Driving - panic attacks on motorway

[CooEeeEldridge]

Has anyone overcome driving anxiety before?

for context I’ve been driving since I was 17, now 43. Been driving all over the country since then, would happily drive 4 hours to a meeting and 4 hours back again in the same day. No issues previously, would happily bomb along constructing pub quizzes, work emails (dictating obvs) saw the driving part of a trip as ‘me time’ where I would play music, form my own concert etc.

from nowhere I’ve developed driving anxiety. I say nowhere maybe the past 4 years it’s crept in to the point where in Dec I had to be picked up by police as I couldn’t leave a lay-by and now I’m in an uber paying £100 each way having to dump my car in a little village as I couldn’t get on a dual carriage way.

I already take propranolol but it’s the brain side now that needs fixing.

it could be a post covid thing? The fear is simply not being able to get off / out. It’s like I feel not tethered to the road and all I want to do is stop. Generally ok on single carriage ways but dual (new thing)and motorways I just want to stop.

has anyone overcome this? As I say if you told my friends this had happened they wouldn’t belive you as I was always the one that would drive, super confident etc. I have aging parents that live 2 hours away so need to overcome this.

Have you tried stocking the car with everything you might need in case of an emergency so your brain mitigates anything 'bad' happening?

I would start small and on short journeys. You can overcome this.

Do you know what has triggered them? It would be worth investigating that as well.

Yep, my abandoned car is currently fully stocked, even have snacks / drinks etc.

At first it was when I was forced into an overtaking lane - eg when a motorway splits and you have to move in the middle lane to stay on. Now it seems to have graduated to the feeling of being trapped. It’s almost like a gravitational pull to stop / get off.

That's scary.

Could you listen to some calming music or a reassuring podcast?

I might be wrong OP but maybe get your hormones checked. Sudden and debilitating anxiety, particularly driving related, is VERY common in peri for quite a few people I know.

If it's definitely not that, CBT could probably help you a lot. Avoidance is costing you a lot in every sense, so I hope you're able to get some help to get it back to a manageable level. 💐

Peri you be perimenopausal? Lots of women report driving anxiety as a side-effect.

i’m Peri and found the anxiety was one of my big giveaways - though it hasn’t affected my driving yet, both my mum and sister gave up as a result of it.

Would you consider having a couple of motorway driving lessons? I know you’ve been driving a long time, but they may help with the anxiety.
Learners can now have motorway driving lessons, and it’s very normal for new drivers to have some. Just a thought.

Was also going to say menopause. I think it's common!

Have a initial chat with a local hypnotherapist to see if they can help. It's a thought pattern so it can be reversed (no pun intended).

Also going to say hypnotherapy is what you want here.

I have a lot of sympathy ... motorways are not human scale. A moment's fleeting loss of concentration could lead to carnage. I worked for a head injury service and saw so much misery.
Lorry drivers reading at the wheel, people driving when they are tired, drivers getting distracted, drivers with a loose dog in the car .... it happens so easily.
Every time I am overtaking a lorry I remember these cases. They are real. They happened. I saw the results. I am inches from annihilation.
But it is modern life so we just get on with it.

It will be down to that one incident that made you anxious then it spreads.

For me it started with a panic attack during a public speaking event (been doing them.for 4 years weekly no problem) then it spread to public transport, busy restaurants, shops, the park, literally anywhere.

Basically your brain keeps triggering the fight or flight response. It's very very debilitating and i am sorry you are experiencing this. Put the work in straight away, cbt, gradual exposure, medication if needed... I wish I had. It wasn't to do with the actual public speaking that caused the panic attack, my mind was under stress and so it chose this way to manifest itself to get my attention.

Some people confuse anxiety with panic attacks/panic disorder. They are 2 very different conditions.

Well, that's going to make the OP feel better! And statistically incorrect.

www.rospa.com/road-safety/road-safety-information/roads/motorway-driving

I had this last year - age 43. Got In the car and just cried and had to pull over having a panic attack. I love driving so I think that made me feel worse.
Then everything caused panic attacks. Signed off work for two weeks, spoke to an amazing Dr who started me on HRT, it hadn’t even crossed my mind 👌🏻
I still get mild anxiety here and there. But I don’t think twice before getting in the car now and I happily do long journeys.

I really hope you get to the root of it, I totally understand how you feel.

Perimenopause, as PPs have suggested. Also maybe ask the gp for some propranolol to take before motorway journeys while you figure things out.

HRT- look into this asap. It could be a drop in testosterone

second, hypnosis- my OH has battled driving anxiety for years and hypnotherapy has really helped him.

Yes it happened to me during menopause combined with getting a new car, I was driving along the duel carriage way and I had an overwhelming sensation that the car was unstable and I literally felt the car was going to topple (it’s tall car) I started to sweat and shake, it was a full panic attack, it terrified me and I had to get off the road, fortunately my husband was with me and he took over. I am a lot better now but I can’t drive in wide open spaces, the type of roads duel carriage ways are with masses of fields in full view, it’s very hard to explain that I get a sort of vertigo feeling. To be honest I just avoid motorways and stick to the back roads but I rarely need to use them anyway so it doesn’t affect my life too much.

I have this - it started with a panic attack on a motorway, then spread to dual carriageways, then to all driving. I really relate to the fear of not being able to stop / escape.
As a result I stopped driving on motorways and dual carriageways, and avoided all but local "safe" routes. And avoidance is the worst thing of course, as it just makes it worse!

I would really recommend http://csmdrivetherapy.co.uk - essentially it is CBT specifically focused on driving anxiety. He works with you to understand the source of the anxiety, and what is happening in your brain, and gives you tools to help. Together you make a plan of achievable goals - a plan to retrain your brain! I also went out with a driving instructor for my first dual carriageway drive - for which I was extremely anxious - but then we did it again, and again, and each time I was a bit less anxious. (It helped that I trusted the driving instructor). The key is just practice until it becomes mundane again.

I am a much more confident driver than I was, although I confess I still don't drive on motorways, but I'm sure I could if I kept going with the graduated exposure and practice.

Motorways are indeed statistically safer than other roads - I did not say they were not.

But the reality also is that at higher speeds, lapses of concentration have more serious consequences. As ROSPA says in your link: However, when motorway crashes do occur, they’re often severe due to the high speeds involved.

It's like planes - they are the safest form of transport with fewer accidents per mile travelled but when something does go wrong the consequences are inevitably worse in terms of injuries and deaths.

Motorway driving demands that people are infallible in order to be safe - that they will not get distracted. Which, as I said, is not humanscale.

I fell ill about 15 years ago with what turned out to be MS, and developed severe anxiety and panic attacks. At my worst I couldn't leave the house. I would have a physical fear response at driving, and like you say, it seemed to be linked to not being able to stop. I couldn't even be a passenger on motorways, and couldn't drive single carriageways if it wasn't possible to stop. And I used to love driving - I had a fancy car, and would happily drive 3hrs+ to a meeting, then back again! I don't know if it was the stress of the disease, something hormonal resulting from the high dose steroids, or a symptom of the condition itself. I was only late 20s, so not menopausal for me.

I made myself better by going out in the evening when it was quiet and just forcing myself to drive up and down roads that scared me, even if it had to be at 20mph. I actually became fine with dual carriageways quite quickly, but for some reason once it turned into a motorway it terrified me, even if the road was identical; presumably some visceral reaction to the blue signs! I think I'm the only person in the country who loves the average speed camera, where everybody just trundles happily along at 50mph. But luckily I wasn't far from a motorway with several junctions about 3 miles apart, so I just went there over and over to practise at night, starting with doing one junction and if I felt brave enough carrying on the the next. And whilst I've not rediscovered a love of driving, I cope fine now and haven't had that physical feeling of terror in a very long time.

(Oh - and if you eat or drink sugar, quit. That made by far the most dramatic improvement in my anxiety/panic symptoms of anything I tried, including Valium!)

Thank you all, interesting that so many of you have had similar. My first thought was peri, but I’m definitely not in that and am also going through a final pregnancy attempt which may not be helping. (Im also open to/ resigned to the fact that it may be peri, not totally ruling that out).

you’ve triggered my thinking on hormones though, I stopped taking my pill in 2021 which would be the exact time this started.

mine sounds exactly like @ThatsthelasttimeIplaythetartforyouJerry experience in that I do get the open field thing too.

I’ll report back with what I try.

Yes, I have a huge panic attack and there is no hard shoulder to pull into anymore. I was doing 40mph and struggling to see other than small circles in the centre of each eye, people honking and flashing at me while I just had to make it to the next junction to get off. I know you said proprananol isn't what you are looking for but for me there is no changing the fact it is the only thing that works - I took 40mg and about 20 mins later had calmed enough to finish my journey. Having some in the car helps, also listening to podcasts while driving helps me re-focus from angry men tailgating or other bad driving and threats which can trigger them. As others said I was also beginning peri so it has probably been helped by being on HRT as well. I wouldn't go anywhere without a lot of proprananol these days as just not having it with me is enough to start me feeling anxious!

Happened to me and it was peri, I’m 42

Ok so not driving anxiety but I overcame some post-COVID health anxiety. It came out of nowhere, it felt like, and suddenly everything was horrible. But I’m pretty much over it… except for a slight 😬 feeling when my husband mentions some feeling he has, like a sore throat or a sore ear - I want to take him to the doctor immediately, but I realize

1. that’s not realistic.
2. it doesnt help the root of my anxiety, which is fear of losing him.

So yes. I think it can be overcome.

I have the same with parking in a high rise carpark, absolutely shaking and really struggle with it now. Used to be absolutely fine. I assumed it was a HRT type thing where I have lost my confidence in that area, I am a similar age.

It’s fairly common for women in peri to get anxious about motorway driving. It might not be as simple as going on hrt in your circs but sometimes knowing that there’s a hormonal aspect to it can make it seem less of a deep seated psychological phenomenon and more of just one of those things

I think we underestimate how much hormonal swings effect us (and it’s been downplayed in previous generations because traditionally it was the justification for patriarchy and misogyny) and it’s generally only in peri when the effects are so pronounced that we acknowledge anything at all.

Knowing that you can have very significant emotional experiences, but not have to carry them onwards can be freeing iyswim