Old Topic just same Fing narcissism

[Meh]

Thank god. I found on Google maps a small section of the freeway that I can get on via a farm road not a BIG messy intersection... and I think I can find an exit that is also a mellow intersection and not a messy one. I'm going to do it this weekend so I can get over this driving anxiety stuff. Yep. That's what I' doing this weekend.

And as far as city traffic goes I'm not going to worry about it this week. Maybe I will drive to a city north of here.

[Hopalong]

Bravo!

[sKePTiKal]

When I'm unfamiliar with a place, those digital navigation devices seem like a godsend as I have a morbid fear of getting lost. Especially in city traffic, 6 lane highways, etc. I have had them fail or lead me astray. But, I always study a map before my trip. I KNOW the main highway numbers of my route. Which are east-west, north-south. Then I pay attention to signs.

The other thing is that I'm always looking for landmarks, and stashing them in my memory as I drive. Now, the downside of that is that landmarks can change - either get torn down/replaced or remodelled drastically. But that's how I got from O'Hare to Michigan sans map on my seat and not DARING to fiddle with the touchscreen nav (which means I'm a distracted driver and swerving out of my lane).

Practice makes perfect - or a least more confidence.  <wink>

Also, from a pragmatic perspective: keep an eye on things like windshield wipers, tires, oil, bulbs, coolant and exhaust. These are the most common "issues" of maintenance that need addressing. Drive without music and get used to the sounds your car makes. Listen to the tires, the motor, the rattles... so you know what's normal and what's not. Ask around for a reliable and affordable mechanic not associated with the dealer or national franchise - they are often your best bet for any serious repairs.

[Meh]

Thanks Skeptikal. Yes, now I've got lots to learn about the vehicle I guess. Had a mini freak out today because I thought the warning lights for the power steering and electronic engine malfunction had come on. They did pop on while I was at a park. But then I came home got out. Worried. Looked in the manual. Looked to see if the dealerships even had service appointments avail and they did not. Anyhow. I got BACK into the car & drove it around the block and the lights didn't come on so I am going to drive it around the block tomorrow and check again. But what I learned is the service centers don't have same-day appointments and that would be really crap if I had to commute to work and depended on the car for it. These are very boring things I know but this is what is new in my life. 

I managed to get on the freeway today and then right back off again via what are, well, on farm roads so the on-ramps and off-ramps are not intimidating in themselves. It was early-ish today though there was still a decent amount of traffic. Anyhow baby steps I guess.

I feel a bit freaked out driving on the freeway and I don't know how I am going to avoid doing that but I think I want to try to avoid it. It scares me even when the traffic isn't bad. I mean I feel I need to do this to be a normal adult and all.

I keep playing a freeway traffic accident in my head over and over now. 

My drivers license is 100% valid it's just I haven't driven in heavy traffic in decades and being that population in cities seems to be growing but the streets are not growing... the city traffic is so bad.

Oh, so I just looked up a local driving school and they seem to have some kind of classes for adults so maybe I will email them. Thing is now I feel worried that my license would be revoked. I am not a terrible driver. I don't tail-gate people and I notice a lot of people do that. I drive the speed limit. It's just the chaos of everything freaks me out and I'm not sure how to handle it. Deep sigh. Oh well.

[Meh]

It was a bit of a long day today.

In theory a friend of mine from my old workplace is going to come visit me from the city next weekend. I told her I got a car and then she was so excited she wanted to come up and she seems to be thrilled at the prospect of helping me drive but I'm thinking that might not be a good idea as it actually requires someone to be mellow and very CLEAR about what they are saying and not being distracting. I guess I will find out but I only plan on taking her to places like the state parks etc. and small towns so I've figured out how to get everywhere on backroads and avoid weird intersections. I think I had too much coffee today or maybe I'm super anxiety charged right now at almost 11 pm. Not sure. I've kind of given myself a crashcourse on driving in the past few days. I'm okay sort of. Shooooot. TIRED.

Parallel parking is the least of my worries though I tried today and I didn't do a great job. I used to be pretty good at it.

Shit. I guess I should contact a driving school. That would be another purchase. Maybe I will just ask them what they suggest. 

[sKePTiKal]

You're doing all the right things to build your confidence in the vehicle and yourself, Meh. Just give yourself more time on the lesser travelled roads before adding in lots of traffic. It's takes some time & experience to develop the intuition of being able to predict what other drivers are going to do, especially when they're going faster. And the fewer distractions around you, the better!

Yeah, you don't want to practice driving while you're tired or upset or overly nervous. Take it nice & easy, practice regularly - in the rain, too - and remember to pat yourself on the back for taking this big step; important for your future. It takes as long as it takes to feel comfortable enough to expand your driving times & distances.

[lighter]

I think you might be right about coffee making your anxiety worse, Meh.

When I'm heading into anxious situations I put coffee down completely out of self preservation.

If you narrow focus down to those deep sighs and what's going on around you, it might help  limit the looping fearful thoughts.  They sound very upsetting....and distracting too.

Normally coffee, the ritual of it and aroma are comforting.... are touchstones of my day.

Dropping it

[Hopalong]

Hi Mouse, Boat, beyond Meh--

My first real smile of the day was reading this. Seeing you confront your fear and face your anxiety over driving and take these baby steps (baby drives) into freedom makes me happy.

https://www.calm.com/blog/driving-anxiety

When I was younger and had full-blown anxiety disorder with frequent panic attacks, I was living near DC and the traffic was horrendous. And this was in the 70s! I spent time going over an enormous bridge to the coast -- only way I could go from point A to point B. At times, I'd get near-paralysed with fear on the bridge: sweating, trembling, hyperventilating, etc. It really felt awful. But I had to keep going. Ultimately, that's what cured my driving anxiety. I just kept going.

My point is: that's ALL GONE. I got therapy for anxiety, for as long as it took, learned to meditate, paid attention to what my body needed, and in time, it worked. Also am on a low-dose SSRI (Lexapro) which wiped out residual anxiety symptoms nearly overnight. Just to say, the anxiety you feel now is not a permanent condition.

Even if you just drive lovely farm roads in spring with your favorite tunes or a rescue pooch...even if that was all you ever did, it's a new chapter now.

The biggest thing I finally caught on to was that anxiety attacks don't kill you, even though during them you can forget what is true. I read and read and read about them and learned what the body was doing (adrenaline, etc) and how to ease it back.

So glad you got wheels. HAPPY DRIVING! And I hope when you move again it'll be someplace with good public transportation, so when you don't feel up to driving you won't have to.

hugs
Hops

PS - Mega dittoes to Lighter's coffee advice. When my anxiety was crippling, a therapist said to me that with anxiety, caffeine is like pouring gasoline on a fire. Went back to chamomile for a long time. Now I have one strong cuppa tea/day, and it's fine.

[Meh]

Thanks Skeptikal, Lighter, Hops.

[Meh]

I'm tired. I spent 6-7 hours pulling weeds and moving bricks for "fun"... I'm not sure if it's fun but I think weeding and gardening is something I like to do because I don't THINK very much while I'm doing it. No thoughts about my worries/problems/impending multiplicity of dooms.

It's better than staring at the wall or at dirty dishes which are almost always there no matter what.

[sKePTiKal]

Weed and rock therapy are my FAVS, Meh! House painting comes in third place... and I have tons to do.

As for some of the worries... no, they won't revoke your license for signing up for a driving school. BUT - I don't know they won't make your anxiety worse, in the long run. They typically only focus on the physical skills. And some of the instructors can be total jerks... yelling, slamming on their control brakes, and just general berating of the already shaky student.

Last Friday, B sent me out to pick up lunch - by myself. Since I got smaller tires for the jeep, I can't see as well pulling out of our road onto the highway. I can only pull out going east and that's uphill just after a curve below (and the part that's hard to see). When the leaves come out on the trees, I won't be able see clearly traffic coming DOWN the hill (around another curve of course) either. So of course, I imagine myself getting squashed by two lanes of traffic a LOT.

I roll down my window, to LISTEN for cars (not a lot of those silent electric ones out here) and wait - looking 3 times in both directions - before pulling out. And since I drive manual, I have to trust my clutch/accellerator coordination and don't CARE if I spin tires and throw gravel! I've been driving since I was 15, and almost ALL those were stick shift vehicles. I've driven in hurricanes and blizzards; at very high speed; in twisty mountain two lanes... and I rode a motorcylce in various conditions also. There is no rational reason for me to distrust my ability. And even the 90+ year old widow on my road is still driving (and you'd best get out her way!).

So, I pull an Arya Stark. When the picture of what COULD happen pops into my head, I ask myself: what do we say to death? NOT TODAY. I know it's silly, but it does banish the image and anxiety and within a mile or so, the body memory kicks in and I'm totally comfortable again. I've always loved driving, so maybe that's helpful too.

But as I've gotten older, I do worry more. Still, it's mostly about other drivers. All my close calls have been because other people did stupid things I wasn't expecting.

I think you simply need more "time on task", acclimating yourself, and regaining the body memory reflexes you used to have. In tai chi, the teacher always said it took 5000 repetitions before anyone could work on "refining the movement".

And it would be great if Dept of Transportation was able to re-orient how this road accesses the highway, to make it safer... but I called them a month ago about the rain washouts we have to let them know it's getting bad... and nada, to date. So I don't have hope anything will happen on re-orienting. Besides, it makes our road virtually invisible from the highway. And OF COURSE, this section of the highway, the property owners won't let them trim the trees/underbrush to make it easier to SEE futher into the curves... so it's great when B can watch one direction while I watch the other. And he can see motion through the leaves; I can't.

As for those warning lights - there are always a couple that come on, when you initially start the car; then they go out. Only if the lights stay on, do you need to find out what's going on. Places like O'Reilly's or Autozone will often reset the switch for you - because it's mostly an emissions sensor that times out and does NOT affect your ability to drive or hurt the car. Sometimes, those sensors need to be replaced - and I've had places like that do it for me if they're not busy.

[lighter]

I'm pretty sure weeding and placing stones saved my Nervous System from imploding 10  years ago, Meh.

Fight or flight brain didn't want to just sit and meditate. Lord knows I tried. 

Walking meditation, working in the yard and nurturing green things, turned out to be an accidental perfect choice for me.

I hope you're not too sore.  My muscles feel it on the second day after big physical exertion.  Epsom salt baths and anti inflammatories help.

Lighter

[Hopalong]

I just wanna say that I believe you will get a kindly, grandfatherly driving instructor and you only gotta do one thing. Be vulnerable, and tell him "I am pretty anxious."

His old heart will soften (because he's a type who likes helping people) and he'll say something like, "Don't worry, it'll be okay" because it will.

hugs
Hops

PS -- I took the beautiful key bridge all the time. I'm so sad about the accident. And unsurprised that some of the workers on an overnight shift in early March spoke Spanish. Who else do we count on to do the hardest work? Immigrants, that's who.

[Meh]

Neurotically trying to clean some cheapo junk that will never look good anyhow. There is an unfinished made in Vietnam Ikea type table in here that I tried to bleach (roll eyes). It just needs to be painted but will likely be discarded by the landlady.

Spent like an hour+? on the phone talking to some healthcare customer service nonsense again rolling my eyes. I feel like I get NOTHING accomplished ever. The first person I was talking to said something about them not covering some medications if there were a different medication. I just take meds for asthma. But I got really frustrated talking to her and asked to speak to someone else who claimed the prescriptions would be covered in full by the insurance. I don't know. Why do people have to jump through so many pointless hoops. This is very very boring. I have a written paper prescription from a doctor who I'm confused about if he intentionally groped me or unintentionally. I don't really want to contact that office anymore to find out if that doctor is a preferred provider yada yada. So I guess I have to make a new appointment with some other stupid clinic for them to write a prescription for the exact same medication of ASTHMA. Very exiciting stuff.

I feel very stressed, irritable. I went for a walk and it doesn't help, NOT at all, it's fresh air which is something but no all these ideas of whatever just listen to music and go for a walk it doesn't really fing help much. Yeah, I've got nothing to say. I resent having to make another freaking medical appointment for the SAME freaking thing when all they will do is listen to my lungs and say "well they sound clear right now"... and since asthma comes and goes they will give me some kind of prescription perhaps not for the one that actually works and they will have to do some extra stipulation crap or the pharmacy will to push through the stupid med BECAUSE there is no generic version of it and won't be for eight or more more years idk because the pharmaceutical company has to make more money off of it.

Why do so many people have asthma anyhow? Like it's a lot of people.

[Meh]

There is a big big gap in my "resume" and if I lived in the city I would have just called a staffing agency and taken whatever but I'm NOT in the city. I'm mentally cycling through the ways all the crap puzzle pieces feel like they don't go together at all. I only have very complaining and unhappy things to write. I don't care what job I do... I've had 15 jobs none of them careers or anything. That school joke thing I was doing I never finished it because I'm probably low IQ. It was a massive waste of my time. I could have been wasting my time some other way. It didn't help that I had to take a course from a weirdo Islamist about his political agenda that F-er. That was the caca icing on the caca cake. I can't even think about it.

I guess I am going to aimlessly fill out forms OR something.  I'm not sure. I have to just make a plan like NOW NOW NOW. I have to do something. My brain feels like it's dehydrating into a raisin... I'm just tired of worrying but also I just feel like I am wasting my time.

My previous job where I was at for about 5 or so years.. I sat in a beige or taupe? cubicle and talked on the phone, typed some junk. Sometimes read some books on the weekends. That is mostly all I did with my life.

I don't even feel like I have motivation for getting dressed up for work. Maybe I need a haircut but I feel that isn't going to make much difference. I feel old and I have a pretty bad attitude. I've managed to chip about 5 of my teeth from grinding them at night though I mean maybe it doesn't matter what look like I'm not going to apply for a modeling job. Why am I writing this I don't know. Jobs, interviews, what is the term for it I don't know but it all feels fake. I have to pretend I'm not depressed and old.

I barely look in the mirror. The most I do is pat my hair down and stick some cold water on my eyes. I feel like I've been fake my whole life, quietly hanging out trying to look acceptable enough but also being totally fake. But that is what work is.

I will cross that stupid bridge when I come to it I guess. I'm wasting time worrying about everything.

Not looking forward to moving back into the city where everything smells like exhaust, and there is more crime, more people... anyhow all I have is a long list of unhappy complaints. I don't even know what to do with myself tonight.