Hi everyone, my name is Meagan and I just finished up my sophomore year as a communications student at CSS.
When I signed up for this trip to London I was all gung ho and ready to go but my enthusiasm quickly turned to gut wrenching anxiety as the weeks went by leading up to the trip. This would be my first time out of the country and my first time flying by myself. I felt completely unprepared and honestly still feel that way.
I'm originally from Woodbury, Minnesota which is a suburb of St. Paul and since I was flying out of Minneapolis I got to go home and spend a few days with my very sick siblings before leaving (to all my travelmates, they were no longer contagious by the time I got home so I hope and pray I didn't bring any germs with me).
So on to the real nitty gritty stuff that you all want to hear about... Anxiety!
Actually I'm sure no one wants to hear about people talking about anxiety but it's something that needs to be talked about, especially because traveling causes a LOT of anxiety.
So I'm pretty good at coping with anxiety, mostly by just pushing it aside which isn't that great but it's whatever. Anyways, I woke up in a panic on the 14 convinced that I had gone to London without packing any underwear. It took me ten minutes to calm myself down and reassure myself that I had indeed packed underwear and that it had in fact been the first thing that I packed.
Then I went about my normal day and ran some errands with my sister and celebrated Mother's Day with my mom. By the time early afternoon rolled around I had nothing to distract me any further and was officially in panic mode.
This leads me to what this post is all about. Traveling is not for introverts and traveling is not for people with anxiety. Asking questions, talking to people, figuring out directions, etc. It's not easy for me to ask questions or include myself in things or "force" myself to be extroverted. I mean I can to an extent but that's a whole other thing.
All in all I think that the world needs to be kinder to travelers, more directions would be lovely and I would really appreciate the security people to be less intimidating too (but I understand why they are).
So from a very anxious introvert, hello from London. I hope I can encourage some other people who are terrified of traveling to actually travel. I think it'll be worth it.
Hi Megan! Thank you for sharing and posting about a topic that is extremely important, though often ignored. I would agree that the world needs to be kinder to travelers. It is extremely intimidating when one isn't sure what the process is going to be at the airport. For instance, when I was in high school and flew to London, I was stopped at security. They took my carry-on bag and completely emptied its contents while I stood in a state of utter confusion and embarrassment. My travel group had to wait for me while security tore apart my careful packing job. To make matters worse, security did not tell me when I was free to go. I had asked if everything was all right and they did not respond. I stood asking again, waiting for a response for about ten minutes before finally deciding to grab my things and go (I was praying no one would chase after me, luckily no one did). When traveling this time around, I can't say the airport situation got any easier. I was still just as unsure of what to expect. Security gives me the most anxiety because it feels so rushed. Luckily though, we all made it through! However, I agree it would be nice if there were some clear instructions and guidance given throughout the process. We won't have the face the airport anxiety again for quite a while. I look forward to getting to know you better on this trip!
ReplyDeleteHi Megan! I really enjoyed reading your post and for you to encourage other people to travel with anxiety, despite how difficult it may be to do so but it is so worth it. I struggled for many years with anxiety and travelling, I unfortunately let it hold me back for many years. Then eventually I had to travel for many personal reasons, so I was able to overcome it but it was a struggle. I wish there was a way to make travelling less intimidating for people with anxiety. There are therapy animals at some more airports, so hey, at least we are moving in the right direction for helping people feel less nervous or anxious about travelling!
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