Fear

[stroud]

Hello, This is my first post. I am 55 year old male, happily married with a couple of awesome kids and financially secure. Unfortunately I have suffered from depression and anxiety badly for the last 4 years. My anxiety seems to be getting worse. I am afraid of many things. I am afraid to drive on the highway, am terrified to try and teach my daughter how to drive and an very scared of an upcoming overseas trip. For some reason I am just terrified that something horrible is going to happen to one of my kids and I feel as though I may contribute to this by making a mistake or having a panic attack whilst driving with the family in the car etc. I also used to play lots of sports but am frozen with anxiety these days and really struggle with performing any sporting activities without my anxiety taking over and causing me to freeze. Not sure if anyone can relate to these feelings and or offer any advice? 

[white knight]

Hi, welcome 

I went through this 35 years ago, I'm 70 now. 

What you describe is intrusive and unrealistic thoughts. They are invasive and therapy works well with it. 

So what can you do? Well assess on each occasioning the thoughts are realistic or not. If unrealistic then do activity that distracts you.

The other thing is fear at your age. That originates due to becoming more aware of your mortality  aware of injuries from motor accidents, disease and so on all the thing we didnt worry about in our 20's.

Use search bar and type in the following

• Worry worry worry
• Anxiety- how I eliminated it
• Variety and distraction

Finally chat with your GP, very important 

TonyWK 

[Sam2]

I too have been feeling this way lately, I have Cptsd OCD and depression and no panic disorder just when i thought things coudn't get any worse they have in regards of fear, i normally have anxiety due to the ptsd and OCD but now i have panic attacks when i go driving on the highway fear my wheel will fall off and i die in an acident due to the wheel falling off at 100klms, i feel as though im about to passout due to sever panic its the same when i go to big shopping centres although not as bad as when i am driving. 

[white knight]

Hi Sam, welcome

Humans are programmed to have some fear as a survival mode, the question we all should ask ourselves is our fear in proportion to reality?

When we have thoughts and they are exploded beyond reality we suffer in a number of ways like- over reaction, anxiety which can include panic attacks  rash decisions and upset and many more, place ourselves and others in danger. So these intrusive thoughts are not to be taken lightly. 

There is a number of things you can do as an individual and many of these are very effective like- relaxation of various forms like deep breathing that you can do anywhere in particular while driving, before entering a shopping centre, before sleep. You can also train your mind to ask if a particular thought is realistic for example- if driving along how often have you seen a wheel detach from a vehicle and did it cause people harm if it did? In my 53 years of driving it happened once and that was caused by someone loosening my wheel nuts the night before. So it very rarely happens. These unrealistic thoughts were trained into my way back in 1987 with a therapist and I still do it.

Same with shopping centres. If you live in the city there is far more reason to distrust people and feel unsafe due to the population and recorded violence there. I moved to the country and even on Fridays and Saturday mornings at a shopping centre on the coast 45 minutes away the number of people in shops are about 10% of the number in a city centre. So moving to the country has worked wonders for me plus they are more friendly. However, still its good to realise that the dangers in even city centres is rare. Just take precautions and have a good time there.

Finally. All mental health issues need a multi pronged attack to remedy them, so you can do therapy like I did plus self help as told about but professional help with a visit to your GP is just as important. Having lost most of my anxiety now I'm very relaxed and thankful I committed myself to all methods to get healthy again.

TonyWK