I Thought I Was So In Charge Of My Life

Those few months ago, when I first contacted Ride Drive, I was sure that I just had a problem with my driving. A few lessons with an ace driving instructor should sort me out, I sincerely hoped – although by this time I felt so terrified every time that I got into a car it seemed as though I was physically shaking.

The driving phobia crept up on me over a few years

It wasn’t something that had come on all of a sudden – instead, over the past few years I’d become more and more reluctant to drive. Was it the huge increase in road traffic in the UK? Were people less skilled drivers now, as compared with a few years ago? Had I suddenly forgotten how to do it? Like lots of people who contact Ride Drive, I couldn’t puzzle out what had gone wrong.

Why was something that had once just been a banial task now so deeply frightening, reducing me to tears at times and making me want to be sick with fear? I suppose I was expecting to either be re–taught how to drive, or to be told that I was frankly a menace on the road and should give up driving – one or the other.

I wasn’t judged, and neither was I told to just get on with it

I was so glad to speak to Jules when I first called Ride Drive. He listened to me. He didn’t tell me that I just had to “get on with it” nor did he judge me. Slowly, and through my contact with him, I have realised that any person’s ability to carry out a complex skill like driving can be hugely affected by their mental state. Realisation dawned that following major events in my life – bereavements, caring for a very sick child, moving house several times – I had accumulated a fair old heap of stuff to contend with.

He was, and is, endlessly patient with all my wrestling to solve this thing. He told me that it wasn’t just the driving, not really. Something else needed to be sorted out too.

I thought I had sorted out my past, so all I did was to be unkind to myself

But the past was sorted out, or so I thought – I’d come to terms with things and was moving on. Yet, in the end, physically moving – at least, driving a car – had become a deeply frightening experience. Even little local drives made me shake. Exasperation and frustration set in which led to me being very unkind to myself – then my driving got worse.

In the end I got some therapy – I went to my GP and told her I needed CBT and would she refer me. Even at that stage I was still sometimes of the mind that it was really only a problem with my driving. The therapist realised that it wasn’t just CBT that was needed.

It is all too easy to label stuff as too difficult and lock it away

First of all, I had to look at issues from the past. I’d become very good, over several years, at shutting my inconvenient reactions to baggage firmly into a cupboard, locking the door and walking away. I’d been ignoring all the distress signals, because I didn’t understand what was going on.

My inability to drive in any sort of calm fashion was my subconscious trying to get me to address the things that had been hurting me so much for so long. More locks on the cupboard were not the answer! And I would never have known what was causing me to be so distressed when I drove a car if I hadn’t contacted Ride Drive.

Here I could talk to people who not only know practically everything there is to know about driving cars, but who are also immensely intuitive and skilled at dealing with people under stress. Added to this is a profound and wide–ranging knowledge of the difficulties faced by people with a fear of driving.

The amount of time and effort that was given to me in addition
to the practical driving sessions was fantastic

What’s also remarkable is that whilst I had to pay for the practical driving session I had (Ride Drive is a privately run organisation), there was a huge amount of time and effort given in the form of email and telephone support, which all came totally free of charge. In fact, it was largely through this line of communication that I came to a state of realisation that dealing with those items I had shut in the cupboards was the only way in which I was going to move forward.

Their Internet discussion forum too was an invaluable source of support, and although I have never physically seen them, I have met some wonderful people in there; people who were all battling with similar issues to those of my own.

Solving the driving thing is definitely going to take me down a different route from what I first thought. I’ve had a session with one of the Ride Drive team and it was a great confidence booster – my driving wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was. The sessions with the therapist are continuing and are beginning to re–establish some feelings of contentment.

The feelings of panic I feel when driving have started to subside

And some of the feelings of panic associated with driving the car are indeed beginning to recede. Only the other day I drove in to a nearby city and back again with hardly a flicker, wondering with a sense of huge surprise where all those sudden huge jolts of panic had gone. When they re–appear in whatever shape or form, I will be in a far better position to deal with them.

So this is a huge thank you to Ride Drive, who are not only continuing to help me sort out the driving, but who have also helped me gain such valuable insights into how to regain my emotional balance.

Best wishes,

Liz

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This page was last updated
Monday, 10-May-2010

Help to Stop Anxiety Attacks When Driving