The Phobia That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Robert Eastwood Has Been Afflicted by the Condition Since a Scary
Experience on a Scottish Holiday. This is His Story.

No one knew about my driving problem. Certainly not the two good friends who joyfully announced their imminent wedding date…… and asked if I’d do them the honour of driving the blushing bride to church in my classic luxury saloon.

"It would be an honour and a privilege and I’d be delighted to," I heard myself say. Meanwhile, I was desperately putting the brakes on inner turmoil at the thought of the tortuous hour–long journey from their home to the altar.

This was the ultimate and cruellest of all tests for my driving affliction: deliver a bride to her groom without my being paralysed by panic on some unfamiliar, godforsaken dual carriageway halfway between the two of them.

I Didn’t Want to Let Them Down

I can beat this dodgy driving thing, I told myself, and I’ll do it for our friends. I can’t let them down. I’ll get her to the church on time, no problem, and sure enough I did. I paid a couple of hundred quid for another classic car – complete with uniformed, leather–gloved chauffeur – to take the fare of the fair bride. My generosity was dressed as a surprise wedding–day gift from me to the even happier couple. Eliminating stress can be expensive.

It’s the phobia that dare not speak its name. Fears of spiders, snakes, heights, or even vomit (emetophobia – sixth in the top ten) are all acceptable topics of polite conversation around the dinner table. OK, maybe not emetophobia. But casually mention you have a driving phobia and see the jaws drop and the soup spoons fall with a deafening clatter.

It is Indescriminate in its Choices

Common these days among mature motorists, driving phobia can crash into your life at any age. It is said to be the result of allowing personal stress, grief or trauma into the car as an unwelcome passenger. It penetrates your mind like a nagging satnav voice until the mind itself mistakenly connects the stressful life event with the driving.

Panic may strike suddenly on a swooping stretch of motorway for no apparent reason. Legs and arms begin to shake, dizziness scrambles your head, and all rational thought flies out of the sunroof along with your spatial awareness and roadcraft. With mental wires now firmly crossed, this so–called ‘learned behaviour‘ will kick in the next time you encounter a similar driving situation.

Gradually this menacing condition can work its way down the main road all the way home until sufferers are afraid to get into the car to buy a book of stamps from the post office. Welcome to the debilitating world of the driving phobic.

The Day Phobia Struck

I experienced my first jitters at the wheel while driving my wife and our two children home from a blissful family holiday in Scotland. I was coasting breezily past slower vehicles in our sleek saloon – the one later requested by the soon–to–be–weds – when my mind locked onto the deep drops down into the valley from the snaking Border Country highway.

My irrational mind pointed out that since there was no roadside barrier, one wrong turn of the wheel would launch this happy family into the spectacular scenery, bringing an evil end to our heavenly Scottish sojourn.

Vertigo kicked in – I’m not great with heights – and I gripped the steering wheel with a new intensity. Our speed dropped dramatically and the drivers I’d overtaken were now stacked up behind me, cursing the bloke in the big Beemer. Hey, what’s his problem?

I Used to Thoroughly Enjoy Driving

Until that scary moment on the Anglo–Scottish freeway, I’d always enjoyed the driving experience, mile after glorious mile. I was self–assured and safe behind the wheel. There was no one I’d trust more – and I was trusted. I’d confidently take over the driving duty from any tiring friend or colleague, night or day, year after year.

Now I was on a different journey. In the following months and years, my driving abdabs grew increasingly worse. They could strike at any time, particularly on unfamiliar roads where a sheer drop, plunging valley or vertigo–inducing bridge could be waiting around the next bend. If I could, I’d plan my route to avoid them, for example driving through Bristol rather than around it on the M5 motorway hill climb above vertigo valley.

Arms and Legs Turning to Jelly

It’s difficult to drive when your arms and legs are trembling in fright and your head is spinning as if negotiating a tightrope 500ft above Cheddar Gorge. For a while, even grounded motorway traffic jams decided to get in on the act, and would bring on a claustrophobic panic to add to my motoring madness.

Turning to medication for a cure presents a complex balancing act of chemicals and emotions, and experiments with drugs not entirely fit for driving purpose. There’s no simple pill to pop. Some may make you drowsy – not ideal at the wheel – and others are powerful long–term mindbenders designed to treat far more incapacitating conditions. They may work for you, but not for me, so talk to your GP.

Comforting Not to be The Only One

Realising there are other drivers on the road in the same boat – up Angst Creek without a paddle – is a huge source of relief and comfort to the acrophobic car–phobe. Making contact with these significant others is even better, and now you can travel the superhighway to meet them in an online forum for driver phobics.

The Driving Phobia Help Forums is completely free to sufferers and is run by advanced driving consultants, Ride Drive, specialists in road fear, anxiety and phobia. Bridges, hills, motorways – if any of these test your trousers then your fear may have reached phobic proportions.

Ride Drive state: "Driving phobia is totally irrational. But for those who experience acute anxiety when driving, especially the panic attack, it is very real and very frightening."

Ride Drive offer a three–stage recovery programme. Stage One is an initial free telephone consultation to assess the severity of your problem and what help you need. Then it’s up to you to call back the next day if you want to progress to Stage Two, when you’ll meet a trained member of the Ride Drive team for a first practical driving session. Stage Three, if you want to carry on, is an action plan of regular driving sessions.

I called Ride Drive recently, after bumping into their website on an internet trip. The sympathetic expert advice of former police driver Julian Smith is excellent and highly informative, and the forum community postings are invaluable, although I did not commit to Stages Two and Three.

There’s No Quick Fix

It takes time, patience and resolve and I’ve already conquered some roads and quelled the panic. But I know my limits (no bridges, no high roads), and there’s a local dual carriageway that I still dodge, thanks to the memory of a bad panic attack, in the car with three passengers.

As a home–based writer with modern technology and global destinations at my fingertips, I need the car less and less. An intensive programme of driver reprogramming seems unnecessary when I’m not going anywhere.

And for long car journeys with any likelihood of encountering vertigo–provoking, panic–producing bridges, hills and valleys, I’ve found the perfect solution. My wife drives.

DRIVING PHOBIA: Causes and Treatment

Most cases of driving phobia, or road anxiety, begin with spontaneous panic attacks at the wheel, and rarely through fear resulting from a distressing traffic accident. Road fear specialists, Ride Drive, identify three main groups of phobic drivers:

"Driving phobia is shrouded in secrecy and people don’t want to talk about it. Sufferers feel so isolated and think they’re the only one with this problem," says Ride Drive’s Julian Smith, a former traffic police driver. "This is a recognised condition and needs more awareness so that those who are not affected can show more understanding. That driver in front may be having a problem.

Driving phobia will drive you out of the car, if you let it, and to get you back in is very difficult… There is a solution, but it takes hard work, patience and determination. Seek help and the sooner the better."

10 Tips on Overcoming Driver Panic

1: Don’t suffer in silence. This is a widely recognised condition and there is a solution.

2: Seek help. There are professionals out there but choose carefully and speak to former clients.

3: Avoid avoidance … or your list of &lsqou;can&nash:do’ roads will get shorter until you can’t get in the car.

4: Give yourself time. Carry on driving at your own pace until you find the help you need.

5: Take action. Get help as soon as you can or fearful driving behaviour may become ingrained.

6: Step by step. Start with short journeys and gradually increase the distances to build confidence.

7: No heroics. A gung–ho ‘I can beat this’ attitude for a long journey can prove soul–destroying if you fail.

8: Don’t fret. Yes, it’s a stressful problem but getting too distraught will make it worse.

9: Take a co–driver. A sympathetic passenger who can take over if necessary can be reassuring.

10: Own up. Your nearest and dearest may be more understanding than you think.

The above article first appeared in the January 2011 edition Choice Magazine and is published here with kind permission. We currently have an open thread on our Phobia Support Forums which you are welcome to contribute to by leaving your comments.

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Saturday, 29-Jan-2011

The Phobia That Dare Not Speak Its Name