So… I got my diver’s license as soon as I turned 18. It was a very stressful period of my life, and I hated everything about driving. They promised me freedom, but I got shackled.
Passing the exam as a nightmare (took me 3 attempts) and even during the lessons the professor saw how horribly tense I was. I got sick just by thinking about the car.
Once I passed, my family decided that I’d get over my fears by forcing me to drive, every single day, for weeks, with the whole family in the car, yelling, mocking me…
I had several panic attacks that were dismissed as lack of maturity, and I stopped driving. It’s been years.
But now I’m going to have to get better at this due to circumstances, and I’m scared.
I feel that I can’t focus on all the elements of the road, I have a very hard time calculating distances because I’m very short (edit: 1’50m, if that is relevant) and barely see above the wheel, I have to move the seat so close to the wheel that I fear that if one day the airbag jumps, I’ll suffocate. My blind spots seem infinite.
My car is automatic, so no stick to worry about.
If you have read all I wrote, I’ll greatly appreciate any advice or encouragement. Thank you
I hate driving…I used to think it was because I was afraid of other drivers and how unsafe it feels…but I got a bike and can cycle around fine…I think it is that a car feels harder to control, bulkier and doesn’t let you just simply “stop everything” and take some time to cool down (with the bike, you can just stop by the wayside or the sidewalk and nobody will demand that you get out of the way).
So, maybe my suggestion if you really need to drive is…practice stopping/parking/cooling down out of the way to reassure yourself that all will be fine in a minute if you need to take a break.
PS: if anybody thinks this is bad advice, challenge it, because I’m brainstorming here.