Hi...I am someone who has had a range of anxiety symptoms over last four years...everything ranging from
wondering too much/being nervous what people think of me, to checking my heart rate /worrying about it, to constantly monitoring my thoughts...i have learned through a few books though how to not be overly thinking so much, and be SO on top of what my heart is doing, and I also now know that thoughts are not me, they are not real, and they can never tell about me, so i do not need to fear them.....still working on other minor anxieties, but on e I still have (which was my first one) has to do with:
A traumatic event in which one day I was fine, in the passenger seat w/a friend about almost 6 yrs. ago now, and had always been fine, driving and as passenger....she is a kind of fast/wacky driver, and we were going down a hill in which she was actually pressing on the gas and accelerating fast....I guess it was b/c I was now aware that she was doing this , that I began to get a feeling of "out of controlness" and panic...it was really quite nerveracking for me and scary...and its so weird b/c I'm sure (i know ) in the past before that i had always been fine w/anything like that!
Well, I am currently still working on sitting in a passenger seat and being calm...but I for a while now have been extremely nervous to even THINK of getting into a passenger seat...i know that people are for the most part fine drivers, its just this feeling that still comes over me of myself going out of control (motion from car if I'm not driving) ...I know that it rreallly is just the way i'm perceiving being in the passenger seat, and that everything should be and will be fine...but that of course doesn not HELP me when i begin to be in the seat..(my sister has been great in driving while I try more and more to expose myself in the seat, for I have to be w/someone that is understanding, and frankly it is a bit embarrasing ) I used to even get nervous about wondering if I'd EVER be able to get back in the seat with calmness/ease, and get more and more nervous saying to myself, "I SHOULD be doing what everyone else can seem to do" .
But I know that is only putting myself in a category that has no real meaning in itself, and I know now that nothing is "wrong" with being very nervous about something, but still I would really like at thi spoint to be able to do it ....like i said, i know exposure does help...i've been doing it here and there every week, and say mantras to myself, like "turn off the control switch! " (in my head) or just have some fun now....but the small twinge of panic sometimes seeps up again....arrghhh:(
Does anyone have any tips/or have ever experienced this before?/??? It would be in a sense relieving to see if anyone else has done this before....Thanks so much for reading....