Driving with anxiety: ‘Putting too much pressure on yourself’.

❇Today I have had my first driving lesson after having a month break.

⚠️I didn’t want to take a month break but my anxiety and depression has been really bad during this month and I’ve needed time off it in order to relax and deal with it.

Driving is very important to me and being able to drive and own my own car is essential for the next stage of my career progression and this is the reason why I was putting so much pressure on myself whilst behind the wheel.
My anxiety what’s at its highest and where I could normally shake off all the little mistakes every driver makes whilst driving and activate what I call my ‘determined head’ and try again… my anxiety wasn’t allowing me to do this and instead I let the little mistakes have a domino like effect and cause the rest of my driving lesson to be a bad one and I was internally beating myself up in my head to the state where I was in tears.

I really am my own worst critic. I put such high expectations of myself that are both impractical and very harsh.

I often forget that I am both human and that my mental health effects my learning capabilities and my coping capabilities and I have to alter everything around me to accommodate to it, it doesn’t stop me from achieving what I want to do, I still have a degree and I have achieved great things in my life but it doesn’t make it easy and I have to adapt techniques and strategies that other people necessarily wouldn’t.

I spent this month giving myself a rest and using gardening, blogging and reading to help me.
I’m still healing and improving everyday but I felt today that I was calmer and more collected and ready to start driving again and I was!! I was so much calmer behind the wheel and I wasn’t putting as much pressure on myself. “I will past my practical soon, my anxiety won’t stop me”.

*Sorry for the waffle.*

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