Fighting The Demon: Why Brad Drove 1100 Miles by Himself (Premium)

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle - Ian Maclaren

Last week, I was in Seattle for Microsoft's Build conference and what I didn't know at that time is that I would find myself driving 1100 miles across the United States alone because a dark foe called anxiety would surface like nothing I had experienced in my lifetime. This post is my therapy, it's how I have always cleared my mind and I also hope that it helps others realize that it's ok to talk about what holds us back because my battles with my own inner demons may help others who are facing similar challenges - we are all fighting some sort of battle.

At around 9:50 PM on May 9th, somewhere in the middle of Wyoming on State Route 212, I got out of my car, looked up, and saw more stars than I had seen in my entire life. Billions of little lights sprinkled across the darkest sky and for the first time in a week, I felt at peace with everything around me.

The older I have become, the more I experience on this little time we have on Earth, the more I have grown to hate flying and it's becoming a serious problem.

I have flown a lot, 60,000 miles last year, 75,000 the year before; I can get on a plane and be just fine. But the problem is getting on the plane and what happened that evening in Seattle of May 8th overcame my ability to fight through my emotions.

For me, the anxiety of flying starts several days before I travel. I sleep less and don't eat as much as I should; my wife notices mood swings and other abnormalities from my generally optimistic-lifestyle.

I exacerbate this issue by looking at the weather along the expected flight path as cold/warm fronts means turbulence and turbulence means my heart rate blasts through the roof and I honestly think that flying will shorten my lifespan.

Love it or hate it, the Apple Watch has helped me become a healthier person but it has also given me a window into my flight anxiety. While writing this post, my heart rate is about 54 Beats Per Minute (BPM) while flying, my heart rate averages 92 BPM.

This is not healthy or sustainable and I need to figure out how to overcome this issue.

When I was being driven to the airport on the 8th, my Uber driver noted the lightning off in the distance and that we were supposed to get a few more storms later that night.

My anxiety starts to show its ugly face.

I get to the airport, make my way through the security line without issue and arrive at my gate 30 minutes before boarding. But there is already a problem, while the plane is at the gate, it's broken.

I don't know what is broken but we are being told it will be about a 45-minute delay.

My anxiety at this point is loading up a patriot missile targeted directly at the logic portion of my brain.

After 45 minutes, they tell us it will be another short delay as they try to fix the problem (they never told us the issue) but that didn't matter to me, I was starting to lose my mind.

I am a very rati...