Help.

There’s something appealing about airport bars, muted outposts in a universe of morons with roller bags. Who wouldn’t want to be drinking with drinkers who drink even though it’s only 7:45 a.m. back home?

Returning from California, we landed in Atlanta and had some time before our flight to Hartford, so I dragged Sam to a pocket bar surrounded by grab-and-go food kiosks. We bellied up, elbows on the laminate, not sipping but gulping our beers lest we miss our flight. I knew we would soon be wedged between strangers, because frugal Sam had booked us random center seats on the plane.

We boarded (speaking for myself here) slightly buzzed. I found my row. In the window seat was a young skinny guy focused on his laptop. The aisle seat was still empty and I was about to start celebrating when a man who looked like Jeff Goldblum squared plopped down and manspread his girth into my meager personal space.

Around ten minutes into the flight, I began to feel odd. Nauseous. Feverish. My visual field was shrinking and my mouth kept filling with saliva. I couldn’t stop yawning.

I tapped giant faux Jeff Goldblum on the shoulder and told him I needed to use the restroom. I walked down the aisle, sightlessly gripping the back of every seat. When I got to the rear of the plane, the flight attendant was messing with a drawer beneath the lavatory sink that wouldn’t latch. “Hold on,” she said. Bending from the waist, I lowered my head, which I hoped made me look engaged but really, I was afraid I was going to faint.

 Once in the bathroom, I sat on the toilet with my head between my knees. After a few minutes, I felt like I might be okay, but when I stood, I wasn’t. I sat back down and went through my options. All I knew for certain was that I didn’t want to make a scene. After a few more minutes, my head cleared, and I was able get up and walk back to my seat.

After we landed, I told Sam what happened. He was sympathetic, but I could tell he didn’t grasp how scared I’d been.

Admittedly, it was a poor idea to chug a beer on an empty stomach before a flight. While I like to think of myself as a devil-may-care hedonist, apparently, I’m not. What’s worse is that I would risk everything before drawing attention to myself. 

For a long time, I have handled panic with disassociation, a fact which first came to my attention during a sexual assault at age 12. Radical denial is astonishingly effective, in its way, but also a terrible problem.

Basically, my survival instinct is not instinctive, but I know I need to be able to trust myself in my own hands, which will now be putting Starbucks coffee or water into the mouth I am hoping will ask for help when needed.