Drive

Because even a blog post about massive drama is better with a picture of Coriel.

Last week, Brice called me from the parking lot of the Baltimore Zoo. The car was dead, the key was stuck in the ignition, he couldn’t access the trunk (and therefore the battery), and he had the kids with him. He was probably going to need me to bring him the spare key so he could open the trunk and get the car jumpstarted. I told him to keep trying to get the key out of the ignition and I’d call him back in a minute.

Then I hung up and started crying, I mean really crying.

Here’s something you may or may not know about me: I am scared of driving. We’re not talking about the “oh look, there’s a spider! I’m so scared of spiders!” kind of fear, followed by the grabbing of a tissue and squishing the spider dead. We are talking about heart-pounding, palms-sweating, adrenaline-coursing terror.

Here’s something else some of you may not don’t know: I didn’t get my driver’s license until about three years ago. I had plenty of excuses, and in the beginning those excuses were true. But by the time I hit about 20 years old, it was all about the fear. Since I studied marriage and family therapy, I once (geekily) looked up the criteria for a phobia diagnosis in the DSM-IV (it’s pretty much the bible of psychological dysfunction):

1. Marked and persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable, cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation. …
2. Exposure to the phobic stimulus almost invariably provokes an immediate anxiety response. …
3. The person recognizes that the fear is excessive or unreasonable. …
4. The phobic situation(s) is avoided or else is endured with intense anxiety or distress. …
5. The avoidance, anxious anticipation or distress in the feared situation(s) interferes significantly with the person’s normal routine, occupational (or academic) functioning, or social activities or relationships, or there is marked distress about having the phobia. …

Um, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. I blame my imagination. Do you have any idea how many horrible things I can imagine? Things that I realize are unlikely and improbable and not worth worrying over—and yet I worry anyway?

So when Brice called, I should have been more concerned about him and the kids getting home safe, but all I could think about was how terrified I was to drive out to the zoo by myself. The thought was worse than any of the other driving tasks I had accomplished by now. I routinely drive to a number of different places these days without overtly panicking or generally freaking out. I even occasionally drive somewhere new, as long as I have good instructions and don’t have to take the freeway (freeways in Maryland, by the way, are far worse than Utah’s freeways, so I really do have a bit of an excuse there). But driving to the zoo was beyond me.

The reason that you probably don’t know most of this about me, by the way, is because I am incredibly embarrassed about it. Actually, to be more honest, it’s not embarrassment. It’s shame. I can’t help thinking how pathetic it is that I didn’t get my license until whenever and I still don’t drive the freeways. What a wimp!

And yet, in my brief stint as a therapist, I found myself sitting across from a client who was in her early 20s, was terrified of driving, and was ashamed of it. And as I listened to her talk about how much it upset her, I didn’t think she was pathetic. All I felt was sympathy that she would have to struggle with something that, for most people, was so easy and for her was so terrible. And I realized that it was a pretty obvious double standard to be so understanding of her fear and so critical of mine (granted, however, this didn’t materially change how I felt).

So there I was, sitting on the bed, looking up directions on google maps to see if I could get to the zoo without taking any freeways and how long it was going to take me. I cried and prayed that Brice would miraculously not need me because I honestly felt sick to my stomach at just the idea of getting in the car to take that drive.

Eventually he did access the trunk (through amazing feats of contortion and skinniness—he got in through a little space between the seats in the back, and then he used the trunk emergency release), and a nice stranger gave him a jumpstart. We were very blessed, and I was very grateful. So I got to stay home and breathe deeply again. But the sheer fact that I was so useless in that moment is haunting.

I’m much better than I used to be. As I said, I do drive around quite a bit these days, and when I don’t think about what I’m doing too much, I usually do pretty well. But there are reminders, like this one, that I have far to go. (I just hope I don’t have to take the freeway to get there.)