Member-only story
The Spirit of a Sound Mind
Tomorrow, I will be attempting to conquer one of my greatest fears.
But I am getting really good at conquering my fears…..
When I was a teenager, a few terrifying and traumatic events happened that had nothing to do with flying on an airplane — but both of the events happened right before I flew on an airplane.
My therapist agrees with me that I transferred the fear from those traumatic events onto the plane and developed a phobia of flying. It was easier for me to be afraid of the plane than it was to acknowledge the terrible things that happened to me and …..be afraid of them instead.
This was very sad, because, prior to this happening, I loved flying. I had grown up on airplanes, traveling back and forth between Germany and the US since I was a little baby. All I had known about flying up to my teens, was that it made me excited and happy. I was going somewhere wonderful, and that airplane was taking me there. It never occurred to me to be afraid. Because of the fear instilled by these traumatic events, where a trusted adult harmed me, my love of travel, and flying was ruined.
Since then, I did everything possible to avoid taking airplanes -even to the point of taking a cruise ship home from St. Thomas to Miami and then a bus from Miami to Boston. That was the first time I almost got divorced.
