To Not Go On Holiday

[Sadalot90]

I’m in my 40s had a baby late in life and ever since I’ve been incredibly anxious. I suppose I was before but it is really bad now.
Recent events have exacerbated my anxiety: my dad is living with stage 4 cancer, I was made redundant after being in the same job for years, I am taking my former employer to a tribunal, my grandad died and I was there at the end and it was not peaceful, my sister will not speak to anyone in the family, I have struggled to find another job to name some.

I am also extremely scared of flying and we are due to go on holiday at the end of the week. My anxiety about this is through the roof. Would I be unreasonable just not to go? To simply say I can’t manage. I cannot tell you how much better I would feel. However it would be incredibly selfish, my husband would not understand (he definitely wouldn’t go without me) but my son is only 2 so he wouldn’t comprehend he is missing out.

I know I shouldn’t have booked it but I did. The flight is 3 hours long. Is there a middle ground… the GP gave me propranolol before but it didn’t make any difference. I’m pretty sure they won’t prescribe Valium for fear of flying but could I get it for the rest of my issues. Distraction, meditation, alcohol, etc never help.

Any advice would be welcomed.

Yabu …you booked it and it would be selfish to back out. A 3 hour flight isn’t that long.
Yanbu…you are so overwhelmed and it is not the end of the world to cancel a holiday

I think it Would be nothing short of reckless for you to take your child abroad given how you describe yourself.

spend the money on therapy in helping yourself op

Surely your husband is aware of how on the edge you appear to be?

Can you afford to go somewhere over here instead like a caravan holiday? I'm sorry for your anxiety. Could anti depressants help your anxiety?

Firstly, I'm sorry to hear you're having such a tough time right now. I hope your husband is being supportive about everything even if you're not sure he'd understand if you said you wanted to cancel the holiday.

My personal opinion is that it's perfectly fine to cancel the holiday if you're not up to it. And I'm speaking as someone who loves travelling to new places more than anything else. If you're stressed and anxious you won't enjoy the holiday, especially if you're worrying about the return flight while you're there.

As for your husband, just explain it like you did here. That's all you can do.

On a practical note for upcoming holiday, would you be covered by your travel insurance if you cancelled on the grounds of being ill (you'd need to prove it of course, but would your GP confirm you're suffering from anxiety)? If you are, you could use the money to go somewhere in the UK instead.

For the future, please look into some counselling or therapy such as CBT. There’s no one-stop, one-size fits all solution, and services can be in high demand, but you sound really overwhelmed with everything that is going on and you need the support. Speak to your GP to get the ball rolling.

For future holidays, consider alternatives. Obviously holidays probably aren't even your priority just now but it's nice to have a break from every day life. It'll take a while to resolve your fear of flying, but that doesn't mean you have to go without. You can go on holiday in the UK. You can take ferries, even as a foot passenger. You can take the Eurostar. Once you're on the continent, you can drive or take trains. It can be expensive, but if you keep your eye out for cheap ferry deals and/or advance train fares it can be done. Seat61.com is a great resource for trains and he has a lot of info on ferries too.

In the meantime, look after yourself and don't be afraid to cancel if that's what's best for you

In your circumstances OP I would cancel without a moment's hesitation.

I'm an anxious traveller. Do what you need to do to get on the plane and go. You will feel a million times better knowing you can do it and not let your fears win.

Cancel.

Why wouldn’t your DH go without you?

You can cancel but you may find facing your fears and having a holiday actually help - it’s hard to call

Is there any way of getting some of the money back?

And booking a UK trip instead?

Generally speaking I would say YANBU just trying to think of the practicalities re the money.

A 2 yo definitely doesn’t need to be taken on holiday as you can do just as lovely, enriching things close to home.

But it is a bit worry that you’re feeling so anxious.

Re the fear of flying specifically, can you try hypnosis? That worked for my cousin.

I suspect he wants to spend his holidays with his wife and child, many families do this. He'd probably be happier having a holiday at home with them than go somewhere abroad alone.

Have you always been afraid of flying? What have you done in the past when you booked flights?

I know I have been unable to explain anxiety to my dh - he just doesn’t really get it. He has not watched his parents and other relatives die; he hasn’t had the stress of carrying a baby and giving birth. He hasn’t been post natally depressed or suffered peri-menopause. But when I said to him “I’m really scared about this flight, I can’t explain why but I just have a bad, bad feeling about it” he still comforted me and helped me talk through what was triggering me. Would your dh help your step through this situation and come up with some solutions?

presumably you booked it because dh wants a holiday and you wanted to please him but now you’re dreading it - am I close?

Sounds like you’re in need of therapy OP. Sorry for everything you have been through recently.

I felt this anxious on many flights in a bad general anxiety period. I got myself on board using headphone meditation and music, then counting down to half way there, half way to go.

I could have backed out so many times, but almost gave myself a huge pep talk everytime. The elation you feel once you've achieved it is amazing.

It then spurred me on to tackle the general anxiety head on, which i did.

You can do it, you will feel sick/faint/ill/sweat BUT this is temporary. You can do it and I can assure you so many more people than you realise do. There's even airlines that offer anxiety beat the queues if it's that bad on the day you can talk to check in.

Good luck, you won't need it!!

Anxiety is a symptom of peri-menopause. I got serious bad anxiety in my 40s.

Assuming OP can’t get a refund, it’d still presumably cost her more to go on holiday than stay at home.

Sunk costs fallacy - you aren’t “wasting” money not going on holiday. The money is spent.

The better way of looking at it is OP has the choice of a free holiday (plus any holiday expenditure) or to stay at home.

Personally, I believe anxiety is a thief that just makes your life smaller and makes you lose out on the things you could and should have. It’s insidious, gets into your brain and tells you you can’t achieve things, that it’s too much and that life will be easier and happier if you don’t do things. I’ve never had any positives from listening to it, but had immeasurable gain from not listening.
but, saying that, everyone does have a limit and if you’re going to go abroad and hate every minute and wish you’d never gone because it will be a whole world of anxiety about the pool, the food, the traffic, the weather etc etc then it’s pointless.

I have (diagnosed) anxiety and have been on an NHS course that did help significantly. (For a while - I need to re-engage with help again now as I am going downhill.)

One of the things it taught me is that if you have anxiety then if you don’t do something that worries you then, in the short term, you feel much better. But the illness then takes over and gives you something new to fear. So you are just as anxious as you were before and in the meantime your world has got a little bit smaller.

For me one of my big fears was putting fuel in the car. As both me and dh drive both our cars fairly randomly a mix of lockdown and slight laziness meant that I didn’t actually put fuel in the car for many months. And then it got built up into a big thing. So I started actively avoiding it. Choosing which car to take based on which wouldn’t need filling up (even if the other was far more suitable). Driving almost ridiculously fuel efficiently so I didn’t need to fill up. Not going somewhere I wanted to as I would need to fill up on the way. And all the time dh would go in the car and fill up if necessary as I never wanted to admit to the fear as it was embarrassing!

After that session of the course I decided I had to fix it and I did manage to fill the car up. And nothing terrible happened. And now I can fill up with fuel almost like anyone else. If I am honest I still find it stressful. But I do it. And I am not full of creeping dread whenever I notice that the car has less than 150 miles left.

And boy do I feel smug afterwards! Look at me filling up the car! I did it yesterday. There was almost a swagger once I had managed it!

It’s hard to say without seeing how “bad” you are. I say this as a person that had crippling social anxiety in my 20’s that can still flare now in my late 40’s.

I largely conquered it through a mix of drugs & supportive friends and a determination to not let it beat me. So in my case I tried to push through even the really hard stuff and it generally helped.
But that might not be right for you, I can’t tell what sort of state you are in.

My biggest help was to really vocalise my fears to everyone and to have a plan that the people I was with were aware of - so for example in a theatre I’d have the seat nearest the exit and whoever I was with was aware I might leave at any point and that was ok and didn’t need explanation.
The more I spoke up about the anxiety the less awful it was, as trying to pretend it wasn’t there made things so much worse. Facing up to it and confronting it really helped me. Running away from it just made it worse. So I would think about how you might manage the flight and holiday in an upfront way rather than take the easy way our.

It is perfectly possible to get on top of it @Sadalot90, good luck with whatever you do.

Avoiding things that make you feel anxious feeds the anxiety.

You’ll likely get there and feel proud of yourself for doing it and enjoy a nice holiday. If you don’t go you’ll feel guilty and annoyed with yourself.

Sorry you’re having a hard time.

I’m afraid if I were your DH I’d be incredibly pissed off. Not for your feelings, which are what they are. But for stringing me along: why did you book this when you knew you have fear of flying? I’m sorry for all the other things going on in your life at the same time. But this IS life. There are always things going on. You can’t put other people’s lives on hold because of them, unless they’re okay with you doing so. You can’t give into your worries and fears because (1) they will consume you (2) the guilt you would feel towards disappointing your DH would cancel out some of the gain (3) giving into your anxieties indulges them (4) it’s not responsible or adult behaviour to commit to something when you know or have a strong suspicion you can’t carry through. No doubt someone will be along shortly to tell me I don’t know how anxiety works, I’m being unduly harsh, I don’t understand - well, I was your DH my entire childhood wrt my mum and I can tell you for a fact that this ruins relationships and causes real harm. You and your DH are both adults. Unless he’s totally fine with you cancelling I think it’s damaging to give into your worries in this way.

Not sure what airline you are travelling with but I used TUI recently and found them very good. If you contact your airline and ask for special assistance you can check in normally quicker and get through customs with your family without a queue. We ended up with better seats as my child has anxiety. You don’t have to give details of any medical condition for assistance. Hope you get to take your break whatever you decide to do.

I can identify in a way OP. I’m currently in a nightmare situation trying to sell our seemingly unsalable flat that we simply don’t fit in now we have a toddler (a long and equally stressful story as to why we couldn’t move before he arrived!) and I’m two weeks away from taking on a much more stressful role at work. At the point of accepting the role I thought our sale worries would be over but alas now it’s just piling on top. In the midst of this I need dental treatment and I am TERRIFIED of the dentist, I have a whole thread on it. It’s not desperately urgent but it will be if I leave it longer, so I’m doing it (with the aid of diazepam). I’ve had the first of two appointments with the second this week and while it’s currently keeping me up at night with fear I feel like the process of facing up to it has given me a bit of control over something, I’m proud of myself for doing it and I know when it’s done then one weight will be off.

While a holiday is obviously something you don’t HAVE to do, once you’re there hopefully the rest and a nice break with your DH and DC will be beneficial to all of you, and give you a bit of respite from all the other shit. I fear that if you cancel then the guilt and stress of that may just add on to your other worries.

I don’t know if I’ve explained myself well there, but I wish you all the best.

Thank you everyone for your kind words and advice. I completely agree that I should have never booked in the first place but sometimes you get yourself in to awkward situations and need advice on how to move forward.
I will try to go ahead with the holiday and then work on sorting my anxiety out once I am back. Thanks again.

Why not start before?
unless you’re going on holiday this week?