I Drove Myself
I started driving pretty early, basically when I could see over the steering wheel and my feet could reach the pedals. My mom let me drive often. I’m not entirely sure of its because of her circumstance, (I’ll get in to that later), or maybe she just got tired of driving us all the time. Either way I was excited as hell to be driving and by the time I was old enough to get my permit I passed like it was nothing. Same way when I turned sixteen.
I didn’t get a car when I was sixteen. I was in my rocker phase back then and all I could dream of a 1990 Camaro Iroc Z, matte black, T-tops of course. Ahhhhh I wanted one so bad. Unfortunately I never got one. I like most of my friends got to drive my mother’s care when she agreed to let me take it. Every time I slid behind the wheel of my that baby blue Chevy Corsica my imagination ran wild. I was instantly in my dream car, living my best life.
It was never an easytask getting her to agree to let me take the car. It used to make me so mad. I never really understood why. Now being a mother with children of my own, I completely understand. I can sum it up for you in one little word…
FEAR
Yep fear. Fear is a peculiar thing. It latches on to you like a leech and you may not even notice it for years. Then one day, an incident brings it full force into the light. I will never forget when fear reared its ugliness in my life.
I was 17 years old and had taken my son to visit his father. While there his sister and I got into some argument, I can even remember what about now, but my sons father grabbed me through the window of the car and choked me. Granted this wasn’t really our first “physical” encounter but I had never been choked before.
I immediately left and on the way home I had my first full blow panic attack. I felt like I was choking, I couldn’t breath, I felt as though the world and I were disconnected in the strangest way I had never felt before. I really believed I was going to die. It scared me so bad I had to pull over and then finally I made it home. I kept reminding myself that my son was with me and he needed me to get home.
That moment I experienced spurred years of anxiety and panic for me. I began remembering things from my childhood, terrible things. Some days it took all I had to function. Up to this point I was a fearless, try anything once, live on the edge kinda of kid and suddenly I felt paralyzed from the. inside out.
My mother decided when I started making excuses about not wanting to drive anymore alone and the fact that I couldn’t and didn’t want to be alone ever, that maybe something was happening to me. SO she did what any good parent does, she took me to the doctor and it was decided that I should be on medication for anxiety. I had never really taken medicine before and now I depended on it to help me. Fear. Fear of being without it , missing a dose, experiencing that feeling again. Fear created dependency.
That fear bled into every area of my life. For 22 years I have been at the mercy of a debilitating and irrational fear. I have gotten by somehow and mostly hid the fears for shame. I stopped driving alone when I was 19. I t worked out because my Ex didn’t want me to go anywhere so I didn’t have a car, which made it easy for me to feed my fear of driving.
Turning forty has changed my life in a lot of ways, let me rephrase, its changed me. There is so much I am choosing to leave out of this story, I will fill you in some other time, but the point is this. I woke up this week feeling different than I have before. I woke up feeling free. I had to pick my nephew up from school one afternoon this week. So I did. Alone. I also had to teach a yoga and wanted to grab a coffee before class. SO I left and drove myself, alone. It felt so fucking good. I have never felt so free. Now I might not be able to drive myself everyday but I will sure as hell take what I can get. I know I am healing every single day.
I am unmedicated. I am safe. I am making progress. I am me.
