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CodenameSailorEarth
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PathStep 1 Compassion hearts9 Forum posts3 Forum upvotes1 Current upvotes1 Age GroupAdult Last activeJune, 2023 Member sinceMarch 10, 2023
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Driving Anxiety
Anxiety Support / by CodenameSailorEarth
Last post
 May 9th, 2023
...See more The last few months, I've had horrible anxiety behind the wheel, and I am having a hard time pinpointing why. So a little background, I didn't have reliable transportation growing up or into my 20s, so I was close to 30 when I finally got my first license and car. Learning to drive was a bit of a nightmare because everything I needed was either on a highway or on a dangerous back road, so no flat suburbs for me! Just trial by fire. For a few years, I had gotten my anxiety under control, and I started doing longer car trips without thinking about it, but the last six or seven months, I've had to put on a fake smile while breathing through anxiety. It got worse this past March. I was driving my husband to a meeting in South Bend, and a semi-truck jackknifed in front of us, giving me only seconds to move. There was another bad accident right behind me, and we wound up stranded in Michigan. Took me over an hour to get home in whiteout conditions with ice and snow. A few days later, I started having nightmares about it. Lately, people in my area have been driving extra recklessly, especially Gen X and Boomer drivers. It's to the point our local police unit have been posting daily warnings on social media, speed traps in town and they've even been doing public appearances to plead with our elders to cool it on speeding and being reckless, but they just get laughed at. Every day, I almost get hit by older drivers who blast through stop signs and then curse at everyone else. Also making it worse, I just lost a friend to a car crash in January, and my husband's family also suffered a loss this month to a traffic accident. It weighs on me. Also not helping, my husband got himself scheduled on a ton of long trips and we just lost our dog. I feel resentful every time I get behind the wheel now, and then after about 30 minutes, I feel like I have to pull over. My therapist is booked solid until the 24th, so I'm just trying to find some help before my next appointment.
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