Reaching out

Above is a roadside sculpture. I passed it today.  No idea how long its been there as I have not been on that road for a very long time, 2006 to be precise. Yet I used to drive that road twice a day to and from work and hated it. In the scheme of things its not a long time that has passed but enough for the road to change completely. Unrecognisable in fact. At first I thought its just that it has been so long I had forgotten what the road was like and there is a part of that. We have gone lots of places recently and some I have been to frequently in the past but are now only vaguely familiar. That in itself is scary. Really scary. I imagine its what someone feels who has been locked away for a stretch or maybe out of the country for a long time. There is something unsettling about about it. It is to be expected though. There are other places which also felt the same not so long ago and now I don't give much of  thought to. Its all part of getting back out there. On this ocassion I went half the journey up North and back. 60 miles round trip is what we did. For me that is a mini milestone. Not comfortable in the least but a step in the right direction.

Anxiety in the car is always one that has always baffled me. In its simplest terms its the same as having a panic attack outside- followed by the need to get home- but its also very different. The difference is what makes it even more illogical than panic on foot. If I walk somewhere the further I go the more my thoughts turn to making it back home and in that respect there is no difference. But to get home is different. On foot my biggest worry is that I physically cannot make. I will be too out of breath and/or weak to make it home. I will also be humiliated if I collapse in an exhausted heap on the floor to be seen by anyone passing. And from all this my biggest fear is the distant sound of sirens and the arrival of blue lights to take me somewhere I do not want to go- which is anywhere which is not home. These things are not a factor in a car.

In a car there is no need to worry about getting home. My wife drives. So not only do I not have the worry of whether my legs will carry me but I don't have others looking at me to worry about. As someone pointed out to me in the past though: why should that worry me? Anyway, I don't have those worries so I struggle with why I panic in a car. I am not going anywhere, the car is. So it makes no sense. And yet the further we went the more my mind filled with images of getting home. Maps and distances. What started as a slow dripping of fear was soon a flood of them and a constant fight with the urge to flee home.

It is though memory I am dealing with. A bad memory. The big panic that turned me agoraphobic was in a car and so being in the car my mind drags that memory back every time. I relive the experience and the further I go the more intense it becomes until I can take no more. Its a habit. A habit I am trying to break. I am not sure though how I am fairing on that front. For all I am getting further afield the actual problem is still there and if anything maybe have have just built up more endurance against it but that is not going to break the habit in the long term. I really need to sort out this in my head and tackle it. As good as it is to get this far from home, 30 miles, I feel the real work in challenging this fear can just as easily be done closer to home once I can find a way to face it properly. Still that is for another day. As I said its just good to get our far from home for now.