Hello lovely people,

I was wondering on how yall learned to drive. I have been struggling with it and been getting quite discouraged. It seems all so overwhelming. I also feel pressure since the car I drive was a gift from a family member that I don’t wanna disappoint. Im 20 and I feel like if I don’t learn this I’ll never be able to get any further in life

  • FollyDolly@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Oh god. Driving was the bane of my existence for YEARS. Any attempt to learn was met with panic attacks, hyperventilating and tunnel vison. What I did was develop a desensitization program for myself, based on desensitization programs for animals. Specifically dogs and horses.

    First I would sit behind the wheel. Not turn the key, just sit there. Once that wasn’t scary I would turn the car on. Then the next step was putting the car into diffrent gears. Finally I was able to pull forwards and backwards. I continued working through each step until I was finally able to drive around the block. The key was making sure that each step was throughly completed, as in I felt no fear doing the action.

    If I freaked out I would go back to the previous step and do it again. This took over a month. I practiced parrell parking so many times I could practically do it with my eyes closed. Finally I was able to take my drivers test and I passed it first try!