Hey everyone! I know I’ve hinted at this previously, BUT—it’s finally here! NW’s first ever guest post comes to us today courtesy of the wonderful writer and psychologist, Sarb Johal.
Guest writers at NW will be sharing their own experiences of anxiety—the good, the bad, the embarrassing, and the sublime. I hope you’ll join me in welcoming him, and I have no doubt that many of you will relate to the story he’s about to tell.
Sarb Johal is a psychologist (35+ years of experience, picking up a couple of doctorates on the way), dad, and middle-aged mid-pack late-starting runner from London, now living in Wellington, New Zealand, where he has been based for most of his adult life. He is also a writer, speaker and broadcaster with an insatiable curiosity about this human experience. He’s the author of the bestselling ‘Finding Calm: Managing Fear and Anxiety in an Uncertain World’; ‘The Little Book of Sleep‘, and ‘Steady: Keeping Calm in a World Gone Viral’. With bylines for The Guardian (UK), The Hill (USA), Psychology Today (USA) and the Sunday Star-Times in New Zealand, find out more about his latest project - writing on Substack, and follow him on Twitter @sarb.
I was in the aisle seat of an ATR 72, flying above Kaikoura range, on the edge of the coast of south Island, New Zealand. It had been three years since the Canterbury earthquake sequence, and part of my job as a psychologist specialising in crisis and disasters was to assist with the recovery.
I was going to a meeting in Christchurch where I was to be the voice of calm, rooted to the ground, earthing all around me.
My body had other ideas.
We had been bumping along for a while. Turbulence is pretty common on flights here in NewZealand, but this was different. It was constant, and low level, like the spin-cycle at the end of a load of washing. No-one around me seemed to be disturbed by this and my own mental dialogue was calm and measured.
“It’s just turbulence. They said this might happen, and it has…”
So why had sweat started beading on my shaven head?
It’ll be over soon, I thought. But we had entered that non-linear time zone where you’re standing waiting for that washing machine to finish that spin cycle so you can hang it out and move on, but it says 1 minute to go for 10 minutes. And then 10 minutes more.
I waited for the turbulence to ease. It didn’t.
The beads of sweat grew and melded together, like the braided rivers of the Canterbury plains. I took a deep breath. And then another. I convened an internal team meeting. All systems reported in. My heart wasn’t racing, but I noticed my feet were tapping furiously. My mouth had become dry, and my palms were sweaty and my hands were trembling. But that was nothing compared to the waterfall now cascading down the back of my neck, gushing into my collar.
But I’m not scared, though, I thought. But my body was clearly reacting in a way that was telling me there was something to fear.
And that’s when I started getting anxious.
Time slowed. My heartbeat got louder, and it seemed to be speeding up. I could taste the salt as the flow diverted to my face, breaching the curve of my top lip. Something stuck in my throat as I tried to swallow. I couldn’t breathe and I gasped out loud.
Yet, still no-one around me was doing anything.
The plane pinged. The propeller tone dropped. We descended. The spin-cycle continued.
There was still a part of me outside of me, dispassionately observing my disintegration.
“Curious”, said my internal Spock. There is nothing out-of-the-ordinary here to be fearful of, yet his body is reacting as if this situation is life threatening. And now his mind is being convinced by his body that there is indeed something life-threating happening, even though all his external senses are telling him the situation is normal.
I was saved from Spock and my internal hijacking by a tap on my shoulder. I jerked round.
“I thought you might need these.”
The flight attendant had broken protocol to remain seated during descent to bring me a towel and a glass of water. And not just a hand towel: a full-sized one. Even though she was sitting behind me and at least five rows away, she could make out that I was not having a happy time.
I spluttered out a thank you and mopped myself up. I swallowed the water, trying to wash down the lump in my throat. I buried my face in the towel, hoping that the earth would swallow up my embarrassment. But that would not happen.
We hadn’t landed yet.
After taxiing to the gate, the attendant collected the towel.
“Does that happen to you a lot?”
No, it’s never happened before, and what a curious experience it was, to be scared out of my wits, thinking that somehow my body had secret knowledge that a catastrophe was about to happen, and my mind observing my body and becoming convinced by its evidence. If it wasn’t from the interruption of the attendant, I don’t know where this would have ended up. Probably nowhere too frightening, but I was glad I didn’t have to find out.
“No. It was strange. But thanks for noticing,” I replied.
I made my way to the bathroom and changed my shirt. And then I sat down. My legs were still not convinced that all was safe.
They had decided that they wanted to sit down a little longer for the chance to feel rooted again. And for a few minutes, I did just that.