Sleep.................................Anxious In Seattle

I've engaged in mission work in several places over the years, both domestically and abroad: West Virginia, Montgomery, AL. Decatur, GA. Odessa, Ukraine, Homestead, FL. Tanzania, Los Angeles and most recently - Seattle, WA. I used to love to travel. I loved airplanes, airports and the thrill of moving to and fro. Seeing all of the humanity here and there. Now, I just like the sensation of taking off. I hate airports, planes in mid air and long distance travel in general. I'm more than likely through with mission projects I cannot drive to. So what happened? What changed? The Seattle job met all of my requirements concerning where I wanted to work. I love west coast communities and have a history of working up and down the coast there. Yet, something happened during my last two assignments that caused me to be anxious with airport navigation. It was a vintage, muggy Alabama April morning in 2019. Dad came into my office to ask me to consider serving in Tanzania for two weeks that following June instead of the one I'd originally signed up for. Our assistant pastor asked my dad to get me to consider the matter. My church knew the staff over there like the back of their hand. There was no reason to believe my traveling halfway across the world alone back home would be an ordeal. We knew the Tanzanian contacts well enough to know they'd be honest and keep me safe during the three hour drive to the airport. What we couldn't count on was my certain entry past the gates at the airport in Tanzania. Our assistant pastor on the project even expressed his worry. There was legitimate fear of being stranded at Kilimanjaro International Airport for a week. Presenting me being a target of boredom, loneliness and possibly crime until the remainder of the team arrived to fly back home. During the week serving in one of the most remote places on earth, I should have been enamored by the escape into 'what really mattered.' But, the time in my mind was a back drop of weakened angst that was a 'soul throb.' Who wanted to live at an airport with no phone service for a week. Then there was the flight through Amsterdam, with potential to get lost or not make my connecting flight back to Atlanta from there. I wouldn't want to be stranded alone there either. It all ended well as prayers were answered at home and with the team concerning my travel back to America alone. Yet, every second of that travel period I was a nervous wreck. I remember taking off from Kilimanjaro and feeling like it was one of the greatest accomplisments I'd produced. I remember feeling so much better to be flying into a more civilized nation where reported terrorist activity was not waiting in a community at a layover airport as is was in Dar-es-Salam, where we flew to out of Kilimanjaro to pick up a few more passengers; before transporting to Holland. In the whole scheme of things all of these events were non issues. My brain chemistry on the matter said otherwise. The worry of that week in the summer of 2019 scarred me enought to give me long term 'airport' specified travel anxiety going forward. Two summers later I thought I'd shaken it. I committed to working in Los Angeles for a week in August of last year. When I got there I felt slightly homesick. No big deal. This was to be expected in traveling alone and showing up somewhere alone, not knowing anyone. I wrestled with it all week out there. Even the team I worked with from Fresno could not alleviate it. I was not isolated, but still felt like it. Sitting at my hotel by Burbank's Bob Hope Airport I was slightly worried about missing my flight until I actually boarded. It was obvious I had developed some lingering phobia from the Tanzanian project plus being stranded in Chicago's Midway in December 2016 during a terrible snow storm. My anxiety was stoked when I almost missed my connecting flight at Dallas-Ft. Worth's International airport after getting an incorrect gate number from a kind, but careless airline stewardess, as we touched down in Texas. Running down the hallways passing gate after gate I looked like O.J. Simpson in one of those 80's rent a car commercials. It was at this time I thought back on that solumn ordeal in Chicago years earlier. I knew with the Seattle project It'd be ABSOLUTELY my last time to travel by flight alone. After all the other flights I stand by that mandate. I even tried to get a friend to go with me, so she could visit her son who lived in Pioneer Square. We'd planned on May, but I wanted to get it over with. Anxiously, I booked for March. I also asked my travel agent from the Tanzania and Los Angeles jobs to AVOID large international airports concerning connecting flights. She stated that, that was not possible. So, we bargained and agreed on Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International as a connecting flight. If any 'monkey business' took place, I could just drive the two hour path back to Alabama by rental car. Sure enough, there was 'monkey business' with three unannounced gate changes......but I was ready with a three hour self mandated layover. TRY NOT TO BOOK A CONNECTING FLIGHT ANYWHERE WITH A SUBWAY! That alone tells you everything you need to know. I wish I could say I enjoyed Seattle, one of the world's most scenic cities. As I got off of the plane at SEA-TAC the Monday to start work I arrived to a gloomy, heavy rain. I was in a strange place again completely alone. I could feel the 'ghosts of travel's past' haunting me before I gave the place a chance. The combination of being alone, being in a cloudy city, day light's savings time and travel history all came together most potently in Seattle than any place I'd flown to. Also, spiritual warfare took place as I was working in ministry. Satan knew I'd be a sitting duck, easily emotionally harassed throughout my week. Seattle hit me harder than any place I'd ever served in! When I got through my work assigments, I visit tourist sites being alleviated slightly from anxiety. Yet, once I was back in my hotel at day's end I'd be anxious again. So anxious in fact, I started developing irrational fears I be kidnapped during rides in taxi cabs to the airport that Friday or to job sites in South Seattle. I had to do several deep breathing sessions the Thursday night before I was to come back to Alabama the next morning. I got to SEA-TAC a whole six hours before my departing flight, AT MIDNIGHT just to be SURE! Sitting in the terminal I checked monitors constantly to MAKE SURE I was at the right terminal. I'd become a solumn 'NUT MAN' in my own silence with a veneer of normalcy, on the outside, but dying on the inside. I had to look back and only laugh at the idea I had earlier on Thursday of arriving at SEA-TAC before sunset so I could have more certainty of my surroundings. A WHOLE 14 HOURS PRIOR TO DEPARTING! I knew that my anxiety had gotten to the point where it had become beyond rational. It had become organic, chemical in nature. It had become a matter of not only being psychological. Reader, the reason I'm writing this time is for mental health awareness. To encourage you that it is alright to be weak at times. It's alright to feel like you're losing control. It's alright to allow what seems to be insignificant scars, add up to the point where they affect you emotionally in key situations. It's alright to pray and to talk to someone if needed. I look back on Seattle post trepidation. I wish I could have been happier, more at peace while serving in such a wonderful place. I come away knowing it humbled me to the point it knocked me off of my feet. Because, of my challenge out there, I'm back home in Alabama an even more merciful and compassionate man! Seattle taught me how to be weak. How to be at the mercy of others once again. How to be at the mercy of myself relying on Christ alone. Please, take seriously the psychological paradigm of: post traumatic stress, being alone, lack of sunlight and season/time change for mental health. Even the most 'healthy' can experience seasons of trouble, if certain dynamics come together at the wrong time. Get help if you feel things getting away from you to quickly. Sincerely, 'Anxious In Seattle"