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Dissociation and Driving

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Ok so I neee serious help. I am 34 and I am terrified of driving and I am terrified of sitting in the same car with my loved ones. Taxi? I don’t care. I can fall asleep in the car.
I used to drive a few years ago. Heard a few scary news. Friend’s husband died in a car accident. A couple of people from our college died in car accidents as well. And I don’t know how but all of a sudden now I can’t even fathom driving again. I feel paralyzed. Now that I am a mother, I am terrified of leaving home. I don’t even want to take a bus. I have these intrusive scary thoughts. What if someone attacks me? Or my child? How would I fight back?
It’s to a point where now I feel like my world is slowly shrinking.
I look out our window and I can see the highway. Even looking at the cars driving... the traffic. It makes me dissociate and makes me feel like I don’t belong to this reality. As though I will never be part of this society.
Is it crazy? That I feel like my life ending right now is a lot more realistic than be driving?
Please share your experiences? Do you have any suggestions? How do I control my dissociation and fear because it truly is stoping me from living life and also stoping me from providing new experiences for my child. I want to change.
 
Hi @WhereIsMyTribe and welcome!

Are you seeing a therapist? It sounds like you've had some experiences that would make driving scary. That happened to me once. My best friend, her husband, and their child were killed in a car accident. It was in the rain, and they were crushed by those steel pipes that are sometimes carried on the back of flatbeds. I do still have some anxiety driving in the rain, but therapy really helped me be able to continue to feel comfortable driving.
 
Now that I am a mother, I am terrified of leaving home. I don’t even want to take a bus. I have these intrusive scary thoughts. What if someone attacks me? Or my child? How would I fight back?
Have you been evaluated for Post partum depression? Odd as it may sound, what you’re describing is a super common variant of it.

As APD & PPD are both hormone driven, you could try to therapy them away for 1,000 years to no effect, but medication to deal with the hormone imbalance + therapy = magic.
 
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