I suffer from a myriad of irrational phobias, despite my knowing they are irrational, they still appear larger than life. Perhaps they are my way of coping and distracting me from my health issues and having to live life in 6 month blocks awaiting results of the next scan.

Going on holiday that involved an early morning flight from an airport on the other side of the M25 gave me the ultimate challenge of keeping my fears in check. The crazy thing is that it's not actually the flying that sets me off, but all the other things. This was our first family trip with 2 almost new grandsons - a truly special occasion.

My long suffering wife continually panders to my foibles in an effort to quell my fears, and we decided to travel to the airport the night before and stay at an airport hotel.

So what do you ask was there that I could possibly worry about? Well get this - our room was located in a new extension that involved an intricate series of three left turns, a lift and then finally a right turn to our room. As we had to be up before 5 am I was determined to get off to sleep as quickly as I could. Perhaps this was not the best way to relax. I tried all the deep breathing exercises that I know before my mind kicked off thinking about the story of Hansel and Gretel where they left a breadcrumb trail to help them find their way out of the woods. The journey to our room was so circuitous that I started to worry how we would ever find our way out... had I not already undressed I would have recced the exit route.

As you can expect I woke up well before the various alarms that I'd set. We found our way out of the hotel without even one wrong turn, went through security and found somewhere to grab a coffee and a quick something to eat.

We were so relaxed that we left ourselves a little short of time to get to the departure gate, but we made it. All was going well until we discovered that we were at the wrong gate as there were 2 flights leaving for the same destination that morning. Fortunately the correct gate wasn't too much further and we made the flight.

It seems that I always have to have something to worry about. I don't enjoy worrying and would like to put a stop to it rather than building an arsenal of coping skills. I also believe that worries and anxiety can lower the immune system and make you more susceptible to illness.

I love keeping fit and enjoy the mundaneness and security of the treadmill... the exercise and mental effort at keeping me on the straight and narrow seems to keep the demons locked away. So maybe instead of travelling to the airport the night before I should have just gone to the gym!

Regards,

Steven

A Moodscope member.