A few evenings ago, when my broken and surgically repaired elbow had healed sufficiently to be able to turn the steering wheel, and I had already driven my car to physical therapy two days before without a problem, I still asked Tony to drive me to my next PT appointment,…
Anyone who suffers from anxiety knows what it feels like to be told, “you should just…” followed by some oversimplified answer. Or the sentence ends in some technique you’ve already tried (and tried). My favorite advice regarding my driving issue is, “Just get on the highway.” This pearl comes straight…
I didn’t feel the sense of ease I’d been waiting for until I was one exit away from returning home during today’s driving lesson. It’d been a while since I’d been on the highway and my baseline anxiety level was up before I even got in the car. I questioned…
It occurs to me as I approach the Interstate, that I’m about to follow a sign that I’ve been avoiding eye contact with for years. And this time I’m on my own. Well, except for Bruce the psychedelic sea turtle, a stuffed passenger I’ve named after my driving instructor. With…
An unexpectedly effective therapy for fear of highway driving.
To release fear through Thought Field Therapy, my therapist told me, it is useful to go back in to the original traumatic incident that began the fear. I conjure the exact moment easily. A Friday afternoon after I had been teaching all week. At the end of the day I…
Did I want to try “Thought Field Therapy” for my fear of driving on highways, one of my therapists recently asked. I had read not long ago that a somewhat related therapy, one I’d years ago rejected out of hand as unscientific and not worth trying, has since gained acceptance…
Yes, there are medications for anxiety. Why am I not taking them? A year after my first panic attack, my therapeutic plan was to force myself to drive and continue to get onto highways, the stimulus for my panic attacks. You know, “getting back on the horse.” It wasn’t the…
I don’t want to suggest it’s a good thing W got sick and we had to turn around and drive two and a half hours back home this morning rather than paddling in the race. But it did mean I stepped up, driving-wise. A side note: I also learned a…
When I pull out of the driveway, it isn’t raining, yet. Thunder rumbles in the distance and dark clouds threaten. W says he’ll drive me into town for my therapy appointment but I say no, I’ll do it. I tell myself I can’t be a fair weather driver. Eventually I…
