Does anyone else suffer from panic sessions or severe anxiety where you feel you can’t breathe whilst driving alone? It’s been a year since I was hit with depression/anxiety and OCD and now I can’t go out or drive alone. My depression is more or less gone but my anxiety and OCD are quite high. How do I confront this fear of something bad happening to me whilst driving alone because I feel like I can’t breathe and that I’ll die.

hey Saz! maybe nOCD can provide some better resources but it seems like a lot of people suffer from OCD while driving. Is it just that you can’t breathe, or do you suffer other symptoms (for example something that might lead you to be classified more as Hit and Run OCD)? can you name a few triggers or worries that you have when driving?

Have you spoken to a therapist or specialist about this? But yeah what sassy_classy_lassie said too... hit and run OCD is very common and there’s a lot of info out there about it.

Saz, that could be Hit and Run OCD. I definitely don’t know enough about it to tell you a lot of the symptoms, and obviously we can’t diagnose each other, but I would definitely recommend looking it up. There are a couple community blogs online that have people with OCD that sounds a lot like yours. Unfortunately I’ve lost the links, but I believe if you look up Hit and Run OCD (or simply “OCD while driving) some of the things should pop up. Good luck!❤️

Hey! Here's an article from the ADAA on the Fear of Driving, it has some good tips: https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/fear-driving Also, here's a post from Dr. Steven Seay on the difference between Hit-and-Run OCD and other Driving Fears: http://www.steveseay.com/hit-and-run-ocd-vs-other-driving-fears/

Hey sassy_classy_lassie! My symptoms are that as soon as I know I have to drive alone on a long journey, I start panicking. What triggers it is say if I have to do any speed limit over 30 or if a car over takes me at high speed or when those boy racers zoom past me, it makes me very uneasy and then I start to panic. Even being sandwiched between lorries in traffic can set me off due to confined space etc. I haven’t driven alone for a journey over 15 mins, my social life and independence due to this is non existent because I’m too scared to go alone.

Hi Samantha20, I’ve been talking to a therapist for 2 sessions now and they’re every two weeks. It’s CBT therapy and hopefully next week the actual therapy will start