When I was thirteen, my brother got engaged to a girl from France. She was a wonderful girl. But she was from France. Across the Atlantic. Accessible by plane only.

I can’t point to anything in particular that prompted my terror of flying, other than the fact that everyone knows that planes are heavier than air; ergo, sending one into the air defies logic and tempts fate. But whatever the cause, the result was the same: I was deathly afraid.

I couldn’t speak about my fear to anyone. I tried once. Before my father booked our tickets for the wedding, I begged him not to buy one for me.

It was the wrong thing to do.

His face turned red, and he yelled that I should be thankful my parents were spending so much money on me, and did I really think I could miss my own brother’s wedding? What would people think?

So that was that.

I guess I’m lucky that Jewish engagements tend to be short, because I spent the entire period in a state of dread. I couldn’t think, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sit still. For a school kid, that means trouble. I couldn’t get through class without feeling antsy, and that antsiness came across as disruptive classroom behavior. Let’s just say it didn’t endear me to my teachers. And frustrated phone calls home didn’t endear me to my parents. And irritated teachers and parents didn’t help calm me down.

I remember the night before we left as pure torture. I felt like a prisoner scheduled to be executed in the morning. My thoughts raced, my chest constricted, and my emotions clogged up my throat. I struggled to breathe. I willed the sky to stay dark, but I lost that battle within hours. With morning’s arrival, I had no choice but to get ready. I took a long, careful look around my bedroom before leaving it, convinced I’d never see it again.

We traveled from New York to Paris on a Boeing jet. Massive, modern, and sturdy, its indestructible appearance brought my panic down to manageable levels. But the trip wasn’t over yet. From Paris, we needed to get to Marseilles, and we were going to do that via the least trust-inducing contraption known to man.

The moment I saw the plane – the tiny, rickety old plane – my anxiety shot right back up. I wanted to refuse to get on, but one glance at my father told me he would push me on if he had to. Instead, I insisted on a middle seat in the middle of the plane. I’m not sure how that made me any safer, but it felt more secure.

When I reached my seat, I tried to stop my trembling by pressing my feet against the footrest, my hands on the armrests, and my head against the back of the seat, eyes locked onto the seat in front of me. As the plane gathered speed for liftoff, I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly I thought I might squish them. The plane began to shake. More than anything, I wished my mother would reach over and take hold of my hand. I wished she would say, “I understand, it’s okay, many people are afraid to fly. We’ll get through it together.”

Nothing doing.

Neither of my parents seemed concerned by my alarm. Even when turbulence knocked the plane so sharply that everything not tied down was thrown across the aircraft – nearly including my heart – neither of them turned to check on me. They had brought me along, but I was alone.

By the time we landed, I was a mess of nerves. My legs were numb and could barely hold me up, my body was still vibrating, and my mind wouldn’t hold a single fully-formed thought. I wanted to steady myself on my father’s arm, but I would never dare it. Instead, I grabbed onto the top of the seats I passed as I moved down the aisle.

Even after my feet touched solid French soil, I couldn’t shake my agitation. In fact, it spiked again when we reached the place where we’d be staying: an old, cold, dilapidated house that creeped me out. We kids were supposed to rest up for the big day, but though my body ached for sleep, there was no way I was going to close both eyes at once in that crumbling ruin.

The wedding took place the next day in a small but elegant hall. It was a whole-day affair, and I hated every second of it. I was exhausted, jet-lagged, on edge, and lonely; there were no other kids for me to hang out with. My father, who was already annoyed because his rental car had broken down earlier, told me to shape up. He’s the kind of man who needs to choreograph everything, and my glum face was ruining his show. I didn’t have enough energy or interest to fake a smile, so I spent the rest of the wedding ensuring that I was outside his line of vision.

By evening, I was so drained that I slept for the first time in three days. I slept soundly – so soundly that I missed Shacharit, the morning prayers. I wasn’t happy about that, but I was pretty excited about that night. It was the first night of Sheva Brachot, the minor celebrations held during the week that follows a Jewish wedding. Each of the Sheva Brachot is generally hosted by a different friend or relative, and that night was to be hosted by a family friend with a son my own age. Even more important, my father wasn’t going to be in charge of this party. I was finally in for some fun.

I showered and dressed with time to spare, and was one of the first in the car. Unfortunately, this incensed my father. “You miss all of Shacharit, but you’re early for a party?!” he asked incredulously. “Is that how I raised you?”

In an instant, my excitement snapped to shame. I was afraid to open my mouth. I sat, mute, as the rest of my family piled in and my father started to drive, screaming the entire time. He wouldn’t stop. He went on and on, making me feel like dirt, like the worst kid in the world, until I finally couldn’t take it anymore.

I yelled back.

I yelled at him for never acknowledging when I did go to pray. I yelled at him for making me fly when I had pleaded with him not to. I yelled at him for not caring about me at all, for only caring about the opinions of strangers.

He roared. He swore he would stop the car and leave me outside, that it would be nothing less than I deserved. I scoffed. Parents were always making threats that kids knew they’d never follow through on. I was sure he’d never go so far as that, if only because what would people think of parents who left a thirteen-year-old kid by himself in a new country? Even when he pulled over to the side of the road, I knew it was just to scare me.

Then he told me to get out.

I froze.

“Get. Out.” His eyes were stormy in the rearview mirror. “We’ll be back for you after the Sheva Brachot. You’re not going.”

I turned, wordless, to my mother. She looked out her window. I should have known better. She never stood up to him. I put my hand on the door handle.

“Let’s go, you’re wasting my time. Don’t make me come back there!”

It all seemed so surreal. I opened the door. I stepped out of the car, one foot at a time. I closed the door behind me and stepped back.

My family drove off.

Fighting off a wave of nausea, I watched them go until the darkness swallowed them up. I hated the dark. I was terrified of the dark. I was in a small town with few streetlights, just enough to cast shadows of moving branches…or maybe they were tentacles… or possibly ax murderers… It was hard to tell – I had to keep an eye on all of them, so I couldn’t focus on any one of them long enough to say for sure.

I shivered. It was cold out and zipping my jacket, hunching my shoulders, and rubbing my palms together could only warm me up so much. And I was made colder still by the chill in my heart. I had known I was alone, but now I’d experienced solid evidence of it. Now my abandonment felt complete.

As the shock wore off, I began to get mad. I mean, who does that? Who leaves his child on the side of an unknown road in a foreign country? In the cold? At night? My emotions jumped from fury to humiliation to dejection to fear and back. They finally settled on longing. Longing for love. Longing for acceptance. Longing for a family. Things I’ve yet to receive, to this today.

Hours after kicking me out of his car, my father drove by to get me, acting as though nothing unusual had happened. I got in the car. But in my mind, in my soul, I continued to be stuck on the side of the road, waiting to be picked up. Waiting to be cared for.

I waited ten years. It took me that long to realize it was a lost cause.

I’m not waiting anymore. Difficult as it has been – and it has been very difficult – I’ve come to understand that my family will never be capable of providing me with the affection I crave. I need to stop waiting to be picked up and start picking myself up. I need to fill the void inside me on my own, first by recognizing that I’m not responsible for my parents’ feelings and actions, and next by loving myself and by creating a family of my own.

And by the way, I’m not afraid of flying anymore. In fact, I get on a plane every week, and I do so with confidence and composure. It’s an awesome feeling, and it gives me hope that the same way I learned how to deal with my fear, I’ll learn how to cope with all the other harmful ideas and emotions in my life. I will learn to accept myself. I will learn that I’m worthy of being loved. I will learn that I’m worthy of loving others.

I will get there because I believe in myself.