This is an easy one. I am terrified of flying. The very thought of airplanes causes me anxiety, and being in airports can send me into a panic attack. I have never been very fond of the idea of falling out of the sky, but this fear escalated around 8th grade. Flying home from Brazil that summer, I experienced the only real turbulence I have ever felt before. Since then, I have learned to take numerous cocktails of anxiety reducing and memory erasing (legal and prescribed) drugs to alleviate this fear. However, it is far from being gone.
One of the funny things about being afraid of flying is that it is almost impossible to bring it up without sparking an irrationally long discussion about everyone else's bad experiences on planes. It never fails that one mention of my dislike for airplanes brings up some of the most horrible stories I have ever heard. I've always wondered why this happens, as when someone mentions their obscene fear of spiders I don't tell them about the largest spider I've ever seen. These conversations leave me even more shaken than I was before them, and I'm often compelled to leave the conversation.
I guess this is ironic, because the job that I would love to have next year requires me to be flying across the country almost weekly. I have a hope that this constant exposure will alleviate my fear, and if not I always have the wonder of modern medicine, and the airport bar. I have, by no means, stopped flying either. I simply find ways to make the trips more pleasant, such as only flying certain airlines and certain size planes. I have, since the main incident, traveled to Europe and Israel, as well as places in the middle of the country and across the country. And I have no plans to quit flying.
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