TAFF Planning: Traveling with Anxiety (or TFDWADAPWTATUSOYO(AWAPFV))

As I talked about in my last post, I am trying to be proactive in managing my anxiety for this trip. It's going to be a long haul, I'm away from home for over a month (32 days in fact). In that time I am taking eight flights and will be staying in six cities, all but one of which I have never been to before. I will be staying for the majority of the trip with people who I have never met in person, though I know everyone will be very welcoming. 

This is of course completely expected for a TAFF trip, it should be intense and exhausting and exhilarating and overwhelming in the best ways. And again, as I said in the last post, I am mostly excited and confident about the trip. But just because I'm looking forward to it, doesn't mean I shouldn't plan for those moments that neither I, nor anyone else,  can control.

I've been reading a lot of travel blogs recently, and while there are definitely tips that will make my life easier (packing cubes!!) nothing really addressed my main concern. Well, if you can't find what you're looking for maybe you need to put it out there yourself.

So here it is, my:

Tips For Dealing With Anxiety, Depression And Panic While Traveling Around The US On Your Own (After Winning A Popular Fan Vote).

TAFF Planning: Before the (To-)Done

It’s my birthday, woo! It is also only just over 3 weeks until I fly out to NYC and start my TAFF trip, ack!

As this is as good an arbitrary milestone as any, I thought it would be a good time to start this saga. The world has gone arse over teapot in the last month, and with all the darkness, hurt, rage and fear blustering around, holding on to the bright points makes it a little easier. Plus cute animal videos, but I think that’s a given.

Since the blog will be primarily to chronicle my TAFF trip let’s talk about that. As I said, the world is a scary place right now, so it’s nice to be able to plan for something positive. And boy am I (over)planning!

Over the last 18 months or so I’ve started getting anxiety, which has steadily gotten more invasive. So, to avoid as much travel angst as possible, I am trying to make sure I have everything that could cause worry sorted before I go. Or to put it another way, I’m worrying now so hopefully I won’t need to worry later!

The thing is, I’ve done other long trips that involved lots of travelling in between, but this will be the first time I’m doing it ‘alone’. In the past I don’t think this would have really been much of an issue, but now there is this odd weight behind every decision made, because it’s ‘all’ my responsibility. Of course logically, I know this isn’t true. I have the support of not only the current TAFF team, but past administrators and the wider fannish community, not to mention close friends and family (some of whom count on other lists as well!). Having that support has been a great touchstone when the planning spiral starts! So far there aren’t many disaster scenarios I’ve been able to come up with which don’t have a solution, even if it’s just to contact Jim/Curt/Claire/John/James/Liz immediately for them to fix ;).

So in the spirit of focusing on the positive, instead of a To-Do list, here is my To-Done list…or just a Done list since that makes more sense…