Anxiety’s is my middle name 
I have to take meds for it ( not for droning ) but it can get heightened with the over thinking it before I’ve done it, I can well relate mate.
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I should have also stated, like Kirky, I too suffer from anxiety, panic attacks and a bit of depression. Being in uncomfortable situations can bring the anxiety on. Having a panic attack in the middle of a busy town centre really isn’t a nice thing, so I’ve always tried to avoid it. What I was getting at, is that it doesn’t bother me when I have the drone, only the camera. It’s something in my subconscious that triggers it. I’ve managed to find most of my triggers for the panick attacks, so I can deal with them in the main by either avoiding them, or by preparing myself for them in advance if I know I’m going into that situation. I used to use beta blockers prescribed by my doc, but decided it was better to try and understand the route causes. Since trying to work these things out, and understanding them better, I’ve not had to take medication. My depression has also lifted to the point where I have been off the antidepressants for over a year. I still have the odd panic attack but I’m mostly able to deal with them as I understand physically, and mentally, what is happening in my brain and body.
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You know what, I’ve just grabbed my gear this morning (2 weeks off work 
), and just had a quick flight down by the river
Got a few shots both with drone and regular camera, will have a look in computer when I get back
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@Jabtas Awsome Tim mate, it starts … 
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Love the support in here people
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Immersion/flooding is where you are chucked in the deep end - sink or swim. What you are describing is systematic desensitisation. If this was arachnophobia, flooding would be to force you to be with tarantulas crawling on you until you stopped screaming and panicking as you cannot keep that up forever. Systematic densensitisation might start with you drawing a spider, then being a few metres from on, and gradually build up to holding one, before whipping out the Black Widow 
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This is great to hear and whilst may be something easy for some it was a great step for you. Sadly we are not near you all however you are about 40 miles from somewhere I want to visit one day. My relatives come from that way and I have only been once or maybe twice (was so long ago).
I fully understand you with the anxiety thing. I personally am terrible and some days are great, some days are just terrible. It can be something that triggers it or it can just be a day when I am thinking… Why am I feeling like this.
One good thing to read is that it sounds like you have not had any confrontation with the drone. A bad experience would be something you can relate to. The fact that you got up, got your kit and went for a fly is great and rewarding to yourself.
When flying, I tend to forget the troubles that fill my head for that short time, maybe not fully but a bit of a sedative. Your mind is concentrating on that little bundle of joy in the sky and you are flying like a bird. You have taken your mind away from the ground and you are floating. There is always going to be the fear of something going wrong. If you feel that then just keep the drone in your comfort circle maybe popping out for a little time and coming back. As you say it is not the drone so if that drone is giving you that bit of comfort, do not give it up. It is easy for someone to say things like. “Just get out there” when the person has anxiety but when you feel a good day, take a flight.
Hopefully one day we will actually get are backsidein gear and get up there.
For now, have a look on here and find some flight buddies in your area, organise some meet ups when them. Having a few people with you could make it easier for you too.
Remember that if your anxiety is not triggered by the drone, keep flying and enjoy it. Have a look on this site to places to fly, find a nice relaxing place to visit. Charge up and go and enjoy yourself.
Remember that on here there is a lot of support by members. It is my go to place anyway but also my go to place when I am feeling out of my depth in the world. I have more friends on here then I have ever had.
Here for you if ya wanna say hi.
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While I had it up, about 4 people walked past and not one glanced in my direction
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99.9999% of people will not have a clue what you are doing
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Myself included 
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@SparkyFPV Maybe 99.99995 would be more accurate Wayne 
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Oh no ! OP’s mini-rant is going to inspire a maxi-one from me as my first major post on this site - sorry about that 
!
I think it’s no wonder that we tend to feel some level of pre-flight (and in-flight) stress, even when we have a lot of XP behind us. And there are lots of different things that contribute to it as far as I can see…
- Trust in the aircraft and in your own ongoing ability to adapt to unforeseen / changing circumstances.
This aspect of stress tends to manifest most as we are learning to pilot our craft, and if we watch any amount of tutorial videos about it we will inevitably see a delightful and seemingly endless range of examples of how it can all go magnificently wrong, which means we always have that at the back of our minds. Will the craft fail at some point, or will we do the wrong thing, even once, potentially losing us an expensive machine and possibly endangering other things if it does ? How much trouble could this lead to ? Etc etc. Even when we have established a good level of trust in our craft and ourselves as pilots, this feeling never fully goes away, especially not while actually in flight.
- Over-regulation and consequent obsession with rules and permission.
Back in the infancy of drones (the build your-own-kits era), where I started, there used to be one rule - ‘don’t fly above 400 ft’, and that worked perfectly, in that there were no fatalities, no conflicts with air traffic, and very few (even minor) injuries ! You used to be able to pick up a drone and just go fly. Nobody really minded, conflict was rare, interaction with public was usually positive.
By contrast, these days we seem to require a 2 hour+ risk assessment for every flight we plan to make - now there are 10 different web sites I need to check before I can convince myself that any particular area might be OK to fly in, and often the answer still isn’t clear even after doing the tedious ‘due diligence’ ! And having done it, I might get all the way there (5 mile hike up a hill usually!) only to find the wind is a bit higher than predicted, or there are 2 Red kites circling overhead, and so I should call it off, and all that work was a crushing waste of time !! How could that NOT induce stress in a hobby most of us are trying to do to relax ?! 
The point being, that even if doing these checks makes us feel marginally more secure that we are behaving responsibly, the process of going through it every time is, in and of itself stress-inducing, and it follows that some of that stress will follow you into the flight.
And if you are new to the hobby, and find yourself on (for example) Geeksvanas channel for an evening, watching their hundreds of hours discussing the minutiae of the rules to the nth degree you could easily be made to feel verging on terrified by the levels of apparent scrutiny and sometimes outright hostility being directed at our hobby !
I find some level of respite from this obsession with rules by trying to remember the wider picture
- that drones are still relatively ‘new tech’ to the general public, and the hysteria around them now is much the same as it was for bicycles, and in time motorbikes and cars when they were first introduced, while the world tried to work out how best to live with them. Outright hysteria initially, which then calms down over time.
We are already seeing signs that sense can prevail (the sub-250 rules for example), and probably will more so and more fully in time, IF we can just get past this difficult stage now where it seems there is an attempt, partly through over-regulation, to remove us as a hobby from the skies altogether in order to make way for profit-hungry corporations. If the hobby can survive I still have a tiny hope that eventually regulations will become sensible and primarily about safety. It is my hope that technology will continue to improve safety, to the extent where much fewer laws are necessary, and those laws reflect the level of technology going on, which is not the case at the moment.
- Anger at unjustified / unfair / exclusionary rules that prevent us flying in places that would be most suitable for us, based on the whims of ‘trustees’.
I find myself harbouring deep levels of resentment towards organisations like National Trust and English Heritage (and in the US National Parks Authorities) , who have been gifted vast swathes of the most beautiful open areas of countryside we have, on the proviso that it can be preserved and open to everyone, yet both these organisations choose to ban any sort of drone flights from ‘their’ land, even if you have the correct insurance and legality to fly. Personally, I find this absolutely outrageous, and consider it my active duty to try and (legally) circumvent their rules whenever I need to throughout my own quest to share with the world aerial views of these most wonderful areas of natural beauty. This is what (our) drones were made for !!! So I find that quite ongoingly stressful too, simply because I bump up against it so damn often in the quest for new places to fly. We are not meant to be restricted to featureless grassy fields !
So those are main contributory factors to the constant level of background stress that I feel throughout flight sessions and the time leading up to them.
But, (ranty bits over) I have found some respite from it over time in a number of small ways that do add up to make things…tolerable, and the flying, incredibly, still worth doing !!
-
By taking a sort of perverse delight in how efficient and prepared I can be in the pre-flights for new locations - really trying to enjoy getting into the detail of knowing everything about a site you intend to film.
-
Knowing that not every flight has to be about the filming, or in a new, exciting ground ! I am very lucky to have at least 5 parks very close to me where there no problem to fly. If I am stressed and just want to fly for the pure joy of it, I can go there and do so, relatively worry-free. That is nice, and I am grateful for it.
-
The niceness of actual people !
Of course it is inevitable there will be negative encounters with people at some point, but the more you fly the more you realise that most people really don’t mind or care what you are doing in a public place as long as you are not hovering over their residences etc etc. Most people I meet are polite, supportive, interested, or fascinated, and even the ones that are suspicious can be chilled right out if you just take a few brief moments to let them know you’ll be flying in the vicinity before you do. Nearly everyone I advise first thanks me for doing that, and that goes a long way offset any rule-based stress you may be feeling.
- The ability to smile, apologize and move on !
…is worth a lot in the de-stress department. Sometimes it is better to apologise later than ask in advance. Sometimes, in doing so I even gain permission to do it again ! BTW not talking about flight laws here; more about farmers’ fields with open gates etc etc
- The joy of reviewing footage at home later, when all danger has passed and you can fully enjoy it for the first time.
So those are the things that still make it worthwhile for me. If anyone made it to the end, well done and… sorry ! 
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Or Trauma informed practice for short
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I can honestly say I do not and will not ever consider the consequences.
It’s called enjoyment and having fun and seeing what 99% of the population have no idea exists……!
So I just smile and think looser and do the Top Gear “L” to them…..!
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I do sometimes sing “Danger Zone” to myself when taking my drone out.
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It wasn’t you who passed me doing the ton on the M6 was it?
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This is the society we are in.
As I read earlier, “ohhh perving again were you…?”
The meeeeeja
(Sorry had to add a few “ee’s”)
Because
Eeeeees are gud Eeeeees are gud
He’s Eborne Ezza Gud
Anyway. Ahum….
The general pubic are brain washed we are up to no good.
Just get on with it and enjoy as if you are playing with your kids or grandkids.
Show them what you see….
See them look like children as they see the skies for the first time.
As we all did.
It’s for them to be hooked or not. 
If not then more open skies for us.
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Noooooo…!
My van shakes under 105
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