- Fear of Driving

Fear of Driving

Fear of driving is remarkably common. Many people become so consumed by their fear of driving that they curtail normal activities just to avoid having the use the car. They make excuses to avoid family gatherings, back out of job interviews and social functions, stop taking vacations, and put off necessary errands just to avoid having to drive.

Fear of driving is actually a specific type of phobia. A phobia is an irrational fear that might at one time have been rational, (for example, some people who fear driving may have had a truly bad experience in a car at some point in their lives, like an auto accident or a near miss), but over time stops serving any protective purpose and instead becomes a problem in its own right.

Some phobias have no apparent origin in reality and seem to just come at the person experiencing them out of nowhere. When a phobia gets severe enough, it can develop into a panic disorder.

Panic disorders can be quite crippling and constrictive. Someone in the grip of a panic disorder begins to live in fear of the next attack. It isn’t hard to understand why when you look over the symptoms of the typical panic attack:

• Racing heartbeat
• Tightness or pain in the chest (may feel very much like a heart attack).
• Dizziness or lightheadedness.
• Stomachache and/or nausea.
• Breathing troubles.
• Tingling or numbness in the hands, feet, or face.
• Feelings of unreality or disconnectedness.
• Extreme terror.
• Increasing anxiety between attacks, fear of the attacks themselves.

Often fear of driving is a displaced fear. In other words, something else is frightening for the person experiencing the fear of driving, but the real fear is harder to face. Developing a fear of driving actually protects the phobic person from facing what he or she is really afraid of.

As complicated as this all sounds, fear of driving is not difficult to cure. In fact, a very good self-help program for treating fear of driving is available for download online. The Driving Fear Program teaches a straightforward four-step method of stopping the ear of driving before it even starts. The program costs $67 and includes a number of free bonuses, including 12 months of free 24-hour online support.

Self-help programs can be very effective in treating the fear of driving, but more complex cases can be relieved fairly quickly through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT helps panic attack victims ‘reframe’ their situation so that they don’t set themselves up for repeat attacks. Sometimes medication will be prescribed so that the person in therapy can have some relief from symptoms while the therapy is in progress.

Later, the medication will be gradually discontinued and the phobia and panic attacks should not return. The most common medications prescribed for fear of driving and other phobias belong to a class of drugs called SSRIs (for Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors). SSRI medications keep serotonin, a natural calming substance produced by the human body, circulating in the bloodstream longer than it otherwise might, creating a natural sense of well-being and calm.

The success rate for treatment of phobias, panic disorder, and anxiety disorders, including fear of driving, is very good. Unlike many chronic emotional disorders (such as depression or OCD), phobias and panic disorders can usually be eliminated completely within a short time once treatment has been initiated.