than taking off at night and then landing late at night,

17:18 which honestly makes no sense, but this is a great example of how

17:20 irrational and illogical anxious thoughts can be.

17:23 Okay, even though I don't think it makes a difference at all.

17:26 I I I don't think it's like any more dangerous.

17:28 I don't want to Google it and I will not be googling it.

17:31 That is the worst thing I could do.

17:33 But another thing I've been reminding myself

17:35 of is that Delta Airlines does this flight, this night flight on a weekly basis.

17:41 This is a routine flight.

17:42 They've done this so many times.

17:44 It's fine.

17:45 It's going to be fine.

17:48 Um, what else?

17:51 On the last flight, I lost my eye mask and so that's a bummer.

17:55 It would have been worse if I lost my AirPods and didn't

17:57 have time to replace them cuz those are so important to me.

18:00 But I feel like this flight is going to be easier because I

18:03 just proved my anxiety wrong literally a few days ago on the flight here.

18:09 I just did it the other day and it was totally fine.

18:11 It's when I haven't traveled in a while that I think it gets really bad.

18:16 Uh I walked so much today that I'm so tired.

18:20 I'm going to sleep really well, I think.

18:22 Oh, wait.

18:22 Do I have to go now?

18:24 Oh,[ __] Okay, my car is here and I'm leaving.

18:27 Okay, bye.

18:30 It's all right.

18:31 You want to hold the door?

18:33 I was feeling much more confident for this takeoff compared to the last one.

18:36 I was pretty relaxed.

18:38 I was just going on my phone, texting people, going on Pinterest.

18:43 My heart rate was nice and low.

18:46 My breathing was steady.

18:48 I felt pretty good.

18:49 And I decided, you know what?

18:50 Maybe I'll hit a little prayer real quick.

18:53 Why not?

18:53 So, I prayed a little bit.

18:55 I was feeling good.

18:56 And then the lights flicker and immediately panic set in.

19:00 Why did the lights flicker?

19:01 What does that mean?

19:02 Is there something wrong with the plane?

19:03 What's wrong with the plane?

19:04 Should I get off?

19:05 Should I ask if I should get off?

19:06 I want to get off the plane.

19:07 I don't want to be on the plane anymore.

19:08 Obviously, these thoughts were irrational, but in the moment,

19:11 it really truly felt like to me

19:14 the lights flickering meant something was going terribly wrong.

19:17 That's how my brain works when it's in an anxious state.

19:20 Even though I felt really good when I first got on the plane,

19:23 I was in a fragile state of mind.

19:25 So, the second something slightly off happened, I lost it.

19:28 But I did force myself to go

19:30 back to thinking positive thoughts and saying prayers.

19:32 I was definitely feeling restless, though.

19:35 That light flicker really did not sit right with me.

19:38 And unfortunately, this led to a dreadful takeoff.

19:42 I was already feeling paranoid from the light flicker, as we know.

19:45 But to make matters worse, during takeoff,

19:48 the plane was making a horribly loud rattling sound.

19:51 It was so loud that I actually couldn't hide my fear.

19:55 I was looking at the flight attendants trying to read

19:57 their faces to see if they were scared, too.

19:59 Obviously, they weren't.

20:00 I was looking at other passengers to see if anyone else was panicking.

20:04 I was squirming.

20:05 I was on the verge of loud crying,

20:07 like crying like like I was on the verge of that.

20:11 I was not in a good place.

20:13 But eventually, we hit cruising altitude and I was able to take a deep breath.

20:17 Everything was okay and I finally relaxed.

20:44 Listen, I still have a lot of work to do if I want to get over this fear,

20:49 but I'd like to believe that this was the First step.

20:59 [Music]