Travel

[happylyfe]

Hi everybody. I wrote on here not to long ago explaining my situation. I am a 26 year old female and In September I ended up suffering from some sort of nervous breakdown with severe anxiety and panic attacks that led me to get on a plane and go back to my parents house. I was off work for 5 weeks and ended up in the hospital for a week because I couldn't stop crying and I could not control my anxiety. They put me on Effexor 150mg and half of a .5mg tablet of Klonopin at night. I ended come coming back to my job and city I was living in end of October and since I've had bad days and good days but still not close to feeling normal. I've always had a dream of going to India and I've done lots of travel before. A month ago I decided to book a ticket to India alone but to join a tour group. I am scheduled to leave in 3 days and I am suddenly freaking out about it. I have such bad anxiety and this overwhelming fear that I will not be able to get on the plane. If I don't I will feel like such a failure and my anxiety and depression will have taken away the thing that makes me happiest, travel. I just don't know what to do :( can someone help me?

[debs71]

Hi,

My advice: GO!

I suffer from travel anxiety and have done for many years. I always travel alone, and I once had a panic attack on a plane (4hr journey) which scared me senseless, and after that I had anxiety issues with plane journeys.

I have even cancelled, rebooked and then cancelled journeys again because of it!

The ONLY way to conquer travel fear is to just do it. The anxiety that you are feeling now I can TOTALLY relate to. It is like an anticipatory anxiety - what might happen to you, will you have a panic attack on the way?, etc.......but the truth is that the anticipation is actually worse than when you will eventually set off and be doing your journey, I can hand on heart say!

Facing the anxiety is really the only way to conquer and at least partially overcome it (I still feel anxiety before I leave.....like the day before) Once you are able to prove to yourself that you CAN leave home, you CAN get on that plane, and you CAN travel without panicking, you have had a victory, so the next time you travel becomes easier and easier. It is kind of a 'jumping in at the deep end' situation!

Try if you can to affirm in your mind that this is just anticipatory nerves, and resolve in your mind that you CAN do this and that you booked this trip because you really want to go, and you WILL go. It sounds dumb, but just replacing the negative thoughts with postives really helps a lot.

For me personally, I now feel that anxiety before I travel, but once I am in that taxi, on the way to the airport and get inside the airport, I am so focused on my journey that my anxiety fades away......I know this can happen for you too. xx:hugs:

[happylyfe]

Thank you so much for your reply.