Was anything else going on????

[canoga]

After reading through our best/worst flights, it occurred to me that a lot of the worst flights were the ones where our fear started.

After having examined mine, I realize that my FOF was an aside to me being afraid of becoming a mom. Before I boarded that last leg to go pick up my daughter, the fact I was becoming a mom hit me. I was scared @#%&less. Of course, that flight was miserable. Sure, it was bumpy and not very comfortable but I had been on worse.

I'm just wondering if anything else was going on in our lives when our fear hit? Were we scared/stressed about something else and our baseline was already high enough that it didn't take much to go into panic?

Beth

[spleisher]

For what it's worth, becomming a parent was a big part of what originally set me off as well. I think in some strange, subliminal way, parenthood brings us that much closer to our own mortality. I can completely relate.

[Chelle]

Beth, becoming parent (as you know!) gives you a whole new perspective on life. Suddenly you're responsible for someone else's life. Your child needs you, depends on you, therefore nothing can ever happen to you.

When I think back to even 10 years ago, I was such a thrill-seeker. Driving fast on an expressway didn't faze me. Any rollercoaster in an amusement park? Bring it on! Flying didn't even bother me. Now, I'm cognizant of everything I do. I hate highway driving, I wouldn't step foot on a rollercoaster to save my life, and yeah.. there's the whole flying thing :D

For me, I think it's a mixture of being a mom, and just growing up. Now, we actually pay attention to the news and process all the traffic accidents, and various other ways people die. We relate to the families of those who lose a loved one, and think about how we would feel, what we would do, what could have been done to avoid it, etc..

Anyway, I'm just rambling, but that's my take :)

[canoga]

I'll never forget the times when I saw my heroes as just regular people.

When I got to college, I dated a teacher! These used to be people I held up in the highest regards. Now I was socializing with them and calling them by their first names.

I have been working with MDs for 9 years and I can see that they are just regular old humans with a lot of schooling. Some of them are even buffoons.

I think that is what makes a difference for me. Realizing that pilots are human. As a kid, it is easy to use magical thinking and think that nothing could go wrong. As an adult, you realize that we are all just trying to do the best we can and there are no Super Heroes. I'm not trying to say teachers, doc, or pilots are not qualified or do not possess some skill I couldn't do with my eyes closed. It is just that as I get older, they become more my peers than Superman (not that Ray wouldn't look excellent in blue tights and a cape).

Beth

[spiffyone]

I admit. I am a buffoon.

What a great word.

No wait....I'm a "buffooness." :hamster

[Passenger Mark]

Hi Beth,

From reviewing and reflecting on my own experiences, I have said that I do not think I, and most likely other folks do not have a "true" fear of flying.

For me, mine started when I was constantly gone from home traveling for work 2-3 times a week on a airliner. Being gone that much from base had a noticeable effect on home. I can remember thinking that I had no control over my life.

And so... when I boarded an airliner, and had to give up physical control, here came the anxiety. Turbulence just added to it, as it increased the feeling of having no control.

Then it became the fear of freaking. I would worry about having an anxiety attack on a plane.

So for me it all boiled down to control, or the lack of. Once I figured that out, it became easier to attack the monster... and win!

[canoga]

Mark,

I didn't mean to imply that anyone's fear is not real or true. I was just wondering if there were any other circumstances going on in your life that made the fear happen. I have read so many stories about how people used to love to fly then one day, BAM, they were scared. It happened to me. Looking back, I was very stressed which, I think, cause me to be hypersensitive to the fact that I was in this metal tube, thousands of feet above the ground, hurling through the air at a breakneck speed. And there was not a darn thing I could do about it. So, was just trying to say that I had the right environment for a FOF to come on it and stay a while.

Didn't mean to diminish anyone's fear.

[canoga]

Spiff,

You? A buffoon? Never! Anyone who can appreciate the joys of hamster man-boobs is automatically elevated way beyond the buffoon level.

:hamster :hamster :hamster :hamster :hamster :hamster :hamster :hamster :hamster

[spleisher]

I think what Mark is trying to communicate here is that with most folks, the fear of flying really rooted in something other than the fear of flying itself. Flying with a lot of people, including myself, just seems to be the catalyst through which all these fears come boiling to the surface.

[beaugest]

There's actually been studies discussing how parenthood increases FOF. It was one of those things that kept emerging as a theme so folks started studying it.
I know where my FOF came from. It was a combination of things. Becoming a mom was definitely one.
My parents are from Belgium and I grew up flying and traveling quite a bit. However, to this day every single time my mom gets on a plane she tells me where her bankbooks are stashed. She hasn't moved them in 20 years but...
Anyway, this has been going on since I've been a kid. So, I got the message loud and clear.:sigh
I've said this before but I also believe it is the result of having to listen to the safety bit EVERY time you fly. Even the airline industry is buying into the danger by doing that. We've talked about how dangerous driving is and we don't have to listen to a spiel every time we drive.

[WillFlyToDisney2]

For me, my FOF started after that 1 bad flight. I was 21 and in my eyes, at least, invincible. I had a great cool job with Disney :mickey , had just gotten engaged :kiss and was sitting in a full fare first class seat flying home for Thanksgiving :chicken . The flight woke me up to my own mortality in a HURRY! :shocked

Pilots are human, yes, but I still put most of them up on a pedestal. My friends joke that I have a "pilot fetish" because I look in awe at pilots :ray - after all, they control that very thing that I fear the most - airplanes! :airplane

I concur that Ray would look FAB in tights and a cape. Pictures!!! (Chelle, we need a "SuperRay" smiley here).

Once my kids were born I started to fear other things - riding in the car as a passenger, crossing bridges, elevators in tall buildings, etc... I have said more than once to a driver that I didnt feel was driving safely - "Please don't kill me, I'm a mother!!!"

Kelley

[Passenger Mark]

Beth,

Didn't mean to diminish anyone's fear.

I am so sorry, I did not mean to make you feel that way.

I certainly did not mean that you were deminsihing anyone's fear. I certainly DO NOT think you are doing that.

I was just explaining my theory on FOF.

Sometimes it is hard for me to put in writing what my thoughts are, so I am sure it sounds confusing. I will try and do a better job in the future.

But PLEASE do not feel I thought you were deminishing anyone's fear.

Thanks,

Mark

[xiknal]

I agree that there are often other things going on in peoples' lives at the time that FoF hits. I know this from research, and especially from my own experience. At the time my fear first developed, I had to travel across the country (DC to Seattle), and chose the train because it was familiar, and flying was not. I had just lost good friends to a canoeing accident and was suddenly phobic about a lot of things. My fear escalated into groundedness 8 years later during a time of transition--from living in Seattle to going into the Peace Corps in Belize. There was some bad weather and moderate turb on the flight in question, but I am sure the transition was a factor. :sigh

[sengelin]

I had the trifecta of bad events... a get-on-the-next-plane-now call to come home because my grandfather was dying... an engine failure on that flight... all followed up by the fun and excitement of a rapid loss of cabin pressure on my company's corporate jet. Funny thing is, I didn't know I had a fear of flying after that until a few weeks later I walked down the Jetway and froze trying to get on a flight from Dallas to Houston.

[xiknal]

yes, Sean, that delayed effect happened to me, too. I didn't know I had FoF until 2 years after my friends were killed and I had (I thought) reclaimed my life. I had even taken up whitewater canoeing. Brains are sneaky :evil li'l devils, aren't they? :cry

[JPenny]

As I wrote in another thread (everyone tell a story), my fear began when I was pregnant for the first time . . . along with the awakening to real life that comes when you get out there on your own.

But, let me tell you, my problem is NOT "arrested development!!''

:wired :wired :wired

Jean

(Sorry, guys, I just couldn't resist!)

:troll

[canoga]

Okay, I read your post again and realized I read it wrong. I was just scared you thought I was trying to imply that FOF wasn't real. I didn't want to insult anyone and because I suffer from it too, didn't want it to seem I was minimizing it.

Maybe I should just go cook some stuffing now. :)

[WillFlyToDisney2]

You know, one more revelation here, but it just dawned on me today while talking to a pilot I just met. At the time of my bad flight I was working for Disney (which I loved) while going to college for Engineering - Industrial major with a minor in Aerospace - I wanted to work for NASA (had already been working on setting up an internship). Shortly after the skeeeery flight I dropped my minor. I never made that connection until today. Interesting.... wonder if my subconscious made that connection...

Kelley
(just thinking out loud)