Fear of Eurostar

[peter34uk]

Hi all,

SO I have this phobia of the eurostar, basically that tunnell under the sea bed. I get these irrational fears and thats it I back out every time!

I even went to a see a eurostar engineer who guided me in safety in the tunnel and showed me a simulator. Then he offered to take me on the train up and back. But i backed out :(

That was 2 years ago.

I want to overcome this. Ive just had a little girl and want her to go on holidays etc abroad. My wife would be soooooo happy!

Has anyone else experienced this? Overcome this silly fear??

Im afraid of being stuck in the tunnel, or the tunnel will cave in. Being under the sea bed etc..

Its only 20mins but 20mins can seem like an absolute age when your watching the seconds tick by!

HELP!!!!!

[Clarinha]

Hi Peter,

I know how you feel, after getting stuck in a tunnel in the London underground years ago (mind you, only for 10 minutes but that's when I experienced my first panic attack which started my anxiety and agoraphobia), I've always been anxious in tunnels. Having said that I did take the Eurostar many times for my previous job and I coped fine, for me it was reassuring to be able to use the loo or thinking I could hide in there if I was scared lol. But if I had thought about it too hard like you are now, I probably would have backed out to. I had a period of time when getting the lift at work was a big issue because it was often crowded and I kept on thinking it would get stuck (and there was no option to use the stairs).
My advice to you would be to try CBT with a therapist to rationalise some of these issues and you could always ask your GP to prescribe some tranquilisers for the journey if your fear is really focused on the Eurostar? I've used Diazepam in the past for flying, it does help but obviously it's not a long term solution, just a short term one to get you over the hurdle but it won't cure your fear, the only way to cure it is to face it and accept the anxiety, feelings, thoughts etc that come with it, CBT would help a lot with this and depending on where you live you could build some graded exposures in tunnels before you face the Eurostar.
I hope you overcome this or at least put up with it cause it's worth it at the other end!

Take care

[flossie]

This isn't a very helpful solution to conquering the Eurotunnel issue but there is always the ferry from Dover.

[peter34uk]

This isn't a very helpful solution to conquering the Eurotunnel issue but there is always the ferry from Dover.

Ive a worse fear there in case we sink :(

All started when i had to get off a plane! :(