I am emetophobic. Go and look it up, I really don’t want to say the words that I need to in order to tell you what it is. I’ve even provided a link. Done? Ok, let’s move on.
I think you can see why this particular phobia is a problem for someone who travels. I’m not afraid of me doing it – I don’t do it, I just don’t – but other people do and I have no control over that. The worst places for me are coaches and planes. Trains are ok because you can get up and move around, and also the rails make it a relatively smooth ride. You can run away. Buses are ok because buses are for short trips. But coaches – coaches are generally longer-distance and you can’t really get away. And as for planes, well, airsickness exists and people getting ridiculously drunk before they get on exist. You can’t really escape and if you’re unlucky enough to be caught in a bad situation during takeoff or landing – when the fasten seatbelt signs are on, and this has happened to me and it was awful – you’re really stuck. I fly fairly regularly.
First thing to do is be prepared. Prepare for the worst, they say. I sit at the departure gate and I have a good look around for anyone who looks a bit peaky. I tend to assume anyone eating is fine, anyone reading is fine, anyone chatting is fine. I have another look around when I get on the plane and this is the point where panic judgement gets me. Again, eating, reading, talking. But the person sitting next to me who sits down and closes their eyes – that’s a concern. That’s a big concern. I tell myself I’m overreacting, it hardly ever actually happens on planes, it’s going to be fine.
I put in my earphones or I turn on the inflight entertainment – God bless Icelandair for being the only airline I’ve ever flown on this offers this blessed distraction – and I try to tune things out. But I can’t. I’m jumpy and nervous and ready to go into panic-mode at any second. Please don’t rustle in your seat pocket looking for the magazine – I hear rustling and it’s not the magazine I imagine being pulled out. On the other hand, please do read the menu and please do order something. You eating is hugely calming and reassuring.
Basically, that’s how I cope on planes. I spend the whole flight looking for little details to analyse as to how my neighbours are feeling and trying to keep calm and not freak out until we land – at which point it’s usually another half an hour until I can get off the plane.
Don’t think I don’t enjoy flying. I do. I think takeoff in particular is magic – I know it’s got something to do with air pressure under the wing being different to air pressure above the wing but I don’t understand how that gets an airliner into the air or keeps it up. I don’t want to know. It’s magic. The feeling of taking off is brilliant, I especially enjoy the feeling of acceleration before we lift off. It’s just that other passengers make the experience stressful and anxiety-inducing.
Update April 2022:
It happened. Yesterday, it happened on a plane.
I was seated next to one of a group of “laaaddddzzzzz” in their early twenties. The one next to me was kind of good-looking, like the villain in Civil War. He sat down, opened a bag of Doritos, produced a can of beer, guffawed, bellowed and generally led me to go “Oh, this one’s fine, I can relax, don’t have to worry about him!” How wrong can one person be?
Half an hour in, he fell asleep. Then he woke up, looked around, his mate on his other side hastily handed him The Bag and … well, he used it. I tried to put my hands over both eyes and ears simultaneously and the discovery that I didn’t have enough limbs was just enough to keep me from full-on screaming but I did try to shove myself through the side of the plane to get away. When he was able, he went off to the toilet and I grabbed my stuff and fled.
I was in the back of the plane so I ran forward, found a member of cabin crew and gibbered at her, concluding with increasingly hysterical “I can’t, I can’t, I CAN‘T!!”. She was great. Took it in her stride. Directed me to her colleague down the back – outside the toilet he was in – and by the time I’d gibbered at her, she was smiling and explaining that they were already finding me a new seat and if I’d give her a minute, she’d pop me down the other end of the plane.
Everyone was sympathetic. Even the mate of my neighbour, who admittedly won a window seat from “I’m not coming back!”. I haven’t thought about much else in the 24+ hours since but I didn’t die and everyone was nice. A new tip: have your stuff easy to grab if you need to escape. I had my coat and a bumbag under the seat, a bottle and the pouch containing my documents in the seat back and my headphones plugged into the entertainment system. I yanked them out and I admit, I was running around the plane with the cord hanging from my ears because it was my last priority and I never thought about it until later. But for the first time in about ten years, I’d put my big bag in the overhead locker instead of under the seat, so I didn’t have to waste time yanking it free. I did have to go against the flow of heavy traffic to retrieve it when we landed – I was near the front, it was at the back – and I had to see him again but I got a nice smile from his mate.
So yeah. The worst happened and it was the worst but it’s not as bad as we always imagine and people will help.
If you have any tricks that work better than self-reassuranceto, short of sleeping pills, let me know. Do you have anti-phobia tips and tricks?
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