The term ‘paralysed by fear‘ took on a new meaning for me today when I suddenly came into the same situation that used to trigger panic attacks while driving on motorways or highways.
I have been fighting against panic attacks while driving for several years now ( see my original story at www.fear-go.com).
Yesterday, I was driving up to North Wales on the M6 ( for those who don’t know it, a very busy highway in the UK ) now, I hadn’t had a panic attack for several months since I started working with a well known driving fear programme. However, this one came totally out of the blue!
I was driving in the slow lane of the three lane motorway travelling at normal speed feeling totally confident when suddenly I noticed there were roadworks coming up, “Fine I thought, I don’t have motorway claustrophobia issues any more”.
Picture the scene, three lanes of traffic, speed reduced to a safe 50 miles an hour, me in the slow lane, a truck in front and another truck behind, cars to the right of me and a long, long line of taffic cones of my left , soon followed by a metal barrier that seemed to stretch for miles!
This was the nightmare scenario that previously used to trigger panic attacks as a feeling of total claustrophia and of being trapped would rush over me and I would become light headed and was convinced I would faint while driving and cause a horrendous accident.
I’ve worked hard to deal with these issues using hypnotherapy and following a brilliant driving fear program and I really felt I had left it far, far behind me so, where this came from yesterday I just don’t know.
Yesterday, there was no getting out of it, I couldn’t stop and I couldn’t pull over , I just had to keep driving. I could feel myself becoming very light headed and very tense, it rapidly turned into the worst panic attack I had ever experienced, I could feel my hands tightening around the steering wheel, I tried to shake them out and loosen them up but my fingers were turning rigid, almost like a giant cramp beginning to work through me.
I remembered the exercises I had learned on my driving fear programme, keep breathing, deeply and slowly, although people FEEL like they will faint, they never do, you can breathe right through it.
I focussed so hard on breathing, breathe, drive, breathe, drive, I had opened my window to let in some cool area, I can’t imagine what the person in the car beside me must have thought as there I was, turning white,breathing deeply, in and out, the same breathing exercises I had used when dealing with labour pains !
I kept on focussing and breathing until the roadworks cleared and traffic started spreading out and moving again.
I had got through it safely. This was the first time in all my panic attacks that I had not been able to pull over or stop and the best, most amazing thing of the whole experience is that I have now learned that I can deal with it, I can focus and breathe my way through the worst ever panic attack and keep on driving.
Soon after the roadworks cleared, I was able to pull over into a motorway cafe. I was shaking from head to toe, I literally had to peel my fingers off the steering wheel, I got out of the car to stretch my legs not even sure if my shaking legs could hold me up.
Of course they did, and I got over it and I’m still here to tell the tale but it certainly came to mind that this was exactly how it feels to be ‘rigid with fear’ or ‘paralysed with fear’.
The best part of this story and the reason why I write about it, is that after I had taken a break and my heart had stopped racing and my body felt relaxed and normal again , what did I do?
Armed with my new confidence that I could actually breathe my way through and take control of my emotions , I jumped right back on the motorway again to continue my journey, expecting that there would NOT be any more roadworks that would be quite as long !!
How wrong can you be !!
About an hour later I started to see roadwork signs again but instead if panicking, knowing that I could breathe my way through and control my emotions I just laughed and yelled to myself “BRING IT ON”!
Sure enough, the cones were there, the metal barriers were there the trucks and the traffic were there, the EXACT SAME SCENARIO, but, GUESS WHAT??
NOT the same me!
This was the new me that knows how to take steps to deal with the paralysing fear had just experienced.
Somewhere , in my subconscious, all the hypnosis sessions that I had previously taken jumped in and helped me through my ‘crisis’ but , more importantly, the lessons I had learned from the Driving Fear Programme all came into effect in the most spectacular way.
I know there are many people out there who like the ‘old me’ suffer from debilitating fear while driving so please, take the steps to help yourself, it CAN be done, I’m living proof that you can fight your fear, help is out there that WILL see you though the worst of your driving fears!