Panic Attacks While Driving

Panic attacks are scary enough when they happen anywhere, but it can be especially disconcerting to have panic attacks while driving.

When you’re driving, there’s a certain amount of control you need to maintain for your safety, and the safety of others either in your car or on the road.  And what does a panic attack do?  Right!  Makes you feel like you’re losing control.

If you experience a panic attack when driving, you’ll likely feel sweaty, trembling, racing and scary thoughts, and an overwhelming desire to leave whatever situation you’re in. 

What is important to remember however, is that no matter how out of control you may feel when you have a panic attack while driving, and how certain you feel that insanity lurks just around the corners, is that what you’re experiencing is an illusion you’ve created, nothing more.

There’s no hand that will come from the sky and slap your car off the bridge or highway if you don’t escape.  You won’t lose your mind because you’re further from home than you may like.  Your anxiety won’t even make you lose control.  It will make you FEEL like you’re out of control, but in reality, you’re very much in control of yourself.  The fear is no more than the fear of the symptoms you’re experiencing.  When you cease to place so much importance on what truly are rather unimportant physical sensations, they will start to dissipate of their own accord.

You can always pull over to the shoulder of the road, or into a park lot if you feel you need to get back your composure.  That’s not a failure, it’s a choice you have, another reassure that you’re in control over yourself and your actions.  When you know you have that option, you’ll probably find you need to exercise it far less often than you imagine and knowing you have an “out” can take away quite a bit of your driving anxiety.

What the Driving Fear program can help do is to get you to that point faster and easier.  Having panic attacks while driving isn’t unusual, it isn’t terribly dangerous, but it is a miserable think to go through and more importantly, completely unnecessary!