Driving Anxiety - Anxiety Experienced While Driving (Episode 018)
Disordered: Anxiety Help
Josh Fletcher and Drew Linsalata
4.9 • 665 Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2023
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
DRIVING ANXIETY!
This week on Disordered, Josh and Drew take a look at a very common concern in the anxiety disorder community - driving anxiety. Many many people that suffer from panic disorder, agoraphobia, OCD, and other anxiety disorders often experience intense anxiety or even full-scale panic attacks when driving or when driving under certain circumstances or conditions.
We'll talk about what driving anxiety is, a slightly more productive and less overwhelming way to frame it as not a special form of anxiety, some of the most common fears associated with driving anxiety, and how to best address this issue. As usual, the episode combines professional experience, clinical knowledge, our own lived experiences, a bit of humor, and plenty of understanding and compassion.
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Disclaimer: Disordered is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to Disordered does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the hosts of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Driving anxiety became the most pronounced presentation of my panic disorder and then my agoraphobia. |
| 0:08.6 | I used to get panic everywhere. I didn't like being away from my safe zone or being somewhere |
| 0:13.5 | I felt that if I lost control, the stakes would be really high. And one of those places is the car. |
| 0:19.6 | It's just one of the places where I would experience |
| 0:22.5 | anxiety. Well, no, because we use cars a lot and therefore don't be surprised if you experience anxiety |
| 0:30.7 | in a car. And then I avoided motorways and highways altogether. Then I started to avoid dual carriageways |
| 0:36.2 | and main roads and a roads. |
| 0:37.6 | If the road was too congested, I couldn't get on it. If the road was too isolated and empty, |
| 0:42.0 | I couldn't get on it. Textbook like avoidance cycle that builds agoraphobia in relation |
| 0:46.9 | to driving because I think exactly the same thing. Welcome to Disordid. Today's episode is on Driving Anxiety. My name is Joshua Fletcher, also known as |
| 1:00.9 | Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist, an author specializing in anxiety disorders. I'm based |
| 1:06.9 | in the UK. And I am Drew Linzalata. I am a graduate student in clinical mental health |
| 1:11.8 | counseling, a therapist in training, an author on anxiety disorders, and I am based in New York |
| 1:16.1 | in the US. A much requested topic today is on the topic of driving anxiety. Drew. Yeah. |
| 1:26.3 | We often get these questions, something that we could personally relate to, |
| 1:30.4 | isn't it? Did you ever struggle with driving anxiety? Oh, driving anxiety was my jam. It was probably |
| 1:36.6 | the most, the thing that restricted my life the most all started with driving anxiety. Really? |
| 1:43.3 | Oh yeah, probably, because it's really hard. |
| 1:45.3 | I mean, I live in New York, but I'm not in the city. |
| 1:47.6 | I'm on Long Island in the suburbs, and so you have to have a car. |
| 1:50.5 | There's no mass transit. |
| 1:51.6 | I can't walk to places here, so it's all about driving. |
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