Travelling with someone who has anxiety, whether it’s a friend or a partner, can be full of ups and downs as you endeavour to support them, look after yourself and enjoy the trip. As someone with anxiety which is exacerbated by travel and having the best ‘travel buddy’ I could ask for in my husband, I’ve learnt a great deal about how to support someone with anxiety whilst on the road.
How have I learnt this?
Well . . . from panic attacks in Paris, tears in Tunis and breathlessness in Beijing: I’ve had anxiety since I was a teenager, and on more extensive trips around the world, it seemed that travel was fueling the fire, as it began to worsen in my early twenties.
Combining the anxiety I carried along with mishaps in Mongolia and niggles in the Netherlands, issues in our travel plans sometimes led to full-scale arguments with my travel buddy, and our early days of travel had moments of misunderstanding and a lack of communication.
Regardless of the anxiety I harbour, travel is my passion. I have had moments of clarity, bliss and joy whilst travelling that I believe are strong enough to conquer any fear.
At some point I realised just how hard my partner was working to support me through those moments of anxiety whilst on the road. He’d speak reassuring words, hold my hand, or leave a place if I said I needed to. He’d ask me how he could help, and I’d reply with small surface-level things he could do like making me a cup of tea.
After some time, I realised that I couldn’t answer his question of how he could help. I didn’t understand the anxiety I had myself, so how could I communicate it to him? I studied myself and anxiety. I made notes, I became curious, I researched. Most of all, I began to communicate better. My travel buddy and I talked and talked and talked some more. We came up with plans: actionable things we could put in place whilst travelling. We now understand each other’s needs completely.
Almost a decade on from the initial problems my travel buddy and I faced whilst travelling, we’ve both listened, learnt, and found the rhythm that works best for us. I want to provide you with some advice and guidance which may spare you those early difficulties that we faced way back when!