“How to cope with emetophobia” is one of my most-read posts. It came in 5th place in 2019 and 7th in 2018 and I think it’s time to go over my thoughts again. It wasn’t exactly a “how to” and this one isn’t even going to pretend to be.
Hi, I’m Juliet. I’m a traveller, adventurer, blogger, research and emetophobe. If you’re reading this, you probably already know what that means. If you don’t, I’d rather not talk about it and let me just google it for you. It makes travelling and adventuring a little more difficult, it certainly makes living at home more difficult (where do phobias start?) and it gets worse by the day.
As adults, we have The Fear. The Fear is what prevents us from becoming good skiers and snowboarders – I know that I started snowboarding too old to get past The Fear and while I was in Switzerland I was told that people who take up skiing as adults rarely get beyond blue runs. It’s the thing that stops us doing adventurous and exciting things. Who did I see on Instagram lately talking about how “we never go on the zipline with the kids”? We don’t have that little thing in our brains that allows us to slip easily and carelessly over the “I’m going to die” lobe. Some of us can clamber awkwardly over but whether we get over it or not, we know it’s there.
My emetophobia has its roots in my childhood and teenage years but it was activated, I think, on a flight to or from Munch sometime between 2009 and 2011. Maybe Innsbruck. It’s always there. It’s always twitching. It’s a little voice in my head that’s permanently on. Not even a little voice. It’s quite a big voice. Every time I think I can quiet it, something happens to remind it that it’s supposed to be there and every time it comes back, it gets louder.
But it’s particularly bad on planes. That’s partly because planes are an enclosed space where I can’t run away, I can’t even hide. It’s partly because it just happens so often on planes. How often do you see someone… taken ill… on other modes of transport? The one I’ll go out of my way to avoid is coaches because if I’m on a coach, it’ll be with my entire Guide district. Rangers are ok but the younger girls aren’t. There’s always someone. Well, no. There isn’t “always” someone. But there’s someone often enough for me to panic and make alternative arrangements, which are going to be harder now I’m Brown Owl rather than second or third leader who also has to attend things with Rangers. I get twitchy in coaches and minibuses in Iceland nowadays but something has only ever gone wrong once in that event and I didn’t know until after it was finished.
But planes! I tell myself statistically, this isn’t going to happen. How many times have you witnessed this? And just as I’m managing to calm myself and convince that big voice in my brain that there’s really nothing to worry about, something happens to worry about. On the way to Malta in January 2019, I fled to the other end of the plane where, most unusually, the first few rows were completely empty. On the way to Switzerland at the end of last year, the person in question – my mortal enemy, had I been within reach – was right at the front of the plane while I sat right at the back, where I could hear the cabin crew discussing the supplies needed for a huge clean-up. But in that year, I took eighteen flights. Two incidents – one and a half incidents, because I don’t know if the Malta one got any further than a bag, a cup of water and a fan after I fled – in eighteen flights is a lot of flights to spend in a state of semi-panic unnecessarily.
But I can’t not panic. I can control my environment. There was an article about people “wasting money” by buying seat reservations and I’m afraid I’m among those people and it’s not money wasted if it’s part of the “don’t outright panic” tactic. I sit right at the back, by the window. Undesirable neighbours are almost as likely there as at the front but I feel like people I’ll be terrified of are less likely to sit at the back. I always, but always, take headphones with me. I’m not quite able to actually block out the world around me with music and a book because I always have to look around like a meerkat, no matter how hard I try not to, and although I turn the music up loud enough to not quite blow my eardrums out, I don’t know how to turn my hearing off and sometimes catching part of a word or a sentence is worse than hearing it loud and clear. I refuse to fly to Iceland with anyone except Icelandair because watching movies on their inflight entertainment system – an extreme rarity on the sort of planes I usually fly on – helps more than a lot of things. Icelandair is more expensive than Wizz Air or easyJet but if I’m stuck on a plane for three hours, I need something to help me cope. I’m not very good at sleeping on planes. I’m too paranoid and also they’re just not designed to be slept on. I managed on a flight to Tromsø once because I had to get up at 1am to drive to the airport. Shouldn’t have gone to bed. Should have just set off the night before. But I was able to sleep on the plane for once and arrive in my favourite city in my second-favourite country unusually calm.
I’m not scared of flying. If I could have an airliner to myself – oh, that would be good! All the fun of flying without the terror of the other passengers. I love takeoff. I love the approach to the destination. I like the landing. The bit in the middle is pretty tedious but maybe it would be more fun completely on my own. Sorry, Greta. If I ever get rich or famous, I’m going everywhere by private jet. In an ideal world, maybe I’d just teleport but then I’d miss the fun of the takeoff and I do like takeoff. Acceleration pushing me back into my seat, the world dropping away beneath me. It’s good.
I talk a lot about “if I had my own airline”. There’s a lot of emetophobia behind that. No one who’s prone to airsickness or has ever experienced airsickness. No alcohol. No drunk people. No children. That saves me having to apply the “no Trunkis” rule (stupid things; have you ever seen a child ride on one? Is it even possible to open one out in the restricted space of an over-full orange plane?). No one who’s coughed in the last week. I’d put all your baggage in the hold for free, by the way. But in return, I’d charge you for anything over about handbag size in the cabin. No one needs an entire suitcase worth of stuff during their flight, they just don’t want to pay for it. Keep the cabin clear and empty.
Or maybe it would be cheaper to go to therapy. There are people who specialise in stupid phobias that actively interfere in your life like this one is at the moment. Maybe what I need is to deliberately implant a new voice that’s louder and more rational than the one yelling in there at the moment. Because at the moment, I’m being deafened.