Fear Of Motorways

This post explains my fear of motorways and what I experience, I hope however to learn and explain techniques of overcoming it in the future and eventually take my pass plus.

A fear of driving on the motorway is something that seems to be common within my family, no one likes it and therefore I think it has rubbed off on me. A lot of my family members will try to avoid them as much as possible until the benefits are too good not to. My heart begins to race just thinking about them. The worst thing about them is getting on to them, you pick up speed quickly on the slip road always at a nasty angle to the oncoming traffic and are rapidly approaching a lane full of lorries. You then make a quick decision on whether you can make it into a gap of moving vehicles and drive out into it. Or even worse there isn’t a gap for you and you have to make the quick decision to stop or slow down which is really dodgy as you then would then have to get into the next gap and get up to the speed of the moving traffic without a lorry running you over.

Once on the motorway you spend your time watching endless near misses, stupid drivers and making the balancing act on what service stations to visit. The motorway is full of people who could easily lose their concentration at any moment and all in cars that tires could explode or catch on fire. You spend your time weaving in and out of lanes all in the bid to stay at the same speed all the way home.

Not only am I thinking about this possibility of an accident I am also aware that I am enclosed on a busy road that I am unable to get off of, I feel very panicky and that I can’t breathe. These feelings remain for about half an hour to an hour after which my body crashes once the surge of adrenalin drops. I sometimes open the window to get fresh air and this really reduces my feelings I cant breathe and I am trapped.

I also feel very anxious when I seen signs for service stations, for the one mile approach I am questioning ‘Do I need to toilet?’, ‘If I tell my parents I need to stop will they be annoyed as we have only just stopped a short while ago?’, ‘I better say something now I don’t know how long it is to the next one’, ‘I shouldn’t keep going to the toilet its only my anxiety’ the services exit is now in sight, ‘Right that’s it I am going to go I would rather go than not and regret it’. I am able to go past a service station but this is generally once my adrenalin dropped and my whole body wants to sleep or I have only just been in the last half an hour.