Over the last couple of days I've had a few conversations that have driven me to share this story. One of the conversations was with a like-minded friend and it was so great to be able to talk to someone who is experiencing life on the same frequency that I am, even though it's hard, and even though most people can't even pick up this frequency on their radios. Another conversation involved someone who doesn't understand my anxiety disorder, doesn't believe my problems are real, and put me down harshly. Lastly, a conversation with a kindly relative was a soft touch on very sore spot.
So, here it is, an in depth explanation of why I do not drive a car and WILL NOT ever drive again.
My fear of driving began when I was about 3 years old. I know that sounds weird, but bear with me. Beginning at the age of 3 I had recurring nightmares that I was driving a car on a winding mountain road and I would plunge off the side of a cliff. I always woke just before impact with the ground below, but even at 3 I knew it would have meant death had it been real. In those dreams I was always an adult driving that car, but there were other recurring nightmares in which I was sitting in the backseat with my baby sister and my mom was driving. I would look to the front seat and see that my mom had disappeared and the car was swerving wildly. In these dreams I had to scramble into the driver's seat and try to gain control of the vehicle to save myself and my sister from certain death. I rarely, if ever, succeeded. At that point in my life I had never been involved in a car accident, nor did I have any understandable reason to be having these dreams or forming these fears, but the fact remains that I did and they have obviously stuck with me in a big way my whole life.
I became convinced at an early age that I had either died in a horrible car accident in a past life, or I was psychic and I had seen how I was going to die in this life. It was the fear that I might be psychic that caused an active dread in me that surrounded the idea of my 16th birthday and the impending doom that was driver's ed. Shortly before I turned 16, my family moved from big city Washington to small town Idaho and I was faced with the reality that kids here in Idaho start driving a couple years younger than I was used to. So, not only was I dreading this rite of passage, I was also suddenly lagging behind my peers, which added another layer of anxiety and a sense of urgency to my terror. I won't bore you with the details of my education, but I got my driver's permit later that year (in the godforsaken dead of winter, no less) and I did absolutely everything in my power to delay getting my actual license. I took my sweet time racking up those hours behind the wheel with my dad as my passenger and after a couple of years I finally decided I needed to bite the bullet and take the driver's test to get my license. By this time I had also been the passenger in a couple of minor, though frightening, car accidents and I was growing less confident by the minute.
This leads me to Bob. Bob is an insufferable asshole of a bitter old man who bathes in the tears of scared driving students and eats kittens at every meal (I may or may not be exaggerating SLIGHTLY). The man is a monster. Needless to say, I did not pass my first drivers test and the shame and humiliation had me crying for days. I didn't get behind the wheel again for at least a year. I went off to university and walked everywhere and hated everything.
Fast forward to June 9, 2007, the day of my younger sister's high school graduation. I was with my then boyfriend, his mom, and her boyfriend on our way back from an out-of-town shopping trip at Costco. I was in the back right seat and behind me were all of the many groceries in bulk and other new items. We were on a two lane stretch of highway, speeding up just enough to get into the left lane, when a truck cut us off without warning. Our driver over-corrected as he tried to avoid a collision, but we collided with another vehicle anyway, which sent our car spinning 180° into oncoming traffic, until the skidding tires met the dirt at the side of the road and the car flipped. All I could hear was the sound of my own screaming as my body was at the mercy of all of that force and all I could think was, "I knew I would die this way".
When everything had stopped there was a moment of such stillness and quiet, and I couldn't believe that I was still able to think and that nothing hurt. I was alive when it didn't seem possible and it was a powerful emotion beyond measure. We soon realized that the passenger in the front seat had been knocked unconscious and there was a horrible moment when we thought she might be dead, but she came to quickly and amazingly none of us were seriously injured. I was openly sobbing and there was no part of my body that wasn't shaking violently as people came running to help us. My mouth was gritty with the dirt I'd inhaled while screaming and I was still clutching my cellphone and my Diet Coke. My window had exploded outward when the car had landed on it's roof and my door had bowed out just as my head had struck it. I could see a large clump of my hair trapped at the top of the door where it had snatched it from my scalp as we came back down. I reached my hand to my head to feel for blood and I felt something sticky and my heart dropped, but when I looked at my fingers there was no blood. I realized that I was sticky all over, especially my hair. It turned out that in the chaos a gallon of maple syrup had struck me on the head and burst. That is what I clung to, the hilariousness of that maple syrup exploding on my head. But I wasn't laughing, I wasn't making any discernibly human sounds whatsoever, because in those first moments I couldn't be anything but an animal who had survived the worst. I didn't make it to my sister's graduation.
This post is reaching novel length as it is, so I'll try to make the rest of this story short. Before the end of that year I got my driver's license at the age of 20 and I was an independent adult for a few proud months with the help of my anxiety medication and a new lease on life. Everything had changed, I had met and married my soulmate and we moved to Missouri, where I continued to drive. Shortly before moving to Missouri, however, I made the decision to go off of my medication because we wanted to have a baby. I was struggling with the returning anxiety and stress of a new (and strange) living situation, but I persevered... until a semi-truck tried to put me in a ditch on a winding back road. The subsequent panic attack and mental breakdown was unlike any I'd experienced before and one that I would do anything to avoid experiencing again.
I haven't driven since November of 2008. I will not drive again. I won't let anyone make me feel bad or stupid or broken because of that fact. I have an anxiety disorder, I have phobias, and I'm ok living my life the way I live it and coping the ways I know how to cope. If you took the time to read this post, I thank you.
