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I am having anxiety attacks while driving. What can I do?
15 Mar 2006 by Rod Smith in Anxiety / 25 Comments
READER WRITES: I have been suffering with anxiety attacks for about 12 years now. The strange thing is it seems to affect me mostly when driving my car, especially if I get stuck in a traffic jam. I get really anxious and start to get all the symptoms of a panic attack. The trouble is it affecting my life and narrowing down my routes, as I won’t go on certain freeways in case there is any kind of hold up. I am not afraid of flying or of elevators, escalators. It is only when I drive and I am a fairly good passenger. Is there any kind of cure of this phobia, which seems to be ruling my life now?
ROD RESPONDS: Twelve years is a long time to suffer anything. It is when seemingly irrational fears impede functioning that face-to-face medical help becomes necessary. Please, seek it. My therapeutic counsel would question you about the frequency and the intensity of the episodes, which I’d have you describe in great detail. I’d ask you for a painstaking process of self-monitoring with the view to identifying commonalities that predicate your most intense attacks. Having encouraged you to write these observations, I’d suggest you’d be able to identify ways to accommodate, rather than expel, the anxiety from your life altogether.
About the Author: Rod Smith
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
Idiots – always adults, children were surprisingly patient, – would make me repeat sentences as if a repeat performance of the humiliating uncoordinated gesticulations, my arms and legs flying in all directions, would make for an easier delivery the second time. That I’d just spent every ounce of energy trying to cough it up was lost on them. That I was already thoroughly humiliated was something to which they were blind.“Practice, practice,” they’d say as if stutterers simply didn’t speak enough. “Think before you speak. Now – try that again,” they would declare slowly and loudly as if I was stupid and deaf. These thoughtless people were ignorant of just how much stutterers do think. Too much – which is central to the issue!
If I’d known at twelve or thirteen that the day would come when I’d make a career of public speaking I might have strolled off a high-rise building.
Now it is quite easy to hide. I am very comfortable with crowds.
It’s asking driving directions or ordering food at a drive through where it gets tricky. Sitting in a cozy circle waiting for my turn to introduce myself sends my blood-pressure through the roof. The ticket attendant on the London underground can render me dumb after I’ve just spent days addressing a room full of graduate level adults about Family Systems Theory. I know. It sounds ridiculous.
I was almost immobilized the first time I saw Thulani put himself “on duty” in the event he needed to be my mouthpiece. He did it. No one asked him or appointed him. He just did it.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
Our house is the same, but instead of painting from end to end and back again, I am the guy constantly cleaning, – and, it’s hard to tell.
Where I cleaned and swept and dusted and vacuumed and sponged and sterilized yesterday there are scooters and bicycles (boys), mail in piles (me), books (boys and me), newspapers (me), magazines (me), and socks (boys and Max, the Chihuahua).
Turn my back and the boys and Max are at it again – enjoying life as boys (and a dog) while I find being a cleaning lady quite an exhausting challenge.
There is a point of no return, I’ve noticed, or at least a point of the chaos where I feel compelled to let it all go for a while and I throw up my hands and join in the fun of trashing the place.
But when I clean I like to think I’m just like the guy painting the Bridge, which I can only imagine must be a slow and methodical task.
I do it room by room, starting at one end, the front, in the event that I soon lose interest – then, at least, the front room is somewhat in order. I push it (trash, magazines, books, socks, clothes) all back from the living room, through the piano room, then into the TV room until everything lands up in the kitchen.
Once it hits the kitchen I separate out what’s Max’s – he’s has his own set of toys with which he ruins the house – what’s Nate’s, what’s Thulani’s, and what can be recycled, dumped, restacked on bookshelves, placed in drawers, hung on a hanger, or filed in the “important documents” file I keep losing.
We moved into “122” (creatively named for its street number and which has had very few updates since it was built in 1886) when Thulani was about two – and I have been getting it in order ever since. Nate joined us in 2002. Max, in 2009. The house- attachment, at least for the boys and Max, is strong. When I talk of selling Thulani reminds me that Rhino, the husky that was on the run for nine months and returned to die within a few weeks after we reconnected, is buried in an Air France first class cabin blanket just outside of the kitchen door. Nate reminds me of where the fat goldfish is buried and Thulani ends the litany with his inability to think of living in a house without the large tree in the front yard where he has his brother (and Max) have “peed like boys” (and a dog) for the past several years.
So. I’ll go on painting and, before you send me letters about giving the boys chores and responsibilities and assigning daily tasks and getting on top of it before it gets on top of me let me advise that you are barking up the wrong tree (sorry, Max for the dog metaphor) because we do have all that in place and it does work here and there and off and on.
I know, I know. Consistency is the name of the game for parenting and let me tell you, the ONLY thing that is consistent here is the need to keep going room by room with or without the boys (and Max) to get this little bridge painted one stretch at a time so the world can see just how organized and decent our lives are here at our beloved “122.”
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
I am regularly aware that:- I was discouraged from playing soccer in the “front” yard (in view of the neighbors) with the servant’s children. While this may seem insignificant in the light of other much more severe problems rising from racism, it was huge for me as a child on several fronts. I loved the children and I loved soccer even more. They were excellent soccer players.
- I did attend a segregated school as did almost all white South Africans while there did exist some church schools that were integrated even under Apartheid. I vividly recall my school principal scolding the entire student body (over a thousand white boys) because a domestic worker (a black adult man) was seen walking in the neighborhood wearing a school blazer.
- Although, by no means wealthy, I was waited on hand and foot by a full-time servant.
- In the late 80s I was warned not to pray publicly for Prisoner “Nelson” Mandela from my church pulpit.
- A member of my family did balk at my request that I bring black children to his home-swimming pool to swim.
- Even as late as 1987 I was embarrassed that a young black boy whom I’d “helped” in his squatter camp had shown up at my door unannounced. I recall wondering what the neighbors would think seeing a child arriving at the home for a social visit and not to work in the yard.While I am aware that these are piddly problems in the light of what millions faced under the Apartheid regime, I am also aware that these factors in my immediate environment “shaped” me into believing perverse things (like in my own superiority and in “their” inferiority) about persons of other race groups. More significantly, I am frequently reminded that my children and I could not have shared life as we now do if we were still living in the era of Apartheid.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
That’s the upside.
We are a 10-hour-drive to the nearest coast – and, most of the east coast beaches are not worth the drive. The west coast, which has many wonderful beaches comparable to where I was reared, takes three full days of driving to reach.
Being landlocked is one thing but another is the weather. Indiana weather is erratic, neurotic, and downright psychotic.
Days ago I could’ve (but I didn’t) ice-skated across the street. Now, as I write, there’s a small lake in the street next to the sidewalk from last night’s rain. The weather is so brutal and extreme (it is as hot as blazes in the summers) that when we do drive anywhere (there are no grocery stores in walking distance) the streets are often full of potholes making some of America’s finest suburban streets resemble stretches of road you’d find in a rural stretch of South Africa’s Wild Coast. So, I am exaggerating but really not too much. Washington Boulevard is a challenge to drive right now, you have got to dodge potholes and loose pavement or, unless you drive a tank, you stand to severely damage your suspension.
But I do love living here. My neighbors are some of my best friends. My children are free and safe in the neighborhood and everyone knows everyone’s children. Even as I write Joseph (born a week or so before Thulani) from down the street has wondered into the house and it is quite likely he will eat with us, stay the night, and then wander down back down the street to his home sometime in the morning. His mom and I will talk sometime between now and nightfall unless he of course chooses to wonder off home and be gone just as quickly as he showed up.
Potholes and crazy weather won’t send us running, although we will drive to church in the morning – even though it is really close. I’m not sure I want to brave the elements which could be a snow-storm, an ice storm, the threat of a tornado – or a little or a lot of each. What else could you expect during March in Indiana?
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper. Of course you can go baby-stuff-shopping, get a room painted, stencil yellow ducks on the wall – if you know long enough in advance your child is coming. But painting a bedroom with ducks and rainbows and a pot of gold, and getting a truck load of stuff from your local one-stop baby emporium will only fill your home with a lot of weird and wonderful, and mostly unnecessary, equipment.
Children interrupt everything. It is the child who is really ready to teach you, whether you are or not. Once he arrives he will become the hub of all your scheduling. You will be fine with this because the child is not an interruption to your life but rather, from this point on, central to it.
The baby will make you ready and you can’t really prepare for the baby until he is breathing in the crib right next to your bed.
Life inside the Smith household
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25 Comments
Sabrina
im 17 years of age and in the 11th grade. i have been having the same problems since entering 9th grade. i get real hot and my hand start to sweat, it feels like i have to go to the bathroom but a nice breeze of cold air for 5 mins makes it go away SOMETIMES. these attacks are bothering me with my life my school work i just cant get away from it. People say you get them from having a fear of somethin, i get the damn things out of nowhere. its so frustrating to be in a middle of a conversation and feel like your going to pass out. I have friends i dont really have any fear of anything besides bees. its just getting to the point where im getting chest pains and there is not point fo rme to go through this pain. . .there has to be a way around this.
11 May 2006 08:05 am
Dr Jeannette Kavanagh
Hello,
I’ve only just discovered this blog. First, I agree completely with Rod – that the anxiety attacks while driving need more than a comment from a stranger. That noted, I’d like to share with you an insight which I hope does help you. It’s long, but as short as I could make it.
I’ve counselled many people out of anxiety and panic attacks over the past two decades. Goodness, time flies!! This insight is not mine. I first read it when I studied books by the late Dr Claire Weekes, the marvellously empathic Australian GP. The insight?
“Accept your panic symptoms and ….they’ll go. Fight them and they’ll intensify.”
Look at that word ‘inTENSify’. It’s about tensing up. Becoming worried and even more panicky about your feelings of panic. Once you really realise that,you’ll see that although they’re unwelcome, uninvited and not appropriate to the situation, your feelings of terror and panic are just that: they’re only feelings. They can’t harm you.
Yes, they’re unpleasant.
Yes, I know you don’t want them.
But tell me this, my sweetness, “in the past, has tensing up and worrying even more about feeling panicky helped those feelings to dissipate?” Your answer? I know it’s NO.
Just so you’re very clear: tensing up and fighting your symptoms of panic help will NOT HELP YOU today, or in the future.
Once you accept that there is no real danger in your car, you’ll see that your real fear is the fear of the actual panicky feelings. If you could just let those inappropriate messages of fear come and do their worst, you’d learn how to send those fears packing.
So to summarise, offer no resistance. Accept. Flow. When your pulse races, your heart pounds, your tummy goes queasy, your mouth dries up….do the opposite of what you normally do. Instead of panicking even more do this:
STOP. BREATHE. ACCEPT…
Mimic Mother Nature – flow with the hurricane. Easier said than done. I know, I know. but you can practise this at home a few times and you’ll see how well it works. I know you can make yourself feel great fear just by remembering the last time you were terrified. Bring those memories back. Feel those symptoms and now…. just accept them. At home.
That’s right. I’m asking you to do the very opposite to what you’d normally think of doing. I’m not saying TRY to do anything. I’m not saying TRY to relax. I’m not saying TRY to divert yourself from your fear-filled thoughts.
I am saying – do absolutely nothing. Accept your feelings. They really have no power to hurt you.Next time you feel the first fluttering of fear and panic think to yourself:
“I know you. You’re nothing to panic about. Come on and do your worst. I know you can’t harm me.
You’re just some throw back to the days when I might have needed to run away from the sabre toothed tiger.”
It seems almost cruel to tell you that if you’ve been experiencing anxiety and panic for a while, you’re the main reason that your fears stay with you.
It’s your fear of the fear-filled symptoms that keep your fear going.
You’re the major part of your problem. But you are also the TOTAL solution.
You already know that there’s no real danger in the freeway – apart from the bad drivers (never you!). Your mind sent the wrong message “danger, danger” to your body. Your body has then had the right reaction to that danger message.
To end with the good news: those messages can be rewritten, re-learned. Cheers, Jeannette
28 Jun 2006 03:06 am
Rod E. Smith, MSMFT
Dear Jeannette:
Thanks for your beautiful and helpful and caring response.
Rod Smith
28 Jun 2006 03:06 am
Cotton Rohrscheib
Hi Rod –
I can sympathize w/ your readers situation, been there! About 2 years ago I had my first Anxiety Attack, I thought it was a heart attack, but turns out vitals were just fine? I still don’t understand the mechanics of anxiety attacks but I totally agree w/ what Dr. Kavanaugh mentioned. Tensing up and fighting the thing only makes it worse and of course you will eventually be TKO’d (that’s what I call it, thank goodness hasn’t happened in a while).
I was on the verge of having one in the car once while driving on a very crooked road that really required both hands on the wheel. I had to go to the restroom really bad and I was behind a log hauler and an older retired couple who were doing about 20mph and it was all I could do to keep it on the road.
I managed to hang onto it by using a technique that I have learned…
It’s really sort of a mind trick thing, and I am sure that you probably have a technique of your own you might use, but what I do is count from zero to 100 by 3′s and when I get to 30,60,90 I say a short prayer thanking God for something in my life I am thankful for. In doing this I think that it somehow works to make you think subconciously (by counting by 3′s) and also think consciously (by praying) at the same time and those positive things slowly counteract the ongoing rushes. Or at least it works for me.
Thought that I might pass along my technique to your reader in hopes that it might help them as well.
Cotton Rohrscheib
http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com
27 Jul 2006 02:07 pm
sagar
Getting full time panic for fast moving vehicles around us, specially in opposite directions while driving, so it may result to lack of confidence, and a feeling a lack of comfort during driving.
I am very particular in nature. pls help
26 Jan 2007 08:01 am
Janet
I first began having panic attacks in the late 70′s and no doctor had a name for it, and I was often dismissed.
In 1987 I was diagnosed with Panic disorder and post traumatic stress and was put on medicine. But all those years prior to knowing what I had, were very daunting to me.
I missed so much in my son’s life and my own life. I was an abused wife for starters and was not even able to escape that horror.
Over time I learned as much as I could about and when I filed for my divorce, ironically the panic vanished and never came back until my second husband died 16 months ago.
I had been told to move on with my grief that he ( my husband was not coming back )I was abandoned by hospice ( they never fulfilled their years obligation to me or my son – the phone stopped ringing and the door bell and the dead of night was horrible.
The first few months, while I was sad that he had died, I still had not had a panic attack. The first one came back last March. I was told point blank, get over it, and move on. I was also told that tears were not necessary when someone dies. After ten weeks with a house guest that thought she was helping, but the time she left, I was spent and the panic came back full force.
Now I know it cant hurt me, I know to stop and breathe even incite them, but to have others just minimize them and tell you that they are not real but only imagined is a bit much. I am NOT able to drive a distance right now. I had a bad accident two years ago, and while I do drive, I drive where I feel comfortable – now I am being pushed to drive quite a distance when I am not ready to. The person will not stop.. push push push… this person also suffers from really bad anxiety – and I would never ever minimize it or dismiss him.
I don’t know what to do. I will deal with the panic as best I can. But I do not know how to deal with people who are selfish and pushing me to do something that I am simply not ready to take on. It is like their saying to me ‘ my anxiety out weighs your fear, so deal with it’.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Have a great day!
Janet
04 Feb 2007 11:02 am
Carri
My 19 year old just started having anxiety attacks. He’s a very, almost unusually creative person in every aspect of life, I mention this because he is afraid to take any anti anxiety meds for fear it will dull his creativity. I am at my witts end with this, I feel completely powerless to help him and as his mother, it’s killing me not to be able to do SOMETHING to help him. He’s been told by 3 doctors now that the meds would help him significantly. I’m wondering if there are any drugs out there that are less likely to dull the creativity while still providing the anxiety attack relief that he needs. If anyone has an answer, I’d be really grateful to know it. Thanks
05 Jul 2007 03:07 am
Beth
In response to Carri,
As a writer/teacher/quilter, I have a ton of outlets for my creativity but before, in the midst of my four year long battle with panic disorder, I couldn’t concentrate long enough to even finish one project. I would get so consumed by it that I couldn’t stop, and then I’d burn out before I was done…it was a cycle that was not helping my disorder but adding to it, as I now felt more worthless than ever and somehow deserved the panic attacks since I was so flaky. If I couldn’t finish one short story, how could I ever overcome anything as monstrous as panic disorder?
It sounds like your son doesn’t have the same type of issue I did, but I figured I’d throw my two cents in anyway.
8 months ago I started taking 20 mg’s of Prozac daily and went into weekly therapy. For the first time in four years I felt real, actual relief from my disorders and had some semblance of control over my life and emotions. Today I still struggle with certain things – elevators and traffic jams are never going to be my favorite things on earth, but I am no longer house bound or having five or six panic attacks a day. As for my hobbies and projects…I finish them now. I don’t burn out and give up. I don’t feel that I am incapable of finishing them. And I’ve been able to be more creative than ever before in my life, even as a kid. The day I finished my first quilt I sat back, looked at it, and burst into tears of joy…I had finally gotten the best of the beast in the back of my mind!
Tell your son it can’t hurt to try the meds, and it may help tremendously. Tell him to give it a trial run of two months or maybe three, if he isn’t feeling creative anymore he can look for other options for dealing with the attacks.
This is assuming he wants to try the meds. If he’s not, then it won’t help to force the issue.
Either way, in my opinion, the treatment should include a therapist. The relief I finally got was a result of understanding my disorders, myself, and having the boost from the meds to help even things out. I needed a therapist to get me to that point in my life and help me sort things out.
Hope this helps and that your son gets some relief soon.
08 Apr 2008 04:04 am
Anonymous
I am 45 years old and have been having anxiety attacks for almost 10 years now. I get them almost always when I’m driving. I had seven years straight that I had something traumatic happen to me, something major each year.
When I was 32, I had a miscarriage; 33, a baby that was stillborn, 34, another miscarriage; 35, my mom was diagnosed with lymphoma, 36, my mom died; 37, my dad had a heart attack; 38, my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer; 39, my dad came to live with me and passed away, then my grandma died. All the while I was having some health problems of my own, that obviously were made worse by all the stress I had been under.
During one of my arthritic attacks, I had my first anxiety attack, while sitting on my couch. I had the next one several months later while in my doctor’s office, and then a year or so later, had one while driving on the highway. Initially I tried to make myself get back on the highway, but not without severe anxiety. Since then, things have gotten worse. I feel like I am a nut inside of a shell (if that makes sense) and I feel like the shell is gradually getting smaller. I am limited to drive close by my house and if I go outside my “comfort zone”, I feel it coming on and have to fight it. My daughter asks me to take her and her friends places, and most of the time I can not. Early on, I tried to take two different anxiety medicines. These did not work for me. Plus they had sexual and other side effects that I did not like.
I also can not drive across bridges. I almost slid off of a bridge that was icy and how I got out of that one, only God knows.
I wish I could do what the psychologist above suggests. If I were afraid of being in a crowd of people or something like that, I think I would make myself get over it. But when you’re driving 55 + miles an hour, and you get dizzy and can’t see and your heart is racing at 180 beats/minute and you go numb all over, you are not only endangering yourself but everyone in the car with you and everyone around you. Please help.
11 Sep 2008 09:09 pm
AJ
I had my first anxiety attack, at 49 years of age, when my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in jan of 2007. I felt out of control, I could’nt breathe, I had chest pains, my mind raced. 8 months later my mother passed away unexpectedly and I had the biggest panic attack I ever had, the chest pains were so bad I ended up seeing my physician and a cardiologist both of whom did full work-ups. I was found to be normal. When my father passed away 4 months later, I had pains in my side and again another series of panic attacks. I went to my physician and he ran more tests. The pains in my side was a kidney stone and not cancer as I had imagined myself having. It’s been a year now since I’ve lost both parents. I still have panic attacks sometime severe sometimes not so bad. I am seeing a counselor and she is helping. I know first hand what your readers have shared. All I can say is be strong and know that you are not alone, that there are others that share your pain and that you are loved and cared about, even by those, like me that do not even know you.
21 Oct 2008 10:10 am
nora
hi everyone. I’m a 23year old mom of a two year old. i have been dealing with panic attacks since i was 14. i recently started to get them while driving. fast heart beat mind racing sweaty hands… ahhh it’s awful but i have 2 year old so i breathe roll the window down and sometimes pray.i hate that this happens to me.. well hope you all overcome your hear im working on mine slowly but surely.. xo
20 Nov 2008 07:11 am
Robert R.
I am new to all this Anxiety attacks, I have now been having this crap for about two or three months and I am a truck driver, just by reading some of the things that I have today , it seems to be helping already. And I thank u all. And Im going to keep teling myself that I am not “Crazy” !!! Be back soooooooooon.
20 Dec 2008 01:12 pm
John Ryan
I was drinking quite a lot of coffee each day and I was getting what I thought were panic attacks. Intense fear and a feeling of unreality and deja Vu. Driving home one night I had one of these attacks and it passed off to be shortly followed by another one. The next thing I new was that I was upside down in my car hanging from my seatbelt. From what I can find out these are not panic attacks but partial epilepsy made worse by the coffee I was drinking. So if your panic attacks come with other symptoms such as dizziness, Deja Vu, numbness, unreality, smells or tastes which are not there or even haucinations then consider that it could be partial epilepsy.
07 Jan 2009 04:01 am
Stop Panic Attacks While Driving
[...] I am having anxiety attacks while driving. [...]
mailinfoto
There are a lot of things we should learn in order to eliminate the fear in driving
And forward moving action is the first step on achieving that goal. Having the proper knowledge and skill can also help us on doing that. I want to share to you an article about the 10 Keys in Eliminating Any Fear of Driving.
Alex Hunter who wrote this report really understands the fear that we are all going through right now. He can help you in developing and building your confidence in order to successfully remove any fear you have in driving. i hope this comment helps.
Please click here to read some more.
23 Mar 2009 02:03 pm
Kate
I agree with the reply including the book by Dr.Claire Weeks Hope and Help for your Nerves. I’ve read it and recovered and then relapsed lol, well if I could only accept what she wrote in the book-I certanly BELIEVE it, but I gotta accept it..and that’s the final step that’s inhibiting my recovery sadly..I avoid all kinds of situations just INCASE I get an anxiety attack ugh, its annoying, now I can’t even tell if I’m avoiding the situation cause I don’t want to do it or go OR if its cause I”m afraid I’ll have an anxiety attack. Remember everyone no self pity either! I hope the good Lord answers all our prayers for healing.
10 Jun 2009 12:06 pm
Steve O’Hara
Hi Jeannette,
Similar to others I have had this problem with driving for 8 years. Very happily married, great family, successful business man, I travel the world so planes no problem lol. I used to cover sales in the UK and do 25,000 miles driving a year. Then started to feel funny driving, it got worse on certain roads, certain places and no idea why.
I have been to two therapists that helped for a short time but long term did not help. I can now only drive locally in town and get the usual symptoms if I think I have got to drive out of town. It is spoiling my life I want to do something about it, I know it is stupid but panicking when driving is a bit different from tackling a spider. Any advice would be greatfully received.
Thank you STEVE
16 Jun 2009 02:06 pm
TAMARA
I too get anxiety attacks while driving. Crowds, traffic and the fact that I am getting far from home. I will be just fine when I start out..but as soon as traffic starts up…the heart starts racing a little then a little more. I find that drinking a soda has helped me out a lot..slows down my heart rate.
17 Aug 2010 10:08 am
S Nicole
I am 26 and just realized that I’m having panic attacks while driving, I get sweaty hands and feet and feel dizzy, like I’m not in my body. It’s weird because Ive always been a good driver, and it’s really starting to effect my life, I don’t want to go far… Stay in my neighborhood… It’s really scary, once had one on the highway when my hands went numb luckly I had others in the car so I pulled over and they took over from there…. I really hope I don’t have this problem my whole life, recently married and my husband doesn’t understand at all… At first I just thought I was going crazy! It’s nice to read all your comments and know that I’m not alone.
Any other good books or stragies would be greatly appriated. Thanks
31 Aug 2010 12:08 am
Tiffani S.
I am 20 and have just realized I have been having panic attacks. I myself am glad I bumped across this article because the feelings I have been having were described by almost every single one of you guys. I mainly have my anxiety attacks when driving in the car. I was in a very bad car accident when I was 19 and I thought that was the reason I have them. Driving has merely became an obstacle instead of enjoyment, the freedom, which I used to love. My main problem is I try to hide my attacks from other people in fear of them thinking I am just going crazy. The only thing is I have noticed mine are not limited to the car and have increasingly became worse and more frequent. I have been freaking out when at work (i am a walmart cashier) in class, in the car and even sometimes late at night when falling asleep or when I am alone in the house. It almost feels like I am living in fear of the next attack, which they now happen about twice a day almost everyday of the week.
07 Nov 2010 09:11 pm
debi
I have been having attacks for the past 6 years now. i got my first one on the beltway. so, i thought i cant drive the beltway for awhile. well, later on i started getting them in short places. I is really bad for me. i own a cab company and, drive for a living. In the past i have had 2 bad car wrecks when i use to drink and drive alot. then i was in a bad wreck while i was working one nite. a bus pulled right out in front of me. and, it was a bad wreck. it took about 5 months then my attacks got worse! I didnt drive for about a year and a half. but, in that time i was getting attacks in the car with other people when i wasnt even driving. im back to work but, still get them very, very bad to were i got to pull over and, have someone who works for me come get me. i have tryed programs and, nothing is working!!!
17 Jan 2011 02:01 pm
Trent
I am 21 and I have been dealing with anxiety since I was twelve. At first I got them quite often but as I got older they somewhat went away. Then when I started drinking they came back when I got any sort of buzz so I quit. Then a few years went by and I hadn’t had any panic attacks so I started drinking again and everything was fine but then I became a big drinker. Almost every night from when I was 18 til almost 21. Eventually it started taking it’s toll on me. I couldn’t sleep and I never left my house. Then on new years I went out and I had been having chest pains all day but I ignored them and got drunk and then went home and tried to fall asleep and then all of a sudden it happened. The worst panic attack I had ever had. I couldn’t catch my breathe nor could I get my heart beat down. Usually when I go outside and talk that helps but not then. It went on for almost 4 hours. I had to stop myself from calling 911 it was so bad. Ever since that night I couldn’t be alone, couldn’t drive, I couldn’t even shower without there being someone there with me. I have gotten some help since then but not enough. I’m taking zoloft and It has helped but I still cannot drive anywhere other than around my small town except when there’s someone with me then I’m ok. During the day anyways. At night I feel weird like I’m not all there. I don’t know how to explain it but it sucks. I just wish it would go away. I have a kid on the way now and i want to give it a good life but I can’t if I’m stuck here. Please help.
13 Mar 2011 05:03 am
Krissta
I’m glad I came across this article. I googled “anxiety while driving” and it came up. I’ve had anxiety and fears ever sense I can remember. But ever sense I’ve been driving (I’m 19) I’ve had panick attacks. I have to drive to work a few days a week that is an hour away and on the freeway the whole time. On these days I wake up with anexiety and have it the whole way to work. I feel spaced out, dizzy and feel like I’m going to pass out.. It really freaks me out. I fidget with my air conditioning/ heating and music trying to get my self feeling normal again. I hate it more than anything. I think I should go see a Councelor.
16 Mar 2011 12:03 pm
amber
I started having anxiety attacks about 5 yrs ago. I ony get them while driving. First it started just on bridges, then highways, and now sometimes when I am sitting at a stop light behind someone feeling trapped. I have never been in a car accident and i used to drive everywhere!!! I don’t understand why this is happening and I am not sure how to deal with it. It is slowly limiting me and I dont want it to because I want to be able to take my kids places and not be scared. I dont get how you can just breathe deep and think good thoughts, it takes over my whole body and i can’t see straight. I hate it! I just want to feel better.
17 Mar 2011 05:03 pm
Nikki
I drive in one of the most dangerous places in America. It takes me 30 minutes to get to work. I tried using safer roads to get there, but the attacks still are there. I have tried listening to music, rolling down the windows, singing, taking my mind off of it.
Nothing works. I always have to pull over and I feel so dizzy and sweaty and my mouth goes dry and I feel like I am not in my own body. I start shaking and crying and end up late for work.
The worst part is going over bridges and being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Sometimes just driving in general is enough to make the attacks happen.
After the attacks, I still feel weird hours later. Like I am not myself.
Whenever I try to look up solutions, it’s just some “doctor” trying to sell me some DVDs and what-not. This is the only site I have found that actually made me feel a little better. Reading testimonials of others.
30 Aug 2011 02:08 pm (@Twitter)
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