Anxiety heightened on holiday (vacation), do you have that?

[Movingforward10]

So, only since COVID have I realised I have feelings.
Prior to COVID, I loved loved loved travelling. Have backpacked. Have travelled a lot. Love it. Love different cultures. Love different foods. Love exploring. Love learning. Would travel by all means: sea, road, air. No worries about anything.

Now, that I realise I was blocking emotions for decades, since I have travelled again I have been anxious. Not anxious about the travel. But anxious that things will go wrong. This dread that something will happen.

Something did happen the first time we travelled after COVID. April 22, I was pickpocketed as soon as I landed and my holiday money was stolen. But since then, travelling has been incident free.

This time though, I really want to not be anxious.

Do other people have this anxiety/worry?
Is it lack of control and lack of routine that sets this off?

I'm managing so far by trying to tell myself counter messages. But the anxiety is there. It isn't going away. I'm just keeping it at bay. But I feel the stress.

 

[Friday]

Travelling is my happy-place, my best therapy, my home.

And …OH YEAH… like any happy place, therapy session, or being at home? It gets f*cked sometimes. Anxiety for no reason, or valid reasons. Bad days for no reason, or good reasons. The stuff I’m usually great at? Throws me. Easy things are hard. Shit goes sideways. List goes on.

I just figure it’s me being me

 

[Movingforward10]

Travelling is my happy-place, my best therapy, my home.

And …OH YEAH… like any happy place, therapy session, or being at home? It gets f*cked sometimes. Anxiety for no reason, or valid reasons. Bad days for no reason, or good reasons. The stuff I’m usually great at? Throws me. Easy things are hard. Shit goes sideways. List goes on.

I just figure it’s me being me

Ah. I was hoping for some magical cure... Not sure I want to accept it's me being me.....

Maybe that's where I am going wrong.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

I loathe holidays...all of them. Expectations, pretending, and anxiety all stink...

 

[Movingforward10]

Just spoke about it in therapy and she said it was self sabotage.
So that's helped.
Me being me self sabotaging myself. I'm a delight.

 

[arfie]

i haven't had the luxury of travel since 2019, but. . .
the covidic isolation pretty much undid the 40 odd years of psychotherapy which proceeded it. i started psychotherapy with extreme isolating habits of the intensity that i even knew what "social distancing" was before corona made the term a household phrase. the MANDATED isolation, etc., pretty much trashed all the psychotherapy which claimed isolation and social distancing was a good thing.

rebuilding the trust, etc., is proving harder than reading lips through a surgical mask. the reemergent social anxiety might even be meaner than the pre-therapy strain. these days THEY are armed with hypodermic needles and governmental mandates.

 

[Freddyt]

Yup. Struggled through my first one since being diagnosed. Not a lot of fun but.....for my sweetheart....well, she really needed it....I could see the change every day.

But the two travel days were the worst of it really - because I did the driving so, like Friday once said "use the hypervig."

That and plan whats worst, like driving was for me and planned simple and quick dinner that night and no other activities. Sleep was crappy but whatever - I had my laptop, Kindle and my Roku so I could control input. Built time in for self care every afternoon so going for dinner wasn't too crazy and if I was lucky I had a little nap.

Then travel the last day and got home just totally wiped out.

It was the first time I have been out of the house really since the whole PTSD mess started - right at the beginning of covid. I learned a lot about what I need when we vacation and where my problems were too. It was great to change the dynamic of our relationship a little too, as for me it was "giving back" for being a needy mess of human at times over the last couple years.........

 

[whiteraven]

I also used to love to travel. Now, it's hard to get me out of the house to go to the grocery. I did go to a conference last month--four days--which was only the second trip I've taken in years. And my anxiety was off-the-charts. But I don't worry about ME when I go away. I worry about my cats and that something will happen to them while I'm gone. I do have someone come over every day, but that doesn't help much. I'm going away again on Saturday--just for a night--and I had to get cameras to help me feel a little better. I still hate to go away.

Now, that I realise I was blocking emotions for decades, since I have travelled again I have been anxious. Not anxious about the travel. But anxious that things will go wrong. This dread that something will happen.

Are you sure it's that you've been blocking those feelings? Could there be another, more recent cause for your increased anxiety?

 

[Friday]

the covidic isolation pretty much undid the 40 odd years of psychotherapy which proceeded it.

I comfort myself knowing I go through the same WTFO?!? KaBOOM! kind of mental/emotional/physical smackdown every single time I switch from city to country, country to city, social to solo, solo to social.

It’s like my gear shift is stuck, and I just have grind on it (and scrunch up my face apologizing to both my ears and the engine), and once it finally catches? Smoooooooth as silk, once again. For the duration. Until the next time I change everything.

In concentrated doses (like I’ve just moved), it takes me about 3 days.

In gradual change, 3mo-2years.

 

[arfie]

It’s like my gear shift is stuck, and I just have grind on it (and scrunch up my face apologizing to both my ears and the engine), and once it finally catches?

the gear shift analogy works well for me, as well. shifting gears from one task to the next is often more work than either of the task i am shifting gears for. i put the focus on smooth clutch and shifting more than the bumps and turns in the road. as you said, once the shifting is done, the zoom is on.

the covidic gear shift was globally mandated and long term with enough grinding on the clutch that the supporting parts in the engine are all affected in an unpredictable wear effect. which part of the engine is grinding this time? are the road conditions **out there** going to be throwing up more mask mandated roadblocks. i am finding no assurance, whatsoever, that ^it^ is over. the inflation rate is a stiff reminder that, no, ^it^ is not over. the residual silence feels like a continued mandate to just mask it all.

 

[Paulina]

So, only since COVID have I realised I have feelings.
Prior to COVID, I loved loved loved travelling. Have backpacked. Have travelled a lot. Love it. Love different cultures. Love different foods. Love exploring. Love learning. Would travel by all means: sea, road, air. No worries about anything.

Now, that I realise I was blocking emotions for decades, since I have travelled again I have been anxious. Not anxious about the travel. But anxious that things will go wrong. This dread that something will happen.

Something did happen the first time we travelled after COVID. April 22, I was pickpocketed as soon as I landed and my holiday money was stolen. But since then, travelling has been incident free.

This time though, I really want to not be anxious.

Do other people have this anxiety/worry?
Is it lack of control and lack of routine that sets this off?

I'm managing so far by trying to tell myself counter messages. But the anxiety is there. It isn't going away. I'm just keeping it at bay. But I feel the stress.

I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2011. And since then, I have developed travel anxiety. I am not able to go on my own out of my town which is deliberating. I was independent back in 2014 but since then the problem arouse. It's awful because I am dependent on other people. I can't go to my home country for vacation because I am scared to go to London to the airport.

Ah. I was hoping for some magical cure... Not sure I want to accept it's me being me.....

Maybe that's where I am going wrong.

Yeah, I was fighting with myself telling that I am super healthy but not really. Have to take meds unfortunately.