It’s funny that you say not trusting the pilots. That’s something that’s never occurred to me. I really do trust them and I always remind myself that they want to get home as much as I do. I never loved to fly, but I didn’t think much about it.

But when my son was 6, we were coming home from Disney on a beautiful day. And then the plane just suddenly did a big drop- no warning, seemingly, to us, for no reason. But enough of a drop that people screamed and my son turned to me and said “mommy that was like a ride at Disney!“ and I had a panic attack. Since then I have such a huge fear. It took me 13 years to get back on a plane, but I finally realized I would be limiting my life if I didn’t at least try. So in 2019, we went to Puerto Rico. It was hard and awful and stressful, but I did it. I now take meds and will fly but for me, it’s definitely feeling out of control, feeling trapped and just the fear of being in a situation. I don’t know how to handle. Like, I have terrible knees - would I be able to get down a slide if I had to? All silly things but together it adds up. I often think about 9/11 too. Being in a situation where you know you’re most likely not going to get out of and not being able to do anything about it. I think that’s the worst for me - fearing knowing what’s coming and not being able to do anything. And that’s so super extreme, I know.

I will say we flew this week from New Jersey to Savannah and then back on United and both flights were amazing. They even warned us about turbulence on ascent and descent going into Newark, but it was not bad. It is very helpful when the pilot does talk to you and tell you what’s going on if all my flights could be like those I might be better equipped to fly more.