I’m BACK on the best west coast. With much difficulty.

I’ve talked about my fear of flying before, but I don’t think people actually know how severe it is. I got a prescription for Xanax because I feel like that’s a healthier way to deal with anxiety when I fly instead of drinking 5 glasses of wine before I board the plane.

On the flight back, however, my mom convinced me not to take the medication because we paid an additional $180 to ensure our seats were together and she would “make sure that I was OK the entire flight.” And boy did she try. Before we even took off, she was talking a mile a minute to occupy my mind. She talked about all.the.things. I think she ran out of things because then she started listing off all the items in each of my sister’s cabinets at her new apartment and how she ended up organizing it all. I love her for trying.

But the minute the plane took off, I was a wreck. This grown-ass girl just broke down into tears and pretty much crawled into my mother’s lap for the first hour and a half of the flight. Take off is the worst.

So that’s how a typical flight starts off for me. 

Then there’s also these few things that happen every.single.time, without fail.

1. With every bump or shake, I grab onto the seat in front of me (as if that’s actually going to save me in the event of an accident). 
2. When turbulence lasts longer than 6 seconds, my eyes well up with tears, my heart races, and my palms become sweaty. This isn’t just a moist kind of sweaty. This is like full on water DRIPPING from my hands.
3. On the off chance that the flight is completely smooth for a while, I have visions of another plane just SMASHING into the side of our plane (On this flight I ACTUALLY thought that a plane was coming directly at us. Turns out that the “plane” was actually a cloud).
4. I also imagine that the plane just stops working and we completely plummet to the ground and crash.
5. When turbulence is really bad, I imagine that a wing will break off and we all die.

I’ve tried everything but my anxiety seems to be getting worse, not better.

I survived the flight. But I’m flying to Hawaii next week for Joy’s wedding and everyone keeps telling me that the flights in and out of Hawaii are pretty turbulent.

I know this may sound more humorous than anything else. And all of these things I experience seem ridiculously bizarre. But they are, in truth, my legitimate feelings each and every time I fly. 

Somebody fix me.