What is the core of the fear?

[drsusieq]

Rich,
Do you have any advice as to what manifests this fear...after driving at high speeds all over the country since I was 16, all of a sudden 10 years ago at age 44 to have a panic attack? I can't wrap my brain around where it came from. I have never had a panic attack anywhere else but in the car. ????

[Rich-Admin]

You could talk to a therapist for years and figure out why, but who cares? The answer is the same.
I try to stay solution orientated since from where I sit the cause is irrelevant.

It can be many things, but it really doesn't matter. There's no single answer.

Rich

[teaser]

Hi Susie -

I went through some therapy to get at the core issue and Rich is right.... It didn't help me with the anxiety I had with driving. It DID help me see some things personally that I needed to change, which is great - but I still needed to get out there and conquer the anxiety, which I'm still working on. Good luck!

Therese

[ferrari]

The same happened to me. I have been driving for more than 15 years, and all of the sudden (now 3 years ) , I have these panic attacks and stomaches when driving. It makes no sense to me, I have never been involved in any accident, and I have a happy life.. I don´t really understand these silly thoughts when I am driving, but I will try to focus , as Rich says, in the solution. I have already wasted enought time !!!

[river_one]

I too did some types of therapy a few years ago, I paid a physiologist $100 to talk to him for 40 minutes and he told me that there is nothing wrong with me and that I can drive if I'd like to. Then I went for 10 session of hypnotism which helped me a little to understand some things about myself but did nothing for my driving.

I've found that the main part of my problem lays in focus. I have been looking in the wrong place (literally), When I look too close to the hood of the car I get dizziness, hit the brakes and get loads of anxiety and fear. And that builds up and causes fear of driving. I have been working with this program for a few months. First off, when I realized that other people have the same difficulty and that I am not losing my mind I started feeling much better. I hadn't driven for about 8 years. I was totally unable to get behind the wheel. Now I drive every day, sometimes for an hour or two. I still have fears some times, I drive slow most of the time (although I do find myself picking up speed when I feel good and I'm not restricting myself). There are still highways that I avoid, but I am doing much better all the time. I am so much less concerned with what other drivers might be thinking of my driving, and that helps a lot. I guess that it took me a long time to get these strange thoughts about driving into my head and it will take me some time to totally get them out. But, I am getting there.