Travelling for the first time in years early January

[Runwildash]

Hi all,

I have travel anxiety and travelling often generates panic attacks for me, like many others, I know.
I'm in France, and used to live in the UK, and I would at the time go back and forth from one country to the other, fly, etc... Never a big deal.

Then I came back to France to live here, and the first panic attack happened, but while I was on hols in Ireland. It was over 20 years ago. To this day, I have no idea what triggered it.
I've been avoiding travelling abroad as much as i could since then, but I'm really fed up with my situation, and decided to take matters in my hands, so to speak and to fight.

On january 4th I'll be going to Manchester to meet with my bf.
To do that, I'll have to drive 2 hours to the local airport, then wait about 90 minutes for my flight, then fly for about 1 hour, wait another hour for my connecting flight and fly another hour.
Needless to say, I'm very apprehensive.

I have meds, I take a very low dose of clonazepam daily (10 mg), and I can take more if needed, but I've had so many meds in the past 20 years that I've built a resistance, of course, and now it takes at least 90 minutes for an anti-anxiety med to kick in (I've tried several).
Since I'll be driving, I can't be "too" medicated, I'll need a clear head. After that, once I'm at the airport, I can take a stronger pill of course. But I'm really terrified of all the waiting time and how I'm going to cope with it.
So I have two questions:

- first, which are the fastest acting meds for you?
- second, what are your coping mechanisms when you do get a panic attack?


Thanks a lot for reading :bighug1:

[vicky23]

Hi,
well done for taking the courageous first step to travel. Yes it's a long complicated journey but think of the sense of achievement you'll get when you do it!
I'm not sure about meds I'm afraid but try taking a look at CBT4panic by Robin Hall who posts here, he explains things very well and I think you'll find some things very helpful
Very best wishes
X

[robinhall]

Hi
The cbt4panic programme vicky is talking about can be found here

http://cbt4panic.org/

[goodman]

Fantastic you're going to travel.... just recently i had to fly after avoiding it for years as i was too anxious to travel.... my Mother had a lung transplant and i had to fly with her as a carer.... it was scary as hell but i did it!! She also made a full recovery and is doing great... take your medication if needed and listen to some favourite music or even the radio.... once you do one trip you will get confidence to do more. God speed x