Anxiety and Being Alone Abroad For the First Time

I’m ready for my next adventure.

I packed my carry-on suitcase with all my essential travel items. Tomorrow, I will catch a bus to Logan airport at 4:00 am. After I check-in at the Jetblue counter, I’ll breeze through security and saddle up on the floor by a window to gaze at the planes coming and going. I’ll do all this, just as I have for the last thirteen years.

This particular trip is different, though.

I have anxiety and being alone abroad frightens me.

Tomorrow I will board a flight to Florida, then another to Cancun, Mexico. Then, I will be alone in another country for the first time ever.

A few hours later, I will find my way to an overnight bus that will bring me to Belize City. Once there, I have a small window of time to get myself to the airport to catch a 1-hr flight to Punta Gorda, Belize where my friend will meet me at the airport, which she says is only a three-minute walk away from her house.

That is the plan, at least. It’s memorized at this point because I’ve gone over is at least three dozen times in an attempt to calm my nerves.

It doesn’t matter how long I’ll be alone.

Sure, I’m only alone for the first 24 hours or so until I meet my friend, but I planned for two additional solo days in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico on my way home. In an attempt to make myself feel sufficiently out of my comfort zone.

This will be my first time out of the country in nearly a decade. It’s also my first time leaving the country since the incident that caused my PTSD. I’ve only just begun to truly heal and I wonder if I’m even ready for this.

Anxiety and depression, the symptoms of PTSD that plague me, can make the most basic things difficult. Like sleep for instance – I haven’t had a restful night of sleep in days because of the anxious thoughts I’ve been having about this trip.

I feel nervous and excited, and a little nauseated. As I described my trip to friends and coworkers today, I definitely put on a confident front. The only sign of insecurity was my heart pounding against my chest so powerfully that I’m convinced other people could hear it.

I feel empowered and uncertain simultaneously, and I feel a little silly for feeling all these things, too. There are so many women around the globe right now already doing what I’m about to do, but they’re doing far more, for much longer, and much farther away from home.

I’m only dipping my big toe into the pool of solo travel.

I’ve done similar bus-flight-bus-flight itineraries before (sometimes with taxis, ferries, and rides in 18-wheelers thrown in for variety), but only in the United States. Plus, a lot of these adventures around the U.S. have only been partially independent. The majority of my trips are planned around visiting friends either where they live or we’ll meet up in a new city. I’m only on my own in transit.

This trip to Belize is exactly the same, and a big reason why I planned a couple of days to be on my own in Playa Del Carmen. Like I mentioned above, I WANT to be and need to be, out of my comfort zone. I know that it is the only way to quiet my obsessive thoughts about all the things that could possibly go wrong.

I thought, maybe, this would help me fall asleep.

There are about two hours left before I have to leave my house to catch the first bus of my journey to Belize. I suspect I will not be getting any shut-eye for a while, though. Here are a handful of thoughts that kept me awake last night, too.

1) I don’t speak any Spanish.

What if I can’t communicate with even one single person? Although, I’ve impressed myself in the past by quickly picking up French while in Montreal. This should not be impressive, by the way, because I took years of high school classes and my father taught me when I was young. I also picked up Italian pretty quickly while in Florence, Italy. I can hope for another lingual surprise, right?

2) I’m worried that I won’t leave my hotel room once I get to Playa Del Carmen.

Sometimes it’s too easy for me to nest myself up wherever I am and bask in the glorious solitude. I’ll even skip meals if I let myself get too comfortable. To motivate me to not be a slug in my hotel room, I’ve made tentative plans with a person I’ve followed on Snapchat for a little while. I hate not doing something that I say I’m going to do, so I think this will work.

Update: I did NOT stay in my hotel room the entire time.

3) But, I also fear getting lost without access to a map on my phone.

Maybe I should just stay put.

4) Here’s a weird one.

I’m afraid of getting sick, but more so I’m afraid of other people getting sick near or on me. I’m petrified of this happening. It’s a (somewhat debilitating) phobia developed when I was just a kid – it’s called Emetophobia. It’s one of the big reasons why I had to stop working with toddlers on a regular basis. Their bodily functions are just too unpredictable.

5) I’m ALWAYS nervous about running out of money.

Even if I have thousands of dollars in my bank account.

6) What if I get on the wrong damn bus?

This list could go on for close to forever, but I won’t make anyone reading this endure any more of my twitchy and nervous psyche. These are the big, worrying thoughts I have before I travel, even on local trips sometimes. I realize some of them probably seem nonsensical. They don’t make much sense to me either. As soon as I’m there, all of these worries will disappear.

…Right??

Update: I was totally fine and I loved Belize and Mexico! I loved it so much that I went to New Zealand for a few months!