The Inconvenience

It is difficult having phobias. It is difficult having panic attacks. Most people don't understand. They don't understand so they blame. You. For this. As if it is your fault. As if you can control it.

Ugh, she's crying again. What an inconvenience to your morning flight. Ugh, she's hyperventilating. Can we just kick her off the plane and be done with it? Better yet, just knock her out. She'll wake up when we land. She's panicking; she's standing up from her seat. The flight stewardess is guiding her to first class while the jet pulls away from the gate.

She's quivering; she's gasping for breath. The stewardess is telling her the plane cannot be turned around. The plane would be taxiing soon. They needed to be seated. The girl. She looks about 15-years-old. She collapses to the ground between the seats.

She can't feel her legs; her body won't support her. Her stomach dropped. She's sobbing uncontrollably. The head stewardess contacts the captain. The plane doesn't take off. The stewardess comes back. She tells the teenager we're not going into the air; and that we're returning to the gate. My entire schedule is disrupted because of this stupid teenager. The stewardess manages to help the girl into one of the first class seats. They are talking about dogs. Trying to calm her down, as the plane turns around.

We reach the gate. The captain apologizes for the delay. By this time, the girl is able to breathe normally on her own. She is helped off the plane, despite their insisting she go to the hospital. She refuses, she says she feels better. Just before the girl gets off the plane, she sees the captain. The captain sees her. He can see all the color bleached from her face; he can see the severe redness in her eyes. The puffy swollen texture of her mouth, and the rawness of her nose.

He relaxes, perhaps he thought she had been doing this for attention. Or to make trouble. Maybe she had just been overreacting. No, her panic had been real. Her reactions out of her control. And who knows what would have happened if he had taken off?

She is determined to not let her fear keep her from going places. This meant medication. This meant multiple flights where she's embarrassed herself by crying in public and holding strangers' hands. When she flies alone. Because she couldn't help it. It is seven years later and she just took her first flight without medication.

She is proud; she accomplished something. No, it probably would be a long time, if ever, that she flies comfortably. With no twinge in her stomach, or choking of fear in her throat. But she took that step, she tried. And she's not giving up.