1:1 Fear of Flying help
Fearfull Flyer, there is a great load of information and tips on this thread with (amazingly for PPRUNE!) sound advice from all contributors. (The professionals can be much more difficult in Rumours and News - don't believe everything you read there!).
I run, from time to time, ground based fear of flying courses in the Channel Islands and I have worked with a number of people 1:1 with considerable success. Since I used to suffer from fear of flying (or aerophobia as it is technically called) I do most of this work for free. I am keen to help others with this debilitating problem. I got over my difficulties by training as a pilot, but that is not to say my approach would be ideal for everyone. I do now sit in the back of airliners in a relaxed state and enjoy each flight. In fact, I even look forward to them now. You could get to that - but really just finding it boring is a good result!
The causes of the fear are important to establish. In my experience, they generally fall into one (occasionally two) of four categories:
- lack of knowledge/understanding;
- linked phobia (usually claustrophobia - interestingly fear of heights does not generally present for fearful flyers, but fear of falling does) These need a different approach to treatment;
- obsessive behaviour around aviation disaster stories (in the press and by word-of-mouth, sometimes even on here!) These are often wrong/misinformed;
- personal experience of an aviation incident (Note my use of the term incident. I actually have yet to meet someone who has actually experienced something that was really dangerous; just rare experience of the application by flight and cabin crew of well established procedures for handling in-flight issues of a quite minor nature. PAX often think they've been through a near death experience though!)
Good example on Yahoo today reporting a Quantas depressurization. No-one hurt; aircraft descended (albeit expedited by the flight crew) in the usual controlled way (using the autopilot controls I suspect), to the safe altitude at which pressure (oxygen content) doesn't matter; landed safely. Yes, it must have been rather unnerving for the passengers, probably uncomfortable on the ears, but an incident for which the crew train safely handled. Yahoo reported this as 'Passenger jet plunges xxxx feet'. It's wrong and it's scare-mongering. It made a controlled descent as it should have done. There are loads of examples of such awful, sensationalist and lazy reporting. I don't intend my comments here to sound dismissive, but in my experience, roughly 70 - 80% of reporting about air incidents is wrong.
My day job includes a certain amount of management psychology and, I have occasionally found looking at type preference and behavioural traits helps explain why people are, for example, more prone to panic than others.
Progressive exposure to the aviation environment often helps. I guess you are based near MAN, so speak to the people at the museum (near the airport) and see if they can let you sit in one or more aeroplanes for a while. Staying there until you feel bored is a good target. Go to the airport and just get used to sitting around in the terminal drinking tea or similar - until you find it really boring and the heart's stopped racing.
Please, above all, don't just blank it until a couple of weeks before your departure. It won't work and you really will probably end up cancelling or failing to board. Believe me, although you get initial relief, you'd feel angry and inadequate for months after. It's always better to attack this one proactively, but it can take several months to be successful.
Some find the 1 day fear of flying courses with a flight helpful, but I often wonder how many people find them too intense and what the psychological success rate is. I know people who have attended and now fly - still very nervously. On the other hand, a high profile person who was cured by one was Whoopee Goldberg - she learned something on one of those courses that addressed a specific fear and that answer got her flying again.
Someone mentioned the possibility of medication from your GP. They were correct. GPs usually prescribe Diazepam (or a drug from the Benzodiazepine group) although some use beta-blockers - which reduce the heart rate and can make you a bit sleepy.