When a person begins to develop symptoms of anxiety while driving, it is difficult for them to feel understood by their surroundings, since most people only think that fear can only develop while driving when they have suffered. a traffic accident.
However, data from several studies reveal a much deeper reality than the possible post-traumatic stress disorder caused by a serious accident.
The problem of anxiety while driving has been designated in Spanish in an inaccurate way as “Amaxophobia”, which etymologically comes from the Latin “amaxo=car”, which could refer to a fear of the vehicle itself, which is It distances itself from the reality of many people who suffer from the problem in different variants. The tendency of psychologists to use names with -phobia could be continued with “Hodophobia” (hodo=road), which would refer to the fear of traveling, “Autophobia”, which would try to mix part of car-mobile, but it would not be correct because the term refers to fear of being alone; or even being more daring, it could reach “Autoautophobia”, but this attempt would end up designating the fear of being alone in a car, so it would not be very coherent either.
Therefore, we prefer to use terms used internationally such as “Driving anxiety” or “Fear of driving” that allow us to be broader in terms of the dimension that the problem reaches, which encompasses circumstances such as social anxiety, panic, agoraphobia, claustrophobia or hypochondria, to name a few.
Causes
Driving, as a complex psychomotor act, tends to be quite revealing of the emotional management difficulties that people have. Being a “live” act that carries a lot of responsibility, it can exacerbate the emotional burden that the person carries when faced with certain stimuli that occur while driving.
To be more precise, and not to develop this introductory article too much, we will stick to three aspects:
– Suffering a panic attack while driving
For many people, some driving circumstances such as speed, driving on highways, tunnels or bridges, can be “triggers” of a sudden level of anxiety that, when experienced while driving, puts the person in a position that may be considered risky.
When feeling the unpleasant experience of very exacerbated anxiety symptoms or even a panic attack, the person tends to interpret that they could have difficulty controlling their vehicle, possibly fainting, suffering a heart attack or a serious health problem, and just escape. of the situation, gives you the opportunity to stop suffering.
Unfortunately, when the person ends up fleeing the situation, the fear tends to get stronger because our brain generates conditioning, considering that what caused that bad experience was the driving circumstances and the only option is to avoid those circumstances so as not to. to take risks. This leads to developing what has been called an “Experiential Avoidance Disorder!”
– Lack of driving skills or experience
Although driving becomes an act that we can fully automate and perform without any effort, we can all remember the first experiences we had when starting driving school. A mixture of sensations between the illusion of being free when driving a motor vehicle and the high responsibility of not harming ourselves or ourselves when doing so. For this reason, it is usually more affordable to obtain a license once you reach the age of majority, because from our point of view “adolescent daring” helps you face fear more easily.
However, of course you can obtain a license at any age, but as we get older, many people develop more fears and this can be observed especially in psychomotor skills such as sports in which there is a risk of falling, for example. example.
If to the difficulty that age could bring us, we add the factors of difficulties when managing emotions, previous unpleasant experiences, aggressive driving models, overly hostile or demanding teachers or low self-esteem, there may be people who end up feeling that driving is not for them because of how bad it makes them feel.
Like all learning, settlement must be progressive and there are better moments than others. But if we fall into “parking the license” once obtained with sweat and tears, we may have been left pending the individual development of driving skills, which every person needs to undertake in order to be truly free with their vehicle.
– Be a victim of an accident
Despite popular beliefs that would indicate that this circumstance is the most “legitimate” to cause fear when driving, the figures do not make it so clear. There is no denying that when someone suffers a serious accident, the next time they travel or drive a vehicle they will be quite agitated.
Fortunately, the development of post-traumatic stress disorder due to traffic accidents barely reaches 5% as a cause, and the majority of people who have experienced an accident can overcome it and regain the ability to drive.
At first it will not be easy to do it again, but just as it is not easy to repeat experiences that have had an unpleasant result for us, emotionally speaking. With patience, effort and understanding of the problem, you can face the problem and by extension learn to solve it.
Symptoms
Physical: Tachycardia, excessive sweating, tremors, respiratory distress, muscle tension, blurred or distorted vision, dizziness, etc.
Cognitive: Anticipation of negative consequences: suffering an accident, causing harm to others, having problems with other drivers or suffering a panic attack while driving again.
Engines: Avoidance of all those circumstances that the person considers dangerous and causing their problem. Searching for company behind the wheel or limiting driving to a “safe” vehicle such as the driving school car.
Treatment
Awareness of the problem: The person must be able to recognize that what is happening to them is an anxiety problem and not anything else. If the person, with therapeutic help, is able to identify what is happening to them, they will be able to handle it.
Relearning driving under new terms: It is not about adding technical knowledge about the act of driving itself, but rather learning strategies that allow us to manage our emotions while driving.
Coping strategies: Mainly, strengthening attention is crucial to allow us to better manage both the physical symptoms of anxiety and anticipatory thoughts of catastrophe.
Exposure to the problem: If the person does not manage to individually and voluntarily confront the contexts that they tend to avoid, the possibility of overcoming the problem remains far from their reach. Of course, always gradually and once the points mentioned above have been reached to do it appropriately.