Roar

Having severe anxiety can make every day challenging. Some days I have so much anxiety bubbling away in my stomach I can barely leave the house. But some days I have a bit more energy and feel like I can have a little adventure, albeit to the corner shop! I've recently started driving again, I hadn't driven since I passed my test 3 years ago so I was pretty nervous.
The area I'm living in at the moment isn't very familiar to me either, so it isn't as easy as driving the roads I know well around my hometown. The factors of a new car to get used to, unfamiliar roads and a driver that is as nervous as a bag of frogs (new phrase I heard recently) all adds up to create an anxiety fuelled situation. I headed out for my first drive with a friend, and as expected I stalled a couple of times...but in the middle of a road leaving a junction. It was a horrific experience which left me shaken, with a massive lump in my throat and unable to talk. Thankfully my passenger was happy to get out in the middle of the road and take over in the drivers seat. I got home and had to shut myself down in a dark room for an hour or so to cry it out, it was a terrifying first drive which left me feeling like there was no way I could do it again and it felt like my newly found independence was slipping away already.

Thankfully my second outing came along sooner than I thought it would. This time I was driven to some quiet roads that I could practice on without fear of too many pedestrians watching and very little traffic. It was very nearly another miserable experience as I was continuously stalling. But my lovely mother-in-law-to-be came up with a genius and initially frightening technique. "ROAR!" she screamed at me from the passenger seat, she told me that I can't be afraid of the car, I am its master and I must make it ROAR. It was a brilliant method, and I was ready to sharpie ROAR across my knuckles for my first solo drive!