Passing Out

[charissa]

I'm 30 and have had anxiety about driving for the past 8 years. It has gotten worse lately. Partly because I'm a new stay at home mom and don't HAVE to drive every day anymore and MAINLY because I learned last year that when I panic I can pass out. Luckily this was not while I was driving. However this has made the panicky feelings worse while driving, especially now that my baby is in the car with me and that I KNOW if I let the panic run rampant I will pass out.

Here is what makes me uncomfortable about driving:
-going up/down steep hills with cliffs on either side
-This is a weird one: I'm fine for a bit if I don't need to swallow, but as soon as I need to swallow I panic and get a warm feeling and am afraid of choking. I always swerve to the right a touch when I swallow just in case I need to pull over.
-any place where there's no spot to pull over
-any place I might get stuck at a red light, esp. those left turns (last time I got stuck at a red light for a left turn I wanted to jump out of the car).
-driving on highways

Other facts, I never had this fear until about a year after moving to the area where I now live, which coincides with the same time I met my husband (perhaps because he started driving most places we went? or perhaps I made the wrong choice? I hope that's not the case). The fear of driving did NOT come first. I can't quite recall, but I know I started having panic attacks in class. Then I had several syncope (loss of consciousness episodes) not caused by panic but for which doctors could not find anything wrong and were unable to determine why I passed out. After each syncope episode I became more panicky in general that it might happen again, which worsened my panic attacks in class and eventually led to fear of driving. Then of course last year I learned that I WILL pass out when I panic. How? Sorry, if TMI, but everyone says that your water rarely breaks all at once before you give birth, well, mine did, and I panicked thinking something was wrong b/c it just kept coming and I passed out cold on the bathroom floor, hitting my head on the sink on the way down. My husband had to slap me a little to "bring me back." Do do NOT want that to happen while I am driving and become panicky.

I read last night that fear of driving is a form of agoraphobia which makes sense. Growing up I was a fearless kid. Then my parents got divorced when I was 11 and sent me off to a new summer camp for 4 weeks. I only stayed for two I hated it so much. After that I had the strange problem of needing to go to the bathroom frequently and fear of going out to eat and sitting in theatres for plays--anywhere I felt clausterphobic and stuck. I never really dealt with that, but as I got older I just forced myself to do things I wanted to do and the fears, while not disappearing altogether, were definitely managable.

At this point I'm skeptical that anything can work for me. A firm believer in being present in the moment, I'd have a hard time practicing any technique that teaches me to tell myself "lies" about my current situation as it is.

I haven't read the Driving Fear program as I just stumbled across it last night when I finally decided to do a google search on the fear of driving. Unfortunately since my husband and I are new parents and both currently unemployed, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't give me the approval to spend any money on such a program.

Since I lost my job (they wouldn't let me extend my maternity leave any longer) I have no health insurance, so I can't afford to see a therapist either. Perhaps I should reach back to my family history and try prayer. My parents and grandparents are/were all Christian Scientists and belived that prayer could heal any ailment, mental, physical, or otherwise. My grandfather was even a Christian Science practitioner and healed many people as well as had healings of his own. It's a shame he's no longer with us, I might even give that a shot despite quitting that lifestyle at the age of 13.

Thank you for listening. I've not held anything back in writing this for hopes of helping anyone else who may feel the same way.

[teaser]

Hi Charissa - I hope some other people respond.. but I had a few thoughts...

First - it sounds like you have a lot of things going on.. that in itself can cause anxiety.

I, also, had my first panic attack when I married and moved to my husband's house with my three kids. It was a difficult time and I kept wondering why then? I finally realized it had nothing to do with him. But that's going into a whole other realm.

I'm confused about your panic attacks and passing out. Did you only pass out when your water broke? Or have you had other times when you passed out? i.e., giving blood, having blood taken, one of your kids are bleeding, etc.?

You mention that you never passed out when driving, you just worry about passing out when driving.

"Telling yourself lies." What do you mean by that?

As far as prayer - I have never seen a reason not to do that.

For the record - I'm still having problems with highways - but I keep working on it. I also have spent a long time working on myself as well as using the program. It does work - BUT it only works if you are willing to do the work. (It took me a long time and lots of practice to figure that out.) I have had to use different portions of the program at different times, sometimes one thing worked better than another.

I really do hope some others join in, if not for advice, just to let you know that you are not alone.

teaser

[Rich Presta]

your fears are actually very common and not at all unusual. You do seem to have a lot going on and need to allow yourself to have some anxiety, that's only normal all things considered.

Rich

[Nancy]

Wow, your problem sounds very similar to mine, I also have a fear of driving and passing out. I was a fainter growing up and woul pass out while having needles or when sick or at scary movies. I have had this problem of fear of driving for a year now although, I have had other phobias such as riding the metro and buses that I overcame. Fear of driving for me is different though because you are in control of a vehicle that can kill people which makes it very frightening. I hadn't driven in a year until this past weekend where I decided to try to drive to the store cause I was fed up of not driving, it went okay for the first minute but then I started to feel scared, heart racing and dizzy and I thought I was gonna pass out, well I made it to the parking lot of the store but had my husband take over for the ride back. Now I am feeling very discouraged and hopeless but decided to look online for help and came across this forum. It's good to see that I am not the only one with this problem, maybe I will try this program. Hope it goes well for you Charissa!

[charissa]

Thank you everyone for the replies!!

Nancy, it's nice to hear I'm not alone. Although, I hope you are able to overcome your fears!

Because I am currently unemployed I am unable to try the program at this time.

I was getting quite fed up with not wanting to drive myself, so I decided to try meditation and yoga (I have a yoga book that has chapters dedicated to different problems, anxiety being one of them). For the week and a half that I did this, along with taking vitamin B-complex every day (said to help anxiety) I felt SIGNIFICANTLY less anxious while driving. However, I quickly got lazy and stopped doing it. Being the mother of a 14-month-old I get very little free time and chose to spend my free time in other ways. I'm trying to make a point of attempting the meditation and yoga again this week.

We want to send my daughter to a good school (pre k starts in 2012) but it's 40 miles away and my husband says he will NOT move to that town and said I'd better get over my fear of driving by then). So I"m going to have to try to get over this alone without his support!

Good luck to everyone!!