I’ve been driving since I was 17 and I’m 57 now. There were periods of as long as 5 years where I didn’t have a car and I didn’t drive but I’m driving now.
Three years ago I went in the psyche ward for feeling suicidal because my mom died, I lost my housing, I had to quit school, I couldn’t work for two months and I was in serious pain most of the time because of my back. All this happened around the same time. My sister told me months later that this would have sunk even a so-called “normal person.” But I am schizophrenic and it might have affected me more than a non-schizophrenic.
But I had just gotten a new car. After getting out of the psyche ward I moved into a board & care. I had just lived independently for twenty years but there I was in a board & care again. Anyways, it was a big board & care with about 20-25 people but I was literally the only person who had a car.
I was living downtown in a major city and it was difficult to drive because not only was downtown traffic a nightmare because there were so many drivers but half of the larger downtown area was one-way streets. I went the wrong way down one way streets more times than I can count before I got used to driving there. It was lucky that I never got in an accident.
But I started feeling like I couldn’t drive anymore. It was a strong feeling and I can’t even remember exactly why I felt that way but the feeling got stronger and stronger. I have been driving so long that if I couldn’t drive again for some reason it would be a big blow. And I felt everyday that I wouldn’t be able to drive.
It caused me to be depressed and anxious and I already had enough crap to deal with and the threat of not being able to drive was really bothering me on top of all my other problems. An example of why it would affect so much is that my job was about 11 miles away. I couldn’t see taking a bus that far because a lot of stretches there was no bus service and it would have affected my back. So this went on for months.
Well, I am still driving. I don’t know what happened but I don’t worry anymore that I won’t be able to drive anymore. In fact I forgot about that feeling for the most part. But I guess the message I am trying to convey is that: You can be so sure of some major, negative, life changing event in your life but you can conquer it. I guess maybe this is an example of not giving up and not giving in. I was so wrong about not driving, but now I drive and it’s fun a lot of the time. In fact, in two seconds, I’m driving over my sisters house for dinner and to celebrate my oldest sisters birthday. I just thought I would leave you with this. Maybe someone else can write about a story of a similar theme.