Driving, and dealing with anxiety

[laddybug3]

I hate driving. When I pull out of the driveway I start shaking, not as bad as in the beginning of when I first started driving. A neibgheor suggested I put a stuff animal in the passenger seat, because when no one is in the car–that is when it is the worst. The stuff animal has helped me greatly, but I am still shaking.

Today when I got home I had an anxiety attack right when I entered the house.

Even when I parked the car to where I was going I could feel my anxiety rising. However, it was a tea spot so I grabbed some chia tea and calmed down. The people who work there knew that something was not right because I was shaking. So they gave me a chocolate cookie on the house. Normally, I don’t take this much caffeine in such a short amount of time. Manly, because I get tired and tend to start falling a sleeping. Then the next day I am crabby. Also I was knitting with the knitting circle. This calmed me down too.

Last year I was diagnose with generalized anxiety, but now I cannot afford a doctor. Also was not driving last year either. What should I do?

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[Anonymous]

I felt similar when I started driving.. now dealing with it again after the accident. I have GAD, but now wondering whether it is ADD instead. you are taking post secondary education, right? many colleges have mental health services for students.

oh here is my favorite GAD resource: http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/infopax.cfm?Info_ID=46

here is one for panic:

http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/infopax.cfm?Info_ID=44

cardinal rule with these workbooks..if you absolutely must fill them out!! that is how they are most effective.

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[laddybug3]

@sugargremlin no, I am taking courses at an Arboretum. Trying to get my nature certification. I doubt that they have the services as I did last year while I was getting my BA.

Thanks again for the websites.

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[Anonymous]

I strongly suspect that I have ADD, but I also have diagnosed OCD, and I went a year without driving because I was so afraid I’d run over someone. I even worried that I might have run over someone and not know it. It was awful, but I was prescribed Anafranil for OCD and was able to get over it and when the meds were withdrawn, have not had recurrance of such a severe OCD occurance. That epidsode occurred, I think, in response to a multi year search for a teaching job, interviews, and then rejections. Still do some “rechecking” sometimes, especially when something else is stressing me. Only recently realized I have ADD, too.

I wish someone would study older people (I’m 68) with ADD–none of us were diagnosed as children because ADD was unknown then. I also am interested in older ADD people who seemed to do fairly well in their daily life earlier, but whose organization fell apart as soon as they retired and could set their own schedules.

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[Anonymous]

I have cronic anxiety, depression and ADH .. i am 60 and my situation, abilitiy to control my behavior is worse in the past few years.

There is a program called Bounce Back .. for depression and anxiety ,, originates in Scotland .. v good start.

Trying to use cognitive .. BT stuff .. slow breathing, avoid telling myself stories, particularly with driving … motorists can be scary.

My wife handles many of the daily details. I can only manage 1 thing at a time, if things go sideways i fall apart .. still work in progress

as i learn how much of my old behavior was/is inappropriate … wellbutrin and seratonin to quiet the monkey mind .. not working yet.

best of luck i find holding my cat is soothing and weaving focuses me on the present moment .. that helps/

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[Anonymous]

I’m 56, not sure if that counts as “older”. I also early retired when I was 49, but have such a busy bug that I couldn’t sit still and had to do something. I volunteered as a treasurer for a not-for-profit group for 2.5 years, and I now have my own business, it’s doing ok but my schedule is all over the place.

I get easily distracted and my sleep is greatly affected. Looking back at my life (and over 25 different jobs), I see how I was unable to stick with anything for very long, I lack discipline and focus. Looking forward, I need to get my act together for my business or it will fall apart too. Just showing up, doing my job, going home at night would be a big start, but that’s very challenging for me.

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[Anonymous]

Yeah, anybody who is 55 or older, I’d call “older,” simply because ADHD had not be “discovered” when we were kids. Still, I was shy as a kid so I’m not sure I’d have been identified then or not. I was really messy–my bedroom, my desk at school, my school papers, etc. And I was very fearful and uncoordinated, too. Once a PE teacher took me out of the line so I could watch the other kids doing the dance step correctly. I was so humiliated that I’ve never really gotten over it. Whenever I remember it, I feel humiliated all over again. I tried learning to knit as a child, but only finally learned when I was 19. Took FOREVER to learn to ride a bike and learning to drive was the hardest thing I think I EVER had to learn. Seems like I’ve had to struggle with things my whole life. The only thing that came easy to me was academics and art. Without those two things, I’d have had NOTHING.

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[Anonymous]

I was quite shy too, my side of the bedroom was quite neat (my sister’s was a mess) but I think that’s because one of us got yelled at for our mess and I was terrified of my dad so I’m sure quite a lot of my fastidiousness came from that. The ADD specialist I saw said that females usually fly under the ADD radar because they are not disruptive or acting out, although there were some notes in my report card that indicated that I was talking a lot, being childish at an inappropriate age, etc (this around grade 5).

I had a lot of problem with the piano, I am somewhat musically gifted so took to it from a very early age (parents and grandparents musical) but I could not get two hands to work in coordination at the piano. Eventually I learned it, don’t know how, but I can’t pay attention to it, I can only DO it. If I stop to think about what I’m doing, it all falls apart.

I never really looked back at any of it until I started to read up about ADD, that and therapy helped me to see things I’d never considered before, the habits, patterns and thoughts that have repeatedly worn a groove and run my life. The meds can’t do everything, I have to work on the behavioural stuff, As my therapist said, until you recognize that you have a problem, he can’t help. It’s been quite a rude awakening at times.

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[billd]

Man I love you people – and the neuro-psy said I don’t connect or form bonds with people. True, but there’s several here I’d make exception for.

If 56 is older, watch out folks, I”m almost there at 54 3/4.

no_dop, I can STRONGLY relate to your last paragraph. WOW…….. right – for anyone reading this forum, the meds can’t do everything. In fact, the same med might help some symptoms in one person, and a combination of different symptoms in another person. No magic pill. Ya gotta be willing to work on it – the meds MAY help, but it’s got to come from you, too. Man that last paragraph really hits it.

MonkeyBarb – well, I see some things in your posts – consider this – I believe, in fact strongly believe, that my ADHD is actually getting WORSE as I get older. Not retired yet – but I find I just don’t accomplish anything at all any more. More and more unfinished projects, less done at work, can’t concentrate at all, let alone just having a problem with it. Worse in the last few years, this year is terrible for me. Depressing, although I don’t have depression, and am generally a fun-loving very up-beat person (doctor says I have charisma, whatever that is? and am a gifted orator…….. oh, great, now I guess I need to buy a teleprompter?)

no_dopamine, I’d really like to meet you in person one day…………….

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[Anonymous]

billd, it would be great to meet, I agree. but you have to bring your kitty cats too.

Can relate to your post about not getting things done, it’s definitely gotten worse for me in the past few years. Today I totally spun my gears trying to do something new, math was involved (my weak area), also learning a simple new skill, just couldn’t wrap my head around it, had to call my husband to come in and help. Eventually we just figured out a way to do it using something that I was already good at doing. Talk about simplifying your life in order to get things done. My skillset has shrunken dramatically as I’ve gotten older and symptoms have gotten worse. But

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I do love what I do, and am glad to be able to do it. It makes getting up and going to work fun every day.

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[Anonymous]

I think one of the reasons that I am less organized now that I’m retired is that I no longer have as many external schedules imposed on me.

I wonder how often people with ADD join the military so that they will be FORCED to be organized?!?!?! Have you heard of those “boot camps” that people facing prison time can sometimes choose instead? I wonder how many of those that choose that option are ADD? I know one person who asked for the boot camp option and I was sure he was ADD when Ihe was a little kid.

Anyway, back to my original topic: I DO think external schedules can force an ADD person to be more organized than they would be otherwise. We have six kids–if I didn’t try hard to be organized, things would have been CHAOS.

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[Curlymoe115]

I didn’t drive from the time I was 17 until I was 22 because of fear. One day my Father in Law had run so many lights and was going down the wrong way that he just pulled over and handed me the keys. I shook all the way home. Gradually I got more confident (some would say over confident) and for the most part I handle driving very well. But I hate traffic. I am always fearful that I will be hit and I hate merging with other cars. Some parts of the month it is much harder to drive because I just know I am going to be in an automobile accident. I went back to work in July so now I have to drive every morning. The traffic is horrendous and there are just so many vehicles. I know the odds of my being in an accident multiply every day because of changes in weather and light conditions. This winter I have decided if I am still working that I will take the bus. Yes, there is less convenience but there is more reassurance that someone else is handling traffic and road conditions and I can just sit back and read my book until we get there. My last two jobs, the first I left at 3 in the morning and left for home at 3 in the afternoon and the other I took the LRT to work downtown. No where near the traffic conditions of rush hour there and back.

As for organization, I have never been terribly organized but I am fast. At work people ask me to do something and I can have it done much faster then they think. But the bigger the desk the more clutter and papers can pile up. But at the end of each day I sort through all the junk and organize it. So you would never know that that very afternoon I couldn’t find my pen under all the paper and had to search 3 or 4 times for it. Even with medication now, my organizational ability doesn’t seem to get any better. But I am able to remember more tasks and complete them. But I also lose track of time and work through lunch or breaks if I am in the middle of something, (or start something else on my to do list). The person that I was sent there to replace is back. So my job is theoretically ended but I am still there. I think she has ADHD because she has no system. What I can do in an hour it can take her all day. She is a nice person but her skill set seems to be lacking. She is very anal in recording everything but this does not make her job easier, it just makes it slower. She has been trying to organize something for the last two weeks that I could get done in an afternoon. I will be helping her with this this week. I thought one of my co-workers was joking or being harsh when she said that what I had done in an hour had taken her a day to do. But, alas, I see she was being generous.

I am 42, I was diagnosed at 6 but other then the knowledge of my condition no other reference was ever made. I have always carried with me every implement to do every job I may encounter. We, women, carry purses. They become our life line. Inside that cluttered space is paper, pen, pencil, calculator, tissues, medication ect. for any thing that may come up. The more I may have to do the bigger my purse gets. Now it is the size of a carry on and weighs as much. But I may have everything but I continually search for it.

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[munchkin]

I am much more scared being a passenger! Go figure! I get this weird panic attack that I’m supposed to be the one driving and I’ve spaced out or something. I’ll be paying attention to something else, and then look up and literally scream because cars are stopping up ahead and I’m unable to brake – being on the passenger side. I need one of those drivers ed cars with the extra brake on the passenger side! or not

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[billd]

It’s more that others should fear ME when I’m on the road – don’t upset me……… (just call me Dr. David Banner or whatever his name was)

I do have problems with heavy traffic and big cities. They confuse me and I get upset with the heavy traffic.

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[Anonymous]

LOL “The more I may have to do the bigger my purse gets. Now it is the size of a carry on and weighs as much.”

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[Author]

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