Overcoming in-flight panic attacks

(710 words)

Flying commercial always makes me feel like a foot must feel when it’s getting shoved into a bowling shoe.

I tweeted that last week and was immediately corrected by Jim H., one of my old Nashville Banner buddies, who said I was being too kind.

A more accurate description, he said, would be it feels like a right foot getting crammed into some left shoe with somebody else’s stinking foot already inside it.

Bingo.

That our national air carriers can turn an endeavor involving transporting human beings 32,000 feet above the earth’s surface into something so perfectly pedestrian is a towering tribute to oxymoronic grandeur.

I last week flew from Pittsburgh-to-Chicago-to-Omaha then Omaha-to-Charlotte-to-Pittsburgh.

That's a lot of airtime for a guy once prone to airplane panic attacks.

It wasn’t the prospect of flying that disturbed me. No, it was the prospect of flying inside an airplane that did.

I’m sure I’d be more comfortable strapped right to the wing.

Who wouldn’t? 

Honest. I’ve flown in hot air balloons and open-cockpit bi-wing stunt planes. I’ve twice gone skydiving and once took the controls of a 330 horsepower Extra 330LCs aerial stunt plane.

And the thing was way up in the sky when I did!

Yet from about 2001 through 2010 I used to have low-grade panic attacks on planes.

They had nothing to do with 9/11.

Instead, they had everything to do with a pre-9/11 Wall St. Journal story I saw about passengers on a Northwest Flight who due to heavy snows were marooned on the tarmac for 11 hours. That’s eleven.

The richly-detailed story told how the passengers were just 50 yards from the terminal gate, yet no assistance could be rendered. The toilets backed up, babies were screaming, fights between passengers and crew erupted.

Worse, they run out of booze!

Imagine the cruel deprivation, the stink, the claustrophobia.

I remember reading the epic story and thinking, “Man, if that ever happens to me I’ll go out of my mind.”

Of course, it happened my very next flight.

It lasted “only” four hours, but when you’re in the middle of it you don’t know how long it could last. Worse, the pilot would come on the intercom every 15 minutes and say it’d be just another 15 minutes.

They did that for four hours.

I had the middle seat between two barnstorming Sumo wrestlers. Just one fart and we’d all be goners. I remember breaking out in a cold sweat.

A storm had re-routed my NYC direct flight through Cleveland. I could look out my window and see Interstate 90 that led to Detroit.

By coincidence I’d in fewer than 12 hours be right there. My buddies and I had tickets to the Pirates inter-league series against the Tigers. I knew I could have arranged an easy rendezvous to spare me from my purgatory.

But they wouldn’t let me leave. The flight attendant, bless her heart, was very understanding. She let me stand up near the cockpit, dabbed me with damp towels and coached me to breath like she thought I was about to go into labor.

I had a rough stretch flying after that. I tried boozing, home-remedy relaxation techniques and talking about my problem to wary seatmates.

Nothing worked. I still on every flight felt like running up and down the narrow aisle until I could find a place to eject from the tubular prison.

I was finally able to beat it with something so simple I’m surprised I’d never heard counseled.

I immersed myself in a really good book.

I was flying from Houston and in the airport picked up Adam Hochschild’s fine “To End All Wars,” about World War I, one of the most miserable epochs in human history.

I think it helps me when I’m feeling sorry for myself to read about other hapless bastards who’ve had it way worse.

WWI soldiers had it so awful. They were trapped in tightly confined spaces with the constant threat of mortal harm. There were poison gases, endless dread and unceasing torments.

I know what you’re thinking.

Sounds like your typical commercial flight.

I must be thinking of a different book.

Related . . .

Vegas: Sore from soaring in stunt planes

Plane truths from a real road warrior

“Look, ma! No hands!” a pilot’s story

Planes should have horns to honk

Let kids land all the planes!

We  … all … need … some … space

Return of the panic attacks

Lewis Grizzard, the late, great Southern humorist, used to say he belonged to a no-fly club. Their motto:

“If given a choice, we will never fly. If given no choice, we will never fly sober.”

I wholeheartedly support the sentiment without practicing it.

But I thought long and hard about getting all gooned up for a long flight from Houston to Pittsburgh Sunday night.

I thought it might help me from succumbing to a panic attack, something that hadn’t happened in almost 10 years.

First a little background.

I have no fear of flying. I’ve flown in hot air balloons, bi-planes, stunt jets, have twice gone skydiving and once leaned out the open cargo bay deck while tethered to a C-45 military mule that was cruising at 10,000 feet.

It was all very cool, as I like to think I am.

My odd problem isn’t flying.

It’s flying commercial.

In that regard, my panic attacks make perfect sense.

Few people recall it, but one of the biggest news stories of the summer of 2001 was the congressional consideration of a passenger bill of rights.

The flying public was fed-up.

Exhibit A in the necessity of the legislation was a Northwest Airline flight from, I think, Detroit.

I vividly remember reading all about it in a front page story from the Wall Street Journal. It told in painstaking detail what happened on the flight where weather delays necessitated passengers be held captive on the tarmac. This one lasted nine hours.

Toilets backed up, stagnant air fouled, children screamed, passengers fought; To this day, I remain amazed someone didn’t pull the emergency chute and slide to sweet freedom.

There’s no explaining the irrational mind of man.

I made the mistake of reading every word of the story and thinking, man, if that ever happens to me I’ll go right out of my mind.

This seemed unlikely because it seemed to herald a tipping point where everyone agreed, enough’s enough, this must never happen again.

You may not remember it because of another big news story that swept it from the front pages.

That was 9/11, the day when passenger rights instantly became a quaint notion of bygone days.

Of course, you can by now guess what happened to me on my first post-9/11 flight.

Dangerous weather diverted my New York to Pittsburgh flight to Cleveland. Every 15 minutes, the pilot came on and updated us that we’d soon be on our way.

We were stuck there four hours.

I can tell you from personal experience that a jail cell is less confining than coach seats on a 737. In a jail cell, you can at least get up and pace.

In a typical jetliner, you can’t move even an inch. The feeling becomes more acute when the plane isn’t going anywhere either.

It began with a cold sweat and an overwhelming need to get up and run. I felt as if I’d been sealed in a great big coffin. I knew once the plane got rolling, I’d be fine, but I felt if I remained in that middle seat I’d go out of my mind.

Here’s another thing: There’s an utter lack of humanity on commercial flights. No one jokes. Few are civil. It’s oppressive, as is the entire air travel experience.

Looking back I wonder if one of the triggers may have been I-90.

I could practically see it from my seat. The very next day my buddies and I had planned to drive to Detroit to catch some baseball games. I knew if I could just get off that plane I could arrange for them to pick me up on the way. My unjust incarceration would be over.

I finally bolted from my seat and confided to the flight attendant I was coming unglued.

Well, she couldn’t have been nicer if she’d have pulled my head to her breast and told me to call her Mommy.

“A lot of people have been having strange reactions since 9/11,” she said.

She gave me a cool, damp towel to put on my neck and let me stand there near the open door. Just seeing access to escape soothed me. The panic passed.

But once I’d experienced it, I became hyper-aware it could happen again. And it did. Two more flights in the next six months experienced delays, one of them for two hours while they fixed a stupid Julia Roberts movie that wouldn’t play.

I’ve hated Julia ever since.

Somehow, I made peace with the discomforts of flight and have been what passes for normal for the last decade.

So none of that was on my mind as I strapped into my aisle seat for last week’s flight to Houston. As I settled in, I noticed that the guys in the middle seat beside and behind me were buddies.

“Here, you guys are friends. Take my seat,” I offered.

What a great guy! They were very appreciative at my generosity.

Had I surveilled the seats previous to opening my mouth, I never would have made the offer.

Occupying the aisle and window were two enormous stoics. They didn’t nod at me or acknowledge a fellow human being would be practically in their lap for the next three hours. I began feeling the stirrings of the old panic.

It built for over a minute before I said enough. I told the guy I’d changed my mind. I needed my aisle seat back. Pronto.

The sudden retraction of my offer baffled them. I didn’t care.

There’s no explaining this irrational mind of mine.

The return flight was sober and uneventful. I had an aisle seat and a slender female next to me who smiled when I sat down and engaged in pleasantries.

So it seems the requirements for guys like me to fly are an aisle seat, on-time flights and petite seat mates who look like they might hold my hand if I start feeling odd agitations.

My fear is the airlines might read this and realize a good percentage of their customers would pay extra for these kinds of civilities that should be common practice.

Maybe I should think about hiring a skinny hooker to fly with me next time.

It’d probably be cheaper than flying first class.