To set context, below is a timeline of the most significant transport related events that have happened in my life, non-anxiety related:
2004: Started taking driving lessons.
2005: Failed a driving test.
2005: Started commuting about 40 miles most weekdays on the train for University.
2008: Finished university, then worked in the same town I lived in until 2014, so the maximum I needed was a 20 minute bus journey twice daily. Occasionally had to take the train for meetings / conferences.
2014-: Started new job; 50 mile total daily commute. Have to take train sometimes for meetings / conferences.
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| The 09:41 to Anxietyland |
To start with, I will say that I actually enjoy catching the bus. My mum has never driven and consequently she always used to take me on the bus from when I was a baby. Because my parents always lived in the same village when I was growing up (and still do now), we saw the same people whenever I catch the bus and consequently got to know quite a lot of nice (and annoying) people. To this day, whenever I go up to my folks' to stay, I usually end up catching the bus to town just to see some old faces. It's like a comfort blanket in a bizarre way. Some good friends of our family have been made by me or my mum meeting them, initially, on the bus.
Lesson 1: Appreciate these 'comfort blankets,' even if they may seem odd to others...
However, when I turned 17, my dad marched me down to the post office to file my application for a driving licence. Within a couple of months, the summer between my penultimate and last year of sixth form, I was starting to take lessons.
Sadly, the last year of sixth form was probably the best year of my schooling life. I say sadly, because driving lessons, which persisted during most of this period (August 2004 - June 2005) were making my life a living hell. The day before my first lesson I had a panic attack about them, and was in one of those panic-states directly prior to that lesson taking place. I remained in this panic during the lesson and I remember afterwards feeling so emotionally drained I just broke down and cried. Unfortunately, little did I know that I was going to go through this before every single lesson I ever undertook - if not worse. I was even given some tablets (can't even remember what they were) that I took just before each lesson to 'calm me down,' which unsurprisingly made no difference. The whole experience was an absolute nightmare.
So, as you can see from the timeframe above, why did I persist with it for so long? Well, as with so many things, the first reason was because I was determined that I wouldn't let the anxiety beat me, which of course it already had, arguably even before my first lesson. Secondly, I felt real pressure from my dad - he saw the inconvenience it put on my mum not being able to drive and thought it was a key milestone in my development as a human being. So I would have had to encounter his wrath if I gave up (he never really got the anxiety thing - another blog in itself, I feel). But of course, this pressure all added to the anxiety. What didn't help either was that the instructor wasn't a nice man and it wasn't just me who said this. Several others didn't like him, but got through it because, of course, they didn't have a chronic anxiety condition.
Lesson 2: Being open with your parents in fundamental, even if you don't like their reaction. I wouldn't have gone through months of pain if I'd have been!
My free periods in the last year of sixth form were on Thursday mornings, which is when I usually had lessons. I dreaded them. It was only the remainder of Thursday after the lessons that I could temporarily forget about them. So I went through ten months of this, about 38 lessons I think it was, until for some reason I was booked in for a test. I knew that I wasn't anywhere near good enough to pass a test, and even if I was, I knew that my anxiety would be so high that I couldn't function adequately in a test situation anyway. Yet stupidly, with a lack of ability or power to stand up for myself back then, I went through with it. I failed within the first five minutes (I think it was when I put the car into third instead of fifth gear... or it could have been when I accelerated instead of braked... take your pick) which in a way took the pressure off a bit because I knew I had failed anyway. But the whole experience was traumatic.
By which point I'd had enough. I found the courage to say that I wasn't doing this any more. I still don't think my dad truly understood how bad things were for me then or how much pain I was going through. I think now, ten years on, he probably regrets rushing me into it, because since I took that test in June 2005, I have never stepped foot inside the driver's seat of a car again. And frankly, I have no intention to. If people ask why I don't drive, I have a trump excuse, which is 'I work in sustainability so it's good practice not to drive.' Other excuses include 'cost' and 'haven't needed to,' all of which are true to varying degrees. But they aren't the real reasons.
So not being able to drive is another reason why I still catch the local bus from time to time but also why I have been wedded to trains, especially during the periods I set out at the start. The train experience during University was generally fine, as often I commuted with one of my Uni friends who did the same trip and it was only a 20 minute journey. Things went wrong, I complained, but I don't recall me being particularly stressed about it, and overcrowding wasn't much of an issue back in those days (that makes me sound very old).
As I mentioned, when I finished University back in 2008 I did a job that occasionally took me to London, Birmingham or other local stations, but on these odd occasions, nothing went badly wrong from what I remember.
That was, until 2011. I've blogged about this numerous times before, but just to summarise, this trip - one from Cornwall (including four changes) - ended up being the worst experience of my life, led me to have what I call an 'anxiety breakdown' and was probably the biggest turning point in my entire life, anxiety related or otherwise. The whole eight hour journey back was the worst eight hours of my life, worse than the rest of the 17 years of anxiety I've had put together. Frightened, isolated, confused and just scared of what my future would hold.
But as with traumatic events like this, subsequent events where there are similarities can trigger off the same feelings. So, lo and behold, catching the train the next time after this caused a panic attack. I cancelled a trip to see a friend up north, a trip I'd done before, simply because I was petrified of going through the same experience again. It got so bad that even catching my comfort blanket, the local bus, became difficult and then so did leaving the house. It was a downward spiral towards agoraphobia. Everything was falling apart and it all started on a train. It was around this time - summer/autumn 2011 - that I knew action had to be taken, and that's when I contacted Anxiety UK to get help, and 50 therapy sessions later... well, scroll through this website to find out the rest.
Lesson 3: Although this was the worst incident I'd ever experienced, I'd already been living with anxiety for years before. So my advice is to get help as soon as you know that things aren't right. Don't wait for years like I did - otherwise this incident may not have happened at all.
Why was it a train journey that caused this?
Well, the trip itself was to visit a University in Cornwall because back then I was convinced that I was fed up with my job and I felt my anxiety was in check enough that I could go and do a masters degree. In hindsight, the mother of all panic attacks that I had may have been for the best in that respect too, given that in hindsight I knew I couldn't have done a masters back then. Anyway, I think I'd put loads of pressure on myself and combined with environmental factors (such as it being very warm for March but me wearing a winter coat) I just found it difficult to face eight hours of no company, isolation and prying eyes. The panicky feeling started, I then became hyper-sensitive to others around me and so it spiralled out of control. I had no mechanisms back then to stop it.
Lesson 4: Don't put pressure on yourself, or listen to pressure from others, about doing certain things at certain times in your life - like a masters degree!
Whether it would have happened if I'd stayed in Cornwall another night, I don't know. That said, if it hadn't have happened, maybe I wouldn't have ever got the help I really needed for my anxiety condition. Short term pain for long term gain - albeit this pain was brutal.
Anyway, part of my therapy was to catch the train to somewhere for no reason. Rather costly I grant you, but it helped and over time the fear became a bit easier. I still felt nervous before a train journey, but less so each time and by about 2013 I began to apply the tools I'd learnt to travelling situations and they were making a difference. It was about winter 2013/14 when I caught the train to somewhere (don't remember where), and recalling when I had nearly completed the journey that 'I didn't even worry about this.' So it took about two and a half years to recover.
And now I commute daily on the train. What I get now is stress, not anxiety. Overcrowded trains, delays, being overly-obsessed about small things annoying me, noisy people, people booting me out of a reserved seat, the extortionate costs - but these are normal stresses. OK, maybe I'm slightly more stressed about this than your average person, but I never thought this would have been possible to achieve at all a few years ago.
Longer journeys for social or work trips are a bit more challenging still. What if this happens, what if that happens. I do have to apply contingency for these sort of trips, even today. But at least I have the contingencies to apply and can usually get through them with no more than minor discomfort. London is my least favourite, especially where the underground is involved, but I tend these days to stand on the tube with my eyes closed and big headphones on, and try and block everything out. Whilst trying to remain security conscious.
Lesson 5: Prepare for train (or equivalent) journeys by taking anything with you that may help you get through it, such as music, books, newspapers, food, drink, directions... etc.
All in all, me and transport have had a rollercoaster of a relationship. I don't intend on driving anytime soon - I can see this being something I never do. But it doesn't really bother me at the moment. I've had a love-hate-love-hate relationship with trains, but at the moment I'm out on the right side.
But the reality is this: my lowest ever point happened on a train. But it led to my biggest ever achievement in my life - being better at managing my anxiety condition.
Best wishes
Al
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