A tip that might help some of us ...

[Fiore]

Hi Everyone,

It has been amazing seeing how quickly this forum is gathering momentum with loads of new people registering. It has been really interesting for me to read through your stories and at times, I feel we are almost clones for the way our anxieties/phobias manifest themselves.

A number of you have made comments about being aware of others driving behind you. For me, I think this has been one of the biggest obstacles to me progressing. I am so acutely aware of anything behind me, I am far too frequently checking my rear view mirror, and when a car, or cars, are behind me my anxiety level rises, and my speed reduces. This in turn makes me take the "flight" response and pull over to let them pass.

I recognise that for me to move forward I have to accept my right to be on the road even if this means that during my recovery and return to normality I may cause some slight inconvenience for drivers behind me.

To work through this I have identified a certain section of my drive from home to work as a section where I don't allow myself to look in my rear view mirror, hence I can't pull over or feel intimidated. The section I chose is low on the scale of anxiety level (with the plan to extend beyond that later). I've been doing this for a week or so, and have found it has really been helping.

If anyone else out there has some other strategy for dealing with "the driver behind", please share.

Fiore

[jabbs]

I have had some success with visualization. I was behind the wheel, feeling particularly anxious and pressured far as other people on the road who felt I was driving too slowly (it was a very fast moving multi-lane freeway---285--in Atlanta). everyone seemed hostile. My hands had a death grip on the wheel, my entire body was tense. I felt that I was going to freak out and lose control of the car as angry motorists passed by honking. So then I turned the tables. I tried imagining that each one of the "hostile" was being driven by a close friend---a friendly supportive face. Things got a bit easier. The only tough thing about this strategy is that it does take a bit of focus and creativity---something that you don't easily have access to during harsher panic attacks.

Anything to shake my "fixation" with details on the road (who's behind me, compulsively checking the the speed-o-meter, how far I'm behind a car that's ahead) helps. Sometimes when I am driving with my wife, if I can get into a really involved conversation about my passion---a film that I really enjoyed seeing---then I relax some.

Just a few ideas.

[Fiore]

Hi Jabbs,

Thanks for your post. The visualisation process makes sense, and I will give it a go, but like you said, I anticipate there may be focus/concentration issues when it comes to the moment when you actually want to use it. I'm sorry, but I'm not familiar with the 285 in Atlanta (Australia here!), but the fact that it is multi-laned suggests it must be a fast road. Many years ago at the early stages of my driving fear, I had huge issues driving down a quite steep road from work, and for a few weeks, one of my friend's/colleagues actually acted as a decoy for me, driving in front of me, at a speed I suggested which made her look like the "road nuisance" and not me. It turned out to be a pretty helpful technique but it's not really logistically feasible to constantly have a "decoy driver" on hand!!

Something my psychiatrist suggested to me to prevent "overlooking" at the speedometer is to actually cover it up to shift your attention away from your speed not being high enough. I stopped doing it a long time ago, but have recently re-introduced that as a strategy and I think it's helping.

It's good that when you drive with your wife you have an aide to shift your attention from your fear on to something you have a passion for. I rarely have a passenger so I rely a lot on music in the car. Even though country music is not usually my preferred genre of music, there is a terrific country singer called Tom Russell (is it okay to do plugs in the posts here?!!!), and I have at least 8 of his CDs. All of his songs have amazing stories woven into them and I think that helps shift my attention. A (non-fearful) friend of mine has to do a lot of big drives as part of her job and she finds listening to story books on CD in the car makes her journeys more enjoyable. I might check that out for myself too.

Thanks again for your post Jabbs.

Regards
Fiore

[drsusieq]

Another idea...Rich suggested to get out of my head by rolling down the windows and the wind blowing in your hair...
I then made a comment that it sounded like a Bruce Springsteen song...so yesterday, I sang out loud, "Roll down the windows and let the wind blow back your hair" over and over until I felt more comfortable tham ever before...haven't made it on to the freeway yet, but my open streach of road was do-able.

Drive on!