Flight Number: COVID-19
My fear of flying may be more relevant than I realize.
I wasn’t always afraid of flying. In fact, I used to look forward to it when I was a kid. I thought it was like a rollercoaster ride at a theme park.
Then, I got older and started to understand the concept of death and the impermanence of life. Fun stuff. Suddenly, I was much less keen to be 30,000 feet in the air. Flights went from being 2-hours of free movies and bottomless apple juice to a complete nightmare.
The technical term is aviophobia. Which translates to the fear of being inside an airplane while it is suspended in flight. The fear is actually incredibly common and can affect an individual’s personal and professional life.
In my experience, the night before long flights would be restless. Sleep would evade me, and if I did manage to sleep it was only to be tormented by nightmares of being trapped inside a flying metal tube as it plummeted out of the sky.
Being on the flight was even worse. Every noise would make me jump. The seatbelt sound, a flight attendant making an announcement, the engine changing speed. Everything made me jump out of my skin.
In an article published by the medical journal, “Frontiers in Psychology,” it is estimated that around 40% of Americans experience a fear of flying, and nearly 60% of these Americans also suffer from generalized anxiety disorder. Then according to a study by The National Institute of Mental Health, another 12.5% of Americans experience a specific phobia at least once in their life.
For me, that rings true, at least in terms of anxiety. I’ve had anxious tendencies for as long as I can remember. Most of my panic attacks on solid ground are triggered by a lack of control in my life. I have an issue with micromanagement. I want to know what’s happening, what decisions are being made and how they will affect me.
I started to realize that this was exactly what was contributing to my fear of flying. I didn’t fear death—okay, well maybe a little—but my biggest fear was not being able to understand or see everything that was going on.
Todd Farchione, the director of Boston University’s Intensive Treatment Program for Panic Disorder and Specific Phobias, confirms this fear in an interview with Time Magazine, “When the doors close, they’re in it. They’re stuck. They can’t get out of the situation. I think that’s often what’s most frightening for most people.”
I wanted to know why we were experiencing turbulence. I wanted to know why the flight attendants looked worried. I wanted to know why the seatbelt sign was making that annoying noise for the fifth time.
At the beginning of March, when some of the first few coronavirus cases started to appear in the United States and schools were beginning to shut down, I was struck with a debilitating panic attack.
I had only experienced this kind of sheer panic in one other place before. When I was on an airplane.
All of the confusion and uncertainty I have regarding my future during this outbreak are directly similar to the confusion and uncertainty I’ve experienced why being on a plane.
I knew I couldn’t be the only one suffering, so I conducted a few interviews with students from New York, to Dallas, to San Francisco to compare their experiences.
The following podcast is a result of the embodied metaphor of my fear of flying combined with the reality of being quarantined during the coronavirus.
All aboard the one-way flight from hell. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
