Do you hate red lights? Can't stand the feeling of cars backed up behind you? Do you dread traffic jams? Are you afraid others are judging you when you drive? Do you hate city driving but love going on road trips? It's easy to assume it's all due to driving phobia. But if you answered "yes" to more than one of these questions, it's possible the cause is actually social anxiety.Use the lists below to find out if it's really driving that's getting under your skin. You may be surprised to learn it's not driving, it's your fellow drivers.
Being afraid of something (even something irrational) is not in and of itself a phobia. A phobia is formed when we anticipate danger and begin to avoid places and situations we associate with that danger. So a phobia is irrational fear PLUS habitual avoidance.The 2 Main Ways Phobias Develop.Phobias tend to either develop gradually with no definable cause, or suddenly as a response to a traumatic event.In the case of driving phobia, some sufferers report their fear came on gradually, steadily becoming worse over time. This type of phobia usually has no apparent cause and is often a simple misfire between the brain and the feelings / nervous system. Driving somehow becomes associated with danger, even though nothing dangerous actually happened.Some people develop driving phobia as a direct response to trauma; things like car accidents, bodily injury, injury to other drivers, property damage etc. It's more obvious why the person associates driving with danger in these cases.
You hate city driving but love road trips: The sense of freedom driving down the open highway beats constricted city driving any day.Does this automatically mean you have driving phobia? Not necessarily There's an alternate explanation that suggests social anxiety, not driving phobia, is the culprit. Check out the same list, this time filtered through the lens of social anxiety.Why Social Anxiety May be a More Accurate, Effective Assessment and Lead to Better Treatment Options
I live in the present moment and I'm confident of the future. All anxiety disorders, including fear of driving, are about what "might happen" in the future. The reality is, whatever you're afraid of ISN'T happening right now. In this moment, right now, you're OK. What you're really afraid of is that you won't be OK in the near future. Take your focus off the future and put it back in the present where it belongs. The future is just the present that hasn't happened yet, and it's going to be fine.I face difficult situations with courage and conviction. I always find a way out of such situations. There's no doubt that facing driving anxiety requires a great deal of courage. Something else that's not in doubt is that you've faced difficult situations before and gotten through them. There's lots of evidence in your life that you've somehow found your way through hard things. I mean, you've gotten this far, right? You'll work through your fear of driving too.Today, I'm willing to fail in order to succeed. This may sound strange, but failure is not something to be feared, but accepted as an inevitable part of learning new behavior. You can pretty much count on it. You're going to have to get comfortable with (or at least tolerate) failure in order to eventually succeed. You simply cannot learn to do something new and difficult without doing it wrong sometimes. Just remember that the only real failure is choosing to do nothing.
Those experienced treating and living with other phobias may find that learning meditation or using self-help resources is enough to successfully treat driving phobia. Keep in mind that self-help alone is often not enough for many people, especially if you're inexperienced.Treating Phobias Focuses More on Solutions Than Causes.Whatever caused your driving phobia, treating it successfully means learning new here-and-now skills. It will probably not be necessary to spend much time re-hashing the past.Modern anxiety treatment methods are about retraining your brain, nervous system, and emotions to judge and respond more appropriately to actual dangers instead of perceived ones.
Driving anxiety is an example of a specific anxiety disorder. A specific anxiety disorder is one in which an individual may not feel anxious in general, such as generalized anxiety disorder, but will become anxious and panic in specific situations. Many times, people with a specific anxiety disorder will feel anxious effects when socializing with others, but this does not hold true for all cases. In other situations, such as driving your car, people are still able to experience severe anxiety based on their surroundings.
For someone who suffers from driving anxiety, driving their automobile can be one of the worst regular occurring experiences in their lives. Traffic can be too congested, others may be driving too erratic, or it could be too dark out; whatever the reason is for your driving anxiety, it is nothing to take lightly.Driving anxiety should be addressed the moment it is discovered. People who become anxious while driving will often experience an increased heart beat, sweaty palms, and difficulty breathing. These symptoms will force your mind to think even more irrationally than it was before, forcing you into a state of panic, and possibly, a state of unconsciousness. What will happen to someone who loses unconsciousness behind the wheel on an expressway? This is why driving anxiety tends to be one of the most feared forms of panic and anxiety people can experience.
One technique which can help to overcome this problem is to go through a driving training course. Often the fear comes because you do not have enough confidence in your driving skills or because you have experienced a minor accident or even a moving violation. In circumstances like this a driving course will be of great help. The course will assist you develop your skills which will raise your confidence in your abilities behind the wheel. When you feel better regarding your capability in driving, you should be in a position to do it with no fear.
A very effective way of approaching driving anxiety is to examine your mindset going into your "trigger" situations. A trigger situation may be a certain street, bridge, highway, etc. where you tend to feel most anxious. Going into these trigger situations, anxious and panicked drivers often convince themselves they will have a panic attack.These types of thoughts tend to defeat any attempted efforts being made to help yourself with driving anxiety. Someone who has a strong desire to be able to drive comfortably will never achieve that state of mind when they are preparing to panic in certain situations.
Self-Help. Many, MANY resources are available. Evaluate your options carefully here, and proceed with caution. If you're brand-new to this world, you may want to start with professional therapy. It takes familiarity with effective treatment to accurately evaluate the quality of self-help resources. Not all are created equal, and not all have your best interests in mind.Medication. Sometimes anxiety is so intense it must be chemically reduced before other options can be explored. Medication is not an effective long-term strategy for driving phobia. It should be combined with other methods for more successful recovery. Always seek medical advice from a qualified professional like a doctor or psychiatrist. NEVER buy anti-anxiety medication from potentially dangerous sources like so-called "generic drug" websites.You don't have to live like this. And you don't have to continue avoiding freeways either. Your condition is highly treatable - it's just a matter of finding the options that work best for you.Next time your heart starts pounding as you approach an onramp, make a vow to get help for this crippling problem. When the day comes where you're driving easily down a freeway, WITHOUT fear, you'll be really glad you did.
Being afraid of something (even something irrational) is not in and of itself a phobia. A phobia is formed when we anticipate danger and begin to avoid places and situations we associate with that danger. So a phobia is irrational fear PLUS habitual avoidance.The 2 Main Ways Phobias Develop.Phobias tend to either develop gradually with no definable cause, or suddenly as a response to a traumatic event.In the case of driving phobia, some sufferers report their fear came on gradually, steadily becoming worse over time. This type of phobia usually has no apparent cause and is often a simple misfire between the brain and the feelings / nervous system. Driving somehow becomes associated with danger, even though nothing dangerous actually happened.Some people develop driving phobia as a direct response to trauma; things like car accidents, bodily injury, injury to other drivers, property damage etc. It's more obvious why the person associates driving with danger in these cases.
You hate city driving but love road trips: The sense of freedom driving down the open highway beats constricted city driving any day.Does this automatically mean you have driving phobia? Not necessarily There's an alternate explanation that suggests social anxiety, not driving phobia, is the culprit. Check out the same list, this time filtered through the lens of social anxiety.Why Social Anxiety May be a More Accurate, Effective Assessment and Lead to Better Treatment Options
I live in the present moment and I'm confident of the future. All anxiety disorders, including fear of driving, are about what "might happen" in the future. The reality is, whatever you're afraid of ISN'T happening right now. In this moment, right now, you're OK. What you're really afraid of is that you won't be OK in the near future. Take your focus off the future and put it back in the present where it belongs. The future is just the present that hasn't happened yet, and it's going to be fine.I face difficult situations with courage and conviction. I always find a way out of such situations. There's no doubt that facing driving anxiety requires a great deal of courage. Something else that's not in doubt is that you've faced difficult situations before and gotten through them. There's lots of evidence in your life that you've somehow found your way through hard things. I mean, you've gotten this far, right? You'll work through your fear of driving too.Today, I'm willing to fail in order to succeed. This may sound strange, but failure is not something to be feared, but accepted as an inevitable part of learning new behavior. You can pretty much count on it. You're going to have to get comfortable with (or at least tolerate) failure in order to eventually succeed. You simply cannot learn to do something new and difficult without doing it wrong sometimes. Just remember that the only real failure is choosing to do nothing.
Those experienced treating and living with other phobias may find that learning meditation or using self-help resources is enough to successfully treat driving phobia. Keep in mind that self-help alone is often not enough for many people, especially if you're inexperienced.Treating Phobias Focuses More on Solutions Than Causes.Whatever caused your driving phobia, treating it successfully means learning new here-and-now skills. It will probably not be necessary to spend much time re-hashing the past.Modern anxiety treatment methods are about retraining your brain, nervous system, and emotions to judge and respond more appropriately to actual dangers instead of perceived ones.
Driving anxiety is an example of a specific anxiety disorder. A specific anxiety disorder is one in which an individual may not feel anxious in general, such as generalized anxiety disorder, but will become anxious and panic in specific situations. Many times, people with a specific anxiety disorder will feel anxious effects when socializing with others, but this does not hold true for all cases. In other situations, such as driving your car, people are still able to experience severe anxiety based on their surroundings.
For someone who suffers from driving anxiety, driving their automobile can be one of the worst regular occurring experiences in their lives. Traffic can be too congested, others may be driving too erratic, or it could be too dark out; whatever the reason is for your driving anxiety, it is nothing to take lightly.Driving anxiety should be addressed the moment it is discovered. People who become anxious while driving will often experience an increased heart beat, sweaty palms, and difficulty breathing. These symptoms will force your mind to think even more irrationally than it was before, forcing you into a state of panic, and possibly, a state of unconsciousness. What will happen to someone who loses unconsciousness behind the wheel on an expressway? This is why driving anxiety tends to be one of the most feared forms of panic and anxiety people can experience.
One technique which can help to overcome this problem is to go through a driving training course. Often the fear comes because you do not have enough confidence in your driving skills or because you have experienced a minor accident or even a moving violation. In circumstances like this a driving course will be of great help. The course will assist you develop your skills which will raise your confidence in your abilities behind the wheel. When you feel better regarding your capability in driving, you should be in a position to do it with no fear.
A very effective way of approaching driving anxiety is to examine your mindset going into your "trigger" situations. A trigger situation may be a certain street, bridge, highway, etc. where you tend to feel most anxious. Going into these trigger situations, anxious and panicked drivers often convince themselves they will have a panic attack.These types of thoughts tend to defeat any attempted efforts being made to help yourself with driving anxiety. Someone who has a strong desire to be able to drive comfortably will never achieve that state of mind when they are preparing to panic in certain situations.
Self-Help. Many, MANY resources are available. Evaluate your options carefully here, and proceed with caution. If you're brand-new to this world, you may want to start with professional therapy. It takes familiarity with effective treatment to accurately evaluate the quality of self-help resources. Not all are created equal, and not all have your best interests in mind.Medication. Sometimes anxiety is so intense it must be chemically reduced before other options can be explored. Medication is not an effective long-term strategy for driving phobia. It should be combined with other methods for more successful recovery. Always seek medical advice from a qualified professional like a doctor or psychiatrist. NEVER buy anti-anxiety medication from potentially dangerous sources like so-called "generic drug" websites.You don't have to live like this. And you don't have to continue avoiding freeways either. Your condition is highly treatable - it's just a matter of finding the options that work best for you.Next time your heart starts pounding as you approach an onramp, make a vow to get help for this crippling problem. When the day comes where you're driving easily down a freeway, WITHOUT fear, you'll be really glad you did.
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