anxiety, ocd and flights

I've never been one to have anxiety issues.  Well....maybe I have.  I'm pretty paranoid walking to my car in the dark, and I'll admit that sometimes I check my closet to make sure my room is clear (of monsters? of people? I don't even know of what!). And...I'm terrified of needles and blood.  The list could possibly go on.  But these issues have never taken over my life, nor have they ever been evident enough for me to really notice. 

I also can be kind of OCD at times.  Not like "oh haha I think I'm OCD right now," but truly OCD.  To where I feel like if I don't do something a certain number of times (or more importantly, a certain way), something just feels off.  Now I don't feel like if I don't do something a certain way that something terrible is going to happen, but like I said, things just don't feel "right."  I think this runs in my family.  It's quite the annoying thing to have sometimes, but hey, definitely not the worst thing, or case for that matter, to have.

All of this is just background info for my recent experiences.

I am going to Germany in 1 week.  I have only flown four times in my life (two round trips), and each trip has been under 3 hours.  I am so anxious about this trip.  I keep telling myself to calm down, that nothing is going to happen and I am being irrational. I know that I'm being irrational-- I am one of the most rational people in the world!  Yet I am steadily dreading this take off.  I think the fact that we are going over an ocean, for 9 hours, is adding to my anxiety over the flight.  It probably didn't help that I just read the recent article about how they found parts of that Air France plane that went down in the Atlantic 2 years ago.....

You better believe my anxiety is not going to stop me from seeing the world, but why does anxiety need to exist?  What good does it really do us?

I noticed today that I was having A LOT of issues with OCD-like symptoms at work.  I felt like the issue was taking over my mind more than usual. Thankfully I was able to relate it to my recent anxiety quickly and therefore I could take a step back, breathe and recover.  It is interesting to me how one problem can magnify another so quickly.  I wish I understood the human brain better.

I truly feel for people who live with these problems everyday of their life.  I hope that I am able to continue living without these problems harassing me on a daily basis.  I figure this shouldn't be hard since I'm a fairly carefree person, but who would have thought I'd have such a bad feeling about my trip to Germany?!  So far I guess I've been lucky.

I'm going to look at the positive in this situation, and be thankful for the fact that these are small issues that I experience very rarely.  They are thankfully also very controllable.

What kind of issues do you battle and how do you cope with them?

<3
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