High General Anxiety and Driving.

[michael56]

Hi Guys,

So I suffer from a history of general anxiety, recently it has been the worst it has ever been in my life.

I recently started driving my own car, I think I'm a good driver but the anxiety has caused immense levels of worry, paranoia and panic that I might have broken the law and will get points/lose my licence. Even for the smallest of errors.

This might seem quite stupid but I'm at a loss on what to do. I can't move past it at all, it's consuming my everyday thoughts alongside the rest of my anxiety.

I keep feeding my anxiety with efforts to find out if I have an offence recorded, I know this is wrong, but my mind is telling me the only way past this is to find out if you have done something wrong and accept it.

I know this sounds pathetic but it's getting way too much. Any advice would be much appreciated, or even humour me, that would be fine too...

[PunkyFish]

Hi Guys,

So I suffer from a history of general anxiety, recently it has been the worst it has ever been in my life.

I recently started driving my own car, I think I'm a good driver but the anxiety has caused immense levels of worry, paranoia and panic that I might have broken the law and will get points/lose my licence. Even for the smallest of errors.

This might seem quite stupid but I'm at a loss on what to do. I can't move past it at all, it's consuming my everyday thoughts alongside the rest of my anxiety.

I keep feeding my anxiety with efforts to find out if I have an offence recorded, I know this is wrong, but my mind is telling me the only way past this is to find out if you have done something wrong and accept it.

I know this sounds pathetic but it's getting way too much. Any advice would be much appreciated, or even humour me, that would be fine too...

Hi :)

When I bought my car a few years ago I was so worried and scared about breaking the law and crashing it I never drove it for months. The car just sat on my drive and I use to end up getting the bus for work. In the winter I would rather stand in the rain and get soaked rather than drive my car because of my worrying. My family would make fun of me and I use to wish so bad that I could just get into my car and drive it. Eventually I did get into my car and now I drive it everywhere. I do however worry a lot about if my driving is good or if it's rubbish but I feel as long as your safe and you're not breaking the speed limit or are driving dangerously then your driving is fine.

You tend to only get points if you speed, run red lights or generally drive dangerously, so as long as your not doing any of these things then you should be fine. Now when my worrying gets bad I just tell myself these thoughts are stupid and instead of trying to convince myself that my driving is fine or that I've not done anything wrong, I just carry on with what ever I'm doing at the time.

[Cherryade]

I had a bit of a blip about my driving in the dark last year. I booked a lesson with a driving instructor for an hour in the dark. It was great - turned out there was nothing wrong with my driving, only my perception of it. Could you do the same?
The instructor told me that she has quite a few clients like me or similar who just want a refresher or a confidence boost etc. So you will not be the first. I just picked a name out of the yellow pages.

[SLA]

Hi Michael,

Take the onus off of yourself. It is the duty of the police to identify when people break the law, and they will let you know when you do! As long as you are driving safely, nothing else matters.

These thoughts you are having are intrusive thoughts, because you realise that you don't want to have them.

These thoughts you are having are just your brain being overly protective, to the point where it is having a detrimental effect on your life.

[georgewing]

Well focus on things you want instead of thinking you break the law etc ,think that you are the prefect driver and you drive very wel

[Carrie8484]

I'm a new-ish driver and I have very little confidence driving. I know exactly what you mean about fearing breaking the law. I am constantly worried that I've been speeding or jumped a red light in error and I look out for the post to see if I have any letters telling me I've got fines/points etc. The biggest disaster was 3 weeks ago when I scraped another car on a car park and they called the police. Now I'm petrified of parking or going to supermarkets . i don't know how people get in and out of those tiny spaces so easily. My car is tiny and I worry about the width of it which is silly bit I'm so scared about scraping another car.
The only advise I can offer is to keep doing small journeys at quiet times. That's what helps me. I've reverted bs k to going shopping when it's really quiet and the roads are less busy X