The fear of flying, or aerophobia, is quite a well-known and common phobia. Many famous people have admitted to suffering from it, and this fear has even shaped their professional lives. Singers like Mina, for example, Maria De Filippi, Aretha Franklin, and even someone like Lenny Kravitz have confessed to it — and just looking at him, you’d think he’s someone who… well, you just look at him because he’s Lenny Kravitz. I, in my own small way, am no different.
If aerophobia is a common form of anxiety that can range from mild discomfort to a full panic attack when facing a flight, for me—and always in my small way—it’s a moment of terror, an exorcism that takes over and distorts my face and soul. And yet, once I used to fly.
Childhood flights and early freedom
I started flying when I was a child. As a teenager, I traveled by plane alone for study trips, where you learn languages and, most importantly, freely eat all the junk food from wherever you are.
But at a certain point, during a flight taking me to Egypt, I feel that something is wrong in my body. Something’s wrong in my mind, too. My hands start sweating, my breathing becomes labored, my head hurts, and then I feel like crying. In short, after takeoff, I decide it’s time for me to get off. I want to get off, to get out of that metal thing flying high up, hundreds of meters in the air.
But since you can’t get off — and the flight attendant tells me this bluntly, with no tact — I feel a rage, uncontrollable and unmanageable. Everyone: passengers, pilot, steward… everyone, without exception, is my enemy and accomplice in this kidnapping, which is me.
So I become truly mean. My voice gets hoarse, like in a horror movie. The only thing missing is walking backward on my hands, and I’d look fresh out of The Exorcist. People look at me with an unbearable sneer, and the flight attendants, without even a shred of female solidarity, keep serving fruit juices to the passengers. “Fruttini,” as they were called: high in sugar and, one might say, quite inappropriate as a drink while flying through the clouds.
Hostile skies: feeling trapped and alone
Meanwhile, the steward, perhaps impressed by my now yellow pupils and sharp canine teeth that have appeared, comes to hold my hand, thinking he can calm me down, and even invites me to go to the cockpit. According to him, that might soothe me. Imagine me going straight to the home of the person driving that thing and getting locked in there!
There must be a Greece, an Albania, something to land on so I can get off, I think. But the steward’s steady gaze stops me from asking; I can only growl, howl, or make otherworldly sounds.
It’s a phobia; you can’t control it. Do you resign yourself to it? No, of course not. In fact, I even signed up for one of those courses where you conquer the fear, complete with a psychologist on hand. But it didn’t help, and anyway on that flight to Egypt, I was more scared of myself than of that metal thing. Maybe that’s the real phobia? Who knows.
Facing the phobia: attempts to overcome aerophobia
Finally, the plane lands where it was supposed to land, Sharm El Sheikh. I fix my hair and skirt and head toward the exit. I reach out my hand to the steward and, with a spark in my eyes, I say, “It’s been a real pleasure flying with you. Bastards.”
Yes, maybe the real phobia was toward me, or toward ourselves. Or who knows what really.