An Introvert’s Struggle with Anxiety and Air Travel

“I’m just not going. I don’t need to go anyway.”, I explain to my wife. “But you always love this conference when you get there. You’ll be fine once you get on the plane. I want you to stay, but I think you need to go.”, she says.

That is the typical conversation my wife and I have over and over the day before I have to fly to a conference.

This mentality goes through my head on a minute-by-minute basis leading up to hopping on a plane. My binary mind plays the flip-flop game with me over and over and over between wanting to go, feeling like I need to go and then considering just scrapping the entire idea. WTF have I gotten myself into?!?

My brain is crying out to stay home, stick in my usual, remote work routine and maintain comfort in my little bubble. It’s a battle that wages in my head every.single.time I have to fly by myself while popping Xanax.

I’ve given in to that temptation twice in my life. Once I was speaking at a user group in Minnesota and the other I was speaking at the PowerShell Summit. I’m assuming I caved was due to the pressure of speaking. I’m not sure. My conscious and unconscious brain doesn’t seem to agree with a lot of the time.

When a new conference comes around, a year out, I want to attend badly. I think about all of the people…