My Mental Health Stories with Humor

I am standing at Gate B12, clutching a boarding pass that feels more like a subpoena. 

I’ve survived sepsis, heart failure, and a fiancé who vanished like a ghost in the night, but none of those prepared me for the psychological warfare of Seat 14B.

For a normal person, 14B is just a seat between two other seats.

For me, 14B is a cruel joke designed by an architect who knows I have a small bladder.

I try to stay calm, but my face cannot hide my fear. I look like somebody who just found out their taxes were flagged for an audit — and the auditor was their mother-in-law!

My physical expressions are the least of my worries though as mind begins to self sabotage:

“Adam,” it whispers, “you have the bladder of a ninety year old man. You will annoy everybody around you by getting up. Your better off sleeping in the bathroom!”

I take a deep breath, but it gets stuck in my throat, likely blocked by my internal TSA for containing traces of panic.

My eyes are locked on everyone around me. They all sit calmly, fully prepared with their carry-on bags, ready for the flight.

Me? I’m carrying a backpack full of ten different medications, a portable charger I’ve checked six times to ensure I didn’t forget it, and enough ‘what-if’ scenarios to fill the airport.

Finally, I hear the boarding call over the speakers. I show them my pass and step onto the plane. The air is thick with the scent of jet fuel and collective human misery.

I side shuffle past everyone and arrive at Row-14. At this point, my heart is playing a drum solo that would make Ringo Starr jealous.

14A is already occupied by a boulder of a man, with shoulders that looked like football pads.

14C is a woman who has already deployed her knitting needles, effectively turning her tray table into a workstation.

I am the outcast, the middle-man.

“Excuse me,” I squeak, my voice hitting a frequency that only dogs can hear.

The man doesn’t move his legs; he just tilts them slightly, as if he’s granting me passage through a mountain pass.

I try to step around him, but my foot catches on his expensive leather shoe.

My brain screams: 

'YOU DID IT NOW! HE’S GOING TO THROW YOU OUT THE WINDOW!'

Luckily, I am still alive as he didn’t notice or didn’t care. I sit down, my limbs pinned to my sides like an anxiety-filled burrito.

I spend the first hour of the flight trying to not to breath — convinced that if I inhale too deeply, I will accidentally graze the shoulder of the knitter to my right or be pummeled by the man on my left.

The flight attendant tries to offer me a free drink, but I know this is just a trap to get me up and I wasn’t falling for it.

This is the ‘Adam Logic’ — the beautiful, broken geometry of a mind that treats a flight to Florida like a mission to Mars.

With limited options left, I try to distract myself by watching the inflight movie. Ironically, ‘A Room with a View’ is playing. 

I’d settle for a room with an armrest!

My mind feels equally as uncomfortable as my body–filled with questions that I already know the answers to:

'Did you zip your backpack? Did the medication bottle in the side pocket fall out? Is it rolling down the aisle toward the cockpit?'

I know I zipped it. I felt the teeth of the zipper click, but that wasn’t enough for my mind in this moment.

Suddenly, the plane hit some turbulence and my brain interprets this as a sign that my pills are now sitting at some kids feet in Row-22.

I reach down to check, but my tray table is locked, and my seatbelt feels like a python that has decided I’m its final meal.

The seat begins to feel like it’s on fire as my anxiety heats up. I start to sweat — the kind of cold, prickly sweat that usually precedes a medical ‘event’.

The knitter looks at me, holding her needles tightly.

Oh no, here it comes. I am about to become a human shish kebab. I prepare for her to call the flight attendant and report the man leaking in seat 14B.

“You okay, dear?” she asks.

She doesn’t sound annoyed. She sounds like a mother, concerned for her child.

“Just a little flight anxiety.” I say, hoping that would end the interrogation.

She smiles, and it’s a real one. Not the ‘customer service’ smile, but a genuine human connection.

“My husband is afraid of flying too.” she says. “He’s driving to Florida and I will meet him there.”

Suddenly, the spotlight turns off. The dragon in my head loses its fire and turns back into a lizard.

I realize that the boulder-man to my left isn’t fighting me for elbow room; he’s actually fast asleep and snoring like a chainsaw.

The knitter isn’t worried about her stitches either; she’s just happy to have a captive audience for a second.

We spend the next hour talking about her Florida vacation and how excited her grandkids are to go to Disneyland. I end up telling her the truth, and open up that I was afraid to disturb her needle work.

She laughs so hard she actually does drop a stitch, and believe it or not — she had the same fear.

In this moment, I realize that I’ve been treating the world like a game of hide and seek. Except my version is always hiding and rarely seeking.

But the world isn’t out to get me. It’s not filled with people looking to make my life difficult.

Honestly, it’s just a collection of people in their own middle seats, all of them a little uncomfortable and struggling to find their place in the world.

When the plane finally touches down, I stand up and realize my legs aren’t wet noodles anymore. I reach down to grab my carry-on bag from the floor, accidentally bumping the mountain man in the process.

I flinch, fearing my life is about to end, but not today. Instead I am met with a sleepy, “My bad, man, sorry.”

Not only did he not crush me into dust, but instead he apologized to me.

I walk off that plane with a smile, feeling lighter than when I came on.

As I grab my check-in bag from the carousel, my brain tries one last-ditch effort to ruin my day:

'Adam! You didn’t say goodbye to the knitter! She’s going to think you’re a typical middle-seat sociopath!'

I ignore it. She’s probably already in the parking lot, telling her husband about the vibrating man who was terrified of a knitting needle.

As I make my way out of the airport, I notice my reflection on exit door window. I look like I need some water and a nap, but I don’t see a man who just survived a mission to Mars.

The ‘Adam Logic’ has finally shifted. It turns out that when you’re pinned between a boulder and a needlepoint enthusiast, the only thing that actually catches fire is your ego.

My whole life, I’ve been bracing for impact on a flight that has never left the ground. Always protecting my armrests, when there is plenty of room for two. 

So here I am, in the blistering Florida heat, forty years old and still possessing the bladder of a toddler. 

However, I’m not an outcast anymore. I’m just a man in the world, finally brave enough to take up exactly as much space as I need.

So, if you ever find yourself in seat 14B, don’t hold your breath.

Look at the people around you and remember: we’re all just terrified passengers trying to weather the turbulence of the world.

Life is too short to play hide and seek with a world that’s already found you.

Take a deep breath, claim your armrest, and for heaven’s sake — use the bathroom before boarding!

Love always,