Stories Wanted

 

Lisa Fritshcer, who writes a blog on phobia at this link is looking for stories from people who have been successful in dealing with fear of flying.

 

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Tripoli Crash

 

Again, though this crash in Tripoli, Libya is a tragedy, do allow this to cause you worry about your being on an airliner. This is a new airline. Though it operates a very good airliner - the A330 - and its crews are said to be well-trained, it has not established a statistically significant track record. It is important to understand that factors that limit safety in Africa do not apply to highly developed countries. If your flying is in the U.S., Canada, the UK, or Europe, almost any airline you pick will be a good one, and it is wise to consider this accident irrelevant to the flying you do.

 

You can read Patrick's view on this at www.salon.com. Patrick points out that a Fox 5's aviation expert said, "Everyone knows that African airlines have poor safety records...some of the worst in the world". Patrick says, "Any "expert" who utters a thing like that ought to be kicked off the  set with his mouth wrapped in duct tape.  To diss an entire continent with such stereotypical trash is unbecoming of anybody who purports to take aviation safety seriously."

 

He continutes, "Statistically, Africa's accident record is indeed the worst in the world.  However, that's painting with a 'very' broad brush.  To start with, Africa is a huge continent and it depends which region you're looking at.  The biggest offenders are the western and central sub-Saharan portions of the continent, not the north." 

 

Patrick is correct. But at the same time, my concern is people who get distressed when anything called an airplane crashes anywhere, even though the crash is unrelated the kind of flying they do. If they are not flying to Africa, this accident should not be on their radar screen. If they are, they need to be highly selective.

 

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If you have been bothered by comments by trolls on the message board, this will interest you.

The entire battle with fear of flying is a battle against
psychic equivalence. Psychic equivalence is when a person believes what
is in the mind is reality and what is reality is in the mind.



Between the ages of two and three, a child learns to pretend. Let's
imagine a two year-old and a three year-old playing together. The three
year-old has mastered the art of pretending, but the two year-old is
just beginning to learn to pretend. They agree to pretend they are
explorers in a jungle encountering lions and tigers, poisonous snakes and spiders. The
three year-old can imagine
these things and, at the same time, maintain awareness that the lions
and tigers, snakes and spiders are his own creation. Though it is entertaining
and exciting to imagine this, the three year-old is not overwhelmed.



But the two year-old,
lacking the ability to recognize that what is in mind is not necessarily
real, becomes overwhelmed by fear.










One possibility is that the person simply does not have good reflective function.
Maybe it was never developed. The other possibility is that it is developed, but at times is lost.



As to the first possibility, in some families it is not acceptable to
look inside ones own mental processes. To do so is too painful,
due to emotional distress. To understand this, consider the person who
goes to the bar to get drunk in order to drown his sorrow. He uses
alcohol to get rid of his reflective function, to rid himself for a few
hours of what he sees inside about himself and about how others feel
about him. For children, in some families, how their parents feel about
them is so distressing that they shut down reflective function due to
pain; they don't need alcohol. They do it psychologically. Then, when
they grow up, they still don't look inside. Thus, when flying, again, they
don't look inside. They can't see that what they imagine is not real.
So they can't see that what they fear is imagination.



As to the second possibility, reflective function is
sometimes lost. When anxiety arises high enough, reflective
function shuts down. Consider the difference between a person with a secure orientation to
the world. When looking at a flight, like investing in the stock market,
he makes a prediction. What is likely to happen? How likely is it
to happen? If something historically happens 99.9998% of the time (the
plane gets there), he is going to say 0.0002% (the plane crashes) is
not worth considering and dismiss it.



The insecurely oriented person does not look at what is likely to
happen. Instead, the person looks at what "might happen".



The pre-frontal cortex is where we do our highest level thinking. Allan
Schore and other researchers speak of it as our executive control center,
where we do what is called "executive function". When we drive a car, we
normally do it on mental autopilot (using the sub-cortex). We don't
really think a lot about it. But if someone cuts in front of us and
there is risk of collision, the amygdala responds by recognizing there
is a "non-routine" situation. It triggers a shot of stress hormones to
the prefrontal cortex as a signal for it to focus 100% of its attention
on the non-routine situation. The prefrontal cortex does that and comes
up with a solution (hit the brakes, turn the wheel, whatever . . . ) and
then dismisses the matter, and puts the subcortex back on duty driving
the car.



The problem for the insecurely oriented person is this: the insecurely
oriented person's executive function can NOT dismiss anything that
cannot be totally controlled and ruled out as a risk. The securely
oriented person can dismiss something that happens only 0.0002% of the
time as not worth its time and effort. Or even something that happens
1.0 % of the time. Or in the stock market, perhaps something that
happens 10% of the time. But the insecurely oriented person can dismiss
nothing - really - because after all, nothing can be controlled 100% of
the time. So the only relief the insecure person gets is fantasy: the
illusion that they have control.



So in a car, they hold the wheel in their hand. Ahhhhh. I'm in control.
I'm safe. No! It is a fantasy. But illusion is the only way the
insecure person gets relief. So they get into an airplane. They don't
have control. Oh no! I don't have control. Well, more accurately, the
person only lost the fantasy of control. He doesn't have control in the
car. He doesn't have control in the plane. But he has the ILLUSION of
control in the car. The plane bursts his bubble.



Thus, once a risk comes to the attention of the person's executive function, if
it cannot be dismissed, it remains ACTIVE in the mind. So long as it
remains active, it causes the release of stress hormones that make
executive function focus 100% of its attention on that non-routine
situation.



Then things really get nasty. The person comes up with a second risk. Let's say
the first was what if the wings fall off, and that can't be dismissed
because in 1963 a wing came off some lawyer's Cessna 172 and that
"could" happen, supposedly. Then the second risk comes to mind, what if
the pilot is drunk? That can't be dismissed because it happened in 2007.



Why does this make things so nasty? Because executive function must
focus 100% of its focus on something. Now, it can't do that. It doesn't
know what to do. So it has to prioritize, and figure which to focus on.
But what if both are equally life threatening? It can't decide which is
more important, so it freezes up. Now there is even more anxiety caused
by stress hormone release.



When anxiety rises high enough, reflective function shuts down, and
there is no more ability to think like a three year-old (or older).
Psychic equivalence takes place. Your mind shifts to that of a two
year-old who thinks if it is in the mind, it is real. What's in your
mind becomes real, and the wings are going to fall off and the pilot is
going to be drunk.



Get it? Unless you
can use your executive function and dismiss extremely small risks as
irrelevant, you are in trouble emotionally whenever your illusion of safety doesn't
hold up.



Obviously it is very insulting to recognize you have the mind of a two
year-old. But you do have a more mature mind. It is just that when
anxiety starts to develop because your executive function doesn't work,
you lose your more mature mind and become a two year-old mentally.

 

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