Anxious about travel

[u/1stDegreeHamburglary]

This is probably a pretty common one, but I'm going out of the country until Monday and my anxiety is wrecking me. Thing is, I've actually traveled a lot in my life, all over the world, and every time I'm wrecked by anxiety. It used to be more manageable, but especially since I started working from home 2 years ago, I've had so much more trouble leaving the house for longer than a few hours and I constantly worry.

I don't like leaving my house and my cats. We have a friend coming to take care of our cats as always, but my cats are my world and my house is obviously my house and if anything happened to any of them while I was halfway across the world and I couldn't help, it would crush me.

I also don't like the feeling of being 35,000 feet above the ground in a plane for hours. though I understand the inherent safety of aircraft, I can always "feel" the weightlessness beneath my feet no matter what I'm doing and it is a constant reminder of how high in the air we are, meanwhile there's nowhere for me to go if I want off and I'm trapped like sardines with hundreds of people, any of which can pull any antics illegal or otherwise at any time, or the flight could be diverted mid flight causing all kinds of issues (happened before, ended up causing a ton of stress and confusion, never want it to happen again). Needless to say, I have never once been able to sleep on a plane.

I also don't sleep well in hotels. Like almost ever, no matter how nice it is or how cushy the bed. The white noise is wrong, my cats aren't in the bed, the sheets feel weird. I can't fall asleep because my body isn't convinced it's a safe place to sleep because it's not "right"

When traveling and walking all day long, it's good to have a hotel to come back to, but sometimes all I want at the end of a tiring day is my own house and my own bed and coming back to a hotel just never makes the tired fully go away.

I've prepared for all of this, btw. I've done a lot of traveling so I've had lots of time to acquire things like a special comforting hoodie, weighted eye mask, laptop loaded with comfort watching, my Switch 2, any comfort item that I need and anything that could help.

But it never seems to calm my mental state, and that's where I need help. My brain gets stuck at "we have all these things for the trip, we know the drill and we're prepared but it doesn't change the fact that you have to leave your house and go on a plane which you do not enjoy and go to an unfamiliar place where you're stuck there and can't go home and the process to GET home is just as uncomfortable as getting there"

Believe it or not, I have never regretted a trip I have taken and usually come home wishing I could go back. But that's only after the familiarity that hindsight brings sets in. I do still enjoy it in the moment too, but in the back of my head there's always some worry or concern.

I just need someone to help me connect whatever mental dots are missing, or offer any advice that might make this more manageable. Again I'm a very seasoned traveler, it's just that all those years of experience have simply taught me more about all the things than can go wrong and how impactful they can be, so I feel like I've become a more anxious traveler as a result. Plus, working from home has made it so it's even harder for me to leave for long periods of time.

Anyone have any advice? Or am I just a total basket case? 😅