Massive relapse

[silver_shoes]

Catkins - thank you for your words of encouragement (and everyone else who has replied, it’s interesting to read other outlooks and I appreciate the input).

I haven’t yet started any of my medications as I’m too much of a wimp! I know I need to.. and I will. So it’s not even Like I can attribute my recent issues to side effects of increased anxiety from the sertraline.

I’ve felt so totally hopeless since Saturday. I feel that there’s no future for me, that I’m going to have to sell my car and try to get around by public transport- which isn’t the greatest out here, to put it mildly. Most places I want/need to get to are not on a bus route. Everything seems impossible and like I will never recover.

[Catkins]

Maybe start taking the medication and see if it helps?

[NoraB]

I thought you said you lived in Manchester, unless it's not within the actual 'city' itself, but perhaps somewhere on the edge of the wider Gtr Mancs conurbation/region, similar to our 'West Midlands', which of course stands for 3 things, firstly the wider geographical English 'region', secondly the metropolitan 'county' whose core cities comprise (west to east) Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry, plus various other metropolitan boroughs in between (Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and Walsall), thirdly the 'conurbation' that spans (from west to east) from the city of Wolverhampton across to the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, with the green belt known as the 'Meriden Gap' (partly) separating the latter from the city of Coventry.

Setting foot in a major city or urban area would most certainly feel alien to me now since the onset of the pandemic.

I live in Greater Manchester and we go to the city itself regularly and it's important for our son's 'life skills' to do this. We also go by train sometimes to familiarise him with public transport etc. However, I can only handle cities in small doses or I get too overwhelmed and overstimulated. I prefer to visit smaller villages & towns in Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Lancashire. For instance - Grassington in Yorkshire. It's a small village but it's beautiful with some eclectic shops and last time we went (a few months ago) and unknown to us the village was set up for the filming of 'All Creatures Great & Small' which was lovely as it's set in the 1940s and I have 'thing' for that era. None of the actors were about (it was a rest day) but it was an interesting experience none the less..

[silver_shoes]

Maybe start taking the medication and see if it helps?

I will. Something always keeps cropping up though and I feel like I can’t start them. For example I want to start them on a day when my husband is going to be fully around just in case anything happens like me fainting or having adverse affects. So it never actually happens, because although he is very supportive, he is busy with work in the weekdays . And then obviously what happened at the weekend happened . and I say ‘okay tomorrow will be the day’ and then it never is!

Pathetic I know!!

[pulisa]

I don't think you should plan when to start the sertraline. I think you should just take it one morning and have done with it. There will never be a "good" time. Best to just bite the bullet and start if that is what you want to do? You could always cut your tablet in half and work your way up to taking a whole tablet?

As to what happened at the weekend..Please don't overthink it? It happened and you are still in one piece. You still have your car and your licence and nobody was physically injured. It doesn't have to be a major catastrophe. You start your CBT very soon and you can talk to your therapist about everything. Please don't think that all is lost? There's been a lot of change in your life recently and you need time to readjust. Don't give yourself added pressure by doing yourself down and thinking that everything has been a disastrous mistake? You moved back for a reason and that reason is still there. You just need a bit of help and understanding from your family along with the CBT/meds combo.

[NoraB]

We got a couple of miles out of town, so still around 5 miles away from home, and I could not continue anymore… I was just a complete wreck in the middle of a huge panic. I can’t even begin to describe the absolute terror that I had overcome me. I’m actually sitting here sweating just thinking about it. It was my nightmare situation. I had to pull over. So I pulled over in a lay-by. This is something I I promised myself I would never do because I always believed it was best to continue and push through the feelings, but I just could not do this yesterday.

You did the right thing by pulling over..

I once had a panic attack while I was driving (in heavy traffic) and I pulled over as soon as I could..

I always say that it's therapy that is the most important thing with anxiety (and it is) but sometimes medication is needed to bring anxiety down to a level where therapy will be effective and I'd say that's the case with you.

I absolutely knew I could not continue to drive any further,

And it would have been unwise of you to do so. I knew how to calm myself down so I was able to start driving again but I can totally understand why things escalated with you and there's absolutely no reason to beat yourself up about it. Paramedics are well used to dealing with panic attacks. They get called out to far more panic attacks than heart attacks! Watching a paramedic programme once, one of the paramedics said that for them to be called out to people who are having some kind of 'heart event' and it 'only' be a panic attack - was a good day for them. That's in the past now. It's gone.

What an absolute failure, 39 years old and having to ask my parents for help for something like this. I explained what was happening and that I really needed help and could they please do anything to help me, my mum went berserk me and said the whole thing was ‘ridiculous’, they had just sat down for their dinner and would not be able to come and help me.

You're absolutely NOT a failure, but that's quite the parenting fail by your mother and I imagine that must have hurt you a lot?

I have got my phone call assessment with the CBT people next week. I hope they can help me but I just feel beyond help at this point. I’m going to have to sell my car and become a complete hermit. I feel desperate.

You're not beyond help by any means. You won't have to sell your car (unless you actually want to) but I don't think that you do?

I understand how desperate you feel right now. I was desperate when I had a breakdown 4 years ago. Actually I was close to being carted off to somewhere secure but that's all past me now. All this crap and unpleasantness is temporary. Try and imagine yourself driving your car, happier than a seagull on a chip, down those country lanes. This was your dream and it still is.

As someone has said, there are options here. Public transport, your husband having refresher lessons? And treat this as the phobia it is, so maybe start by sitting in your car? Next time start the engine and just sit there for a while? Next time, drive up and down your street. This is all about desensitisation - as with any phobia. There are therapists who deal solely with driving phobias...

You're going to be OK..

[pulisa]

I was thinking about the driving phobia therapy option too..and I also think your Mum's response to your obvious distress was extremely poor. Your fear was not "ridiculous". No fear can be categorised as ridiculous. You did what you had to do to keep you both safe. Far better to do that than attempt to drive back when unable to concentrate.

[silver_shoes]

I want to post this update because today (well, yesterday I should imagine by the time most people read this) I had my assessment phone call appointment with the CBT therapist.

I had such high hopes of this being useful for me, and that it might be the start of me feeling like I had a way forward ... but now I feel even more helpless and hopeless about my situation with my driving.

As soon as I answered the phone to him, and he introduced himself, I burst into tears which I couldn’t help. I wasn’t expecting him to start saying, "there, there" or anything.. but he didn’t say anything to me about it at all, and I felt a bit stupid. Maybe it is part of their approach to the patient, or maybe he was just uncaring?!

He start by asking me some standard questions which he said he asks everybody.. and then he invited me to explain the problem. I explained as best as I could about how I have been feeling when I drive on rural roads and because of where I have just moved to the fact that this has having a humongous impact on quite literally everything in my life, from being able to simply go and post a letter in the village, to going to the doctors surgery, or visit my parents several miles away, just the basics in life... And it's breaking me.

when I had finished explaining the problem, and the symptoms I have with the anxiety and panic, he told me that CBT is the most appropriate form of treatment for me, however he said that in cases of driving problems, its success can be limited. Honestly, when he said, that my heart just sank :(

His reasoning, which makes sense when he explained it, is that it is exposure therapy... the person needs to learn that the feelings they are having are not dangerous . The example he gave was say a person is afraid of going to the supermarket because I get panicky there. They need to expose themselves to that situation gradually so that they can feel the symptoms and learn to accept the symptoms and realise that they can come through the other side of it that the panic feeling will not kill them or harm them... because they are afraid of something which is basically imaginary.

The difference, he said, with driving, is that there is a very real danger with being in control of a moving vehicle when having a panic/anxiety attack. So my fear is not as imaginary as the fictitious person above who he used as an example, where nothing is actually going to happen to them when they are simply walking around the supermarket.

He said I have basically have two choices… He said that some people in my situation would just never drive again… Well that is absolutely not an option for me, I WANT so very much to tackle this, and I want my independence back that I had all these years..
or I continue with the CBT but he reiterated that there was a chance it may not work for me, and that chance of it not working for me is higher than for other issues.

Now I was not expecting all hearts and roses and positive words of encouragement, come on you can do this, and all of that mushy stuff... but I just felt like it wasn’t a very positive phone call with him! 🥺 he had an extremely, how do I put it, 'clinical' way of communicating? I have no idea if that is normal for a therapist or not?!

The other issue is that there is a very long wait to start treatment. He said currently I would be looking at a minimum of six months, most likely longer.

I am looking into options for paying for private treatment and have emailed somebody this evening, it will be interesting to see what the prices are like.


One positive thing that has happened today is that my husband has booked in for a course of refresher driving lessons. He starts these next weekend, and I am very nervous about him being behind the wheel but he fully appreciates the need for him to drive at this point.

My car's MOT is due soon as well, I am not taking my car off the road, I will tackle this!! This is what I have to tell myself. I feel quite hopeless at the moment and I just hope that I can do it.

[Catkins]

I have just finished 8 sessions of CBT, and although I struggled with it at the beginning I found a way to make it work for me.

I am also seeing a private counsellor once every two weeks. That costs me £45 per session, it's not cheap, but at the moment I feel that it's really beneficial for me so worth spending the money.

There is on here a free online CBT link, I'm not sure where but that might be worth having a look at.

[pulisa]

I think it was good that he was honest with you in how CBT could have its limitations in terms of treating a driving phobia.

Just as an example of more specialised therapy which is available...

http://www.csmdrivetherapy.co.uk/

I don't know whether something like this would be doable or affordable or even available in your area?