Does anyone else get anxious before going on holiday?

[ChompandaGrazia]

I love being on holiday, I love planning a holiday, but I’m a bag of nerves for about 24 hours before I leave. Once I’ve left the house I’m fine. It’s only me and DH, no one else to plan for or think about.

I know there is no logic, I know I need to have a word with myself. It doesn’t help that DH is exactly the same!

Yes! I’m a wreck until I get on the plane. In fact, the day before I go away I feel really sad that I’ll not be in my own home and my own bed watching my own tv and eating my own food for the next couple of weeks.

I did when we used to go abroad but now we have holidays in this country and no anxiety just excitement. I think for us, it comes from knowing that we can always just get in our car and leave if needs be.

We have just been to Barbados. I secretly go through a weird anxious thing just before we go and think I want to stay home. It’s most odd. I’m fine once I’m at Heathrow and the luggage is checked in.

This is the problem, I could cope if it was just me and I was like this in secret but DH is exactly the same.

Yep, extremely anxious. I've been much better recently but then went away in March and was like I was a year or so ago and it was just horrid. I don't particularly feel like I want to be at home but it's just the unknown. It's a horrible start to the holiday as my husband is just so chilled and relaxed and I can be a right cow to him.

I thought I was the only person who felt like this - every freaking time, whether it’s a couple of days or a couple of weeks, huge anxiety before we leave and fine once on plane/destination. Very odd as I’m not an anxious person usually. Twenty four hours before we leave for anywhere I’m a bag of nerves and all I want to do is stay home!

Yes, it always seems like such an upheaval. And I hate having to put the cat into a cattery - even though she is spoilt rotten there and always comes home perfectly happy!

I think it's the actual travelling. If I could just click my fingers and be there it would be a lot better.

The packing is also overwhelming. Lists don't seem to help me.

Also, I get anxious about forgetting things. DH always says it doesn't matter as we can get whatever we need where we're going but it's not always that straightforward.

Yes, though I'm better than I used to be. It’s a natural thing, I think. We’re not really designed to uproot ourselves like that.

I find it hideously stressful. The first time we flew long haul with DD I came out in actual hives for the week before we flew. Hasn’t been that bad since then, luckily, but I haven’t done another long haul flight to trial it.

I don’t mind if it’s me going by myself, though. Then it all feels quite exciting.

Oh this is me and I thought I was weird! nice to know there are others. I get so stressed out- can't eat a thing 24 hrs before. Doesn't matter if it's 1 night away in the UK or 2 weeks abroad
. I plan like mad- have a travel 'wallet' with everything printed out for abroad- boarding cards, directions, insurance- google map for the nearest supermarket- taxi pre booked for when we land. It's all on my phone as well. Also make DH and DS download the apps and log in.
If we are flying I relax once boarded the plane and I have a drink in my hand. I'm fine and enjoy the holiday. Uk stays- once we've set off in the car- fine.
It's sorting the house out too before we go if away more than a week! Is the bin emptied/is there milk and bread and bacon ready in the fridge/freezer/is all the washing done/taps turned off-is everywhere clean for when we get back. I love going away really- wish I could just think sod it and go

I was discussing this with a friend before we went and she’s exactly the same.

I worry that I've forgotten something or done it wrong-booked the wrong flight/hotel/travel insurance or will forget the passports or that the flight will be cancelled/transfers won't be there etc!

I have it from the moment I book it. Crippling. It’s mostly linked to the kids though. I don’t sleep either in the run up to the holiday and the first 3 nights.

I feel physically sick when leaving the house and pretty much don't relax until I'm at my destination. Have I left a candle burning? Have I left a tap running? Have I left the heating on? Do I have my passport? Have I got my travel documents? What if I'm late to the airport? What if I need a poo on the plane? What if I get a migraine and can't fly? What if the hotel haven't got me on record? What if my house is on fire?

I'm an overthinker and it's exhausting. If my parents are home they pop into my house on the same day I travel just so I have peace of mind that all is okay at home. If they can't because they're away themselves I have a camera on in the lounge and I have to actually take photos of things like the thermostat and the windows to reassure myself I've shut down properly. Once away I forget about it all by the following day and just enjoy myself.

It's only now after writing it down I realise how over the top I am.

I’m exactly the same. For me it’s not just the prep and travelling, it’s the fear of the unknown.

I hate noisy places and most holiday resorts are just that , I also stress about what my room will be like and will there be loud or rowdy people next door.

I know it is strange, and doesn’t make sense, especially as I have kids that can be loud. It’s pretty awful for me! I find it hard to relax in general, so holidays can be hard. Usually after a while I do enjoy myself, but it is hard at the beginning and beforehand!

I'm the same.

Same here, me and DH both. It’s much better with DH because I am upfront about how I am feeling, when I was a teenager and this started I always felt like I had to hide it from my family…and the abroad hen do I went on was just awful.

We always have a nice time when we get there though - we are like the previous poster who said it is the travelling that causes the stress and anxiety. If we could just be there I would be fine

What doesn’t help is that we have different ways of dealing with the pre holiday stress - for me it is right check everything and get out before you start to worry as soon as you are ready. For him it is faff about and take your time. They aren’t very compatible styles but we all need to be allowed to do our own thing to feel comfortable so nowadays I just leave and sit in the car and he joins me when he is ready

I am definitely like this. I’m anxious generally and have ocd. Sometimes the anxiety has lasted the whole holiday but the last few haven’t been too bad. It’s actually rather odd to sit inside a metal tube and be flung across the planet at high speed and be without your home comforts for a while! It has to be a really amazing hotel for me to look forward to it 😂

Yes!

I’m absolutely terrified of flying (although I have got better the more/further I’ve flown) so I think I distract myself by stressing like a twat about other, unimportant stuff.

I overthink and make a massive drama about packing, I drive DH nuts, I drive myself nuts, so the thought of packing makes me so anxious.

I’m not normally a stressy person and am usually quite laid back about stuff but holidays send me slightly insane

I'm exactly the same. I love holidays and travelling abroad but the day before of/day of our departure, I will heartily wish I wasn't going! I'm fine once I'm checked in at the airport.

I’m so glad I’m not alone!
We go very early Sunday morning. My mum is coming up to house and car sit so we don’t need to worry, but in an away that puts on extra stress because we’ve got other things to sort out for her staying.

I’m like this, I wish I could stop it. The night before flying I’m awake all night with a racing heart it’s just awful, it ruins the first day of my holiday because I’m so exhausted!

I am like this. I never used to be but for the past ten or fifteen years the anxiety has got steadily worse. I’m seriously beginning to wonder if I should just stop going on holiday.

I've tried to pinpoint what it is that makes me anxious and I think it's because I worry I haven't done all the necessary organisational things so run the risk of coming up against some "computer says no" barrier to doing what I want to do. There are so many systems you have to comply with now, so many hoops to jump through, so many points where something can go wrong and no one takes responsibility for putting it right because customer service systems are designed to prevent customers from getting in touch. We actually got stranded by easyJet one year (like those people you read about in the tabloids moaning beside a pool) and it was the devil's own job to get back and sorted out, even from a European city - for three days straight no direct communication whatsoever, just local airport staff loading us onto a bus to a hotel somewhere in an industrial wasteland that served us mouldy food and had no shops nearby etc - finally sorted a route to the UK myself but it cost thousands on the credit card - thankfully refunded - and it really made me realise that this hyperconnected yet alienating technologically dependent world is not set up with systems that benefit ordinary individual people, and it is astonishingly easy to become physically cut adrift.