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Why I Hate Driving.....and how it relates to all my insecurities


Okay, so you can tell I'm not one for making pithy comments.

Honestly, if I could just get by on public transport and the self-propelled power of my own two feet, I would. Driving just causes me too much grief. It exacerbates my (imagined) peptic ulcers. I have, in my hands, a one ton missile travelling at 40 miles per hour that can break open your skull or rupture your spleen if you are unlucky enough to have me run my car into you. I worry about not getting in the way of other road users. I fret about stalling the car on a slope and making people wait. Or worse still, have people drive around me as I stall and re-stall the engine for the nth time. Yes, this has happened. Twice. But for my defence, I haven't driven a manual car since I passed my driving test 9 years ago, so I could be forgiven formaking a mess of it. Thankfully, the Brits are not one for keeping a metal wrench in their car boot for beating the crap out of lousy drivers.

Which is what all this boils down to. I am afraid of failure. I am afraid of letting people down. I am afraid of people thinking I'm shite. I feel like I'm being judged constantly and any mistake I make will have impact on the whole world around me. So, I'm on my toes all the time when I drive. I can't relax. I'm constantly aware I must be ever ready to press the accelerator and lift the clutch but op..opp, not too quickly, or I'll stall the engine and everybody will hate me and curse me and I will never live this shame down!!! Failure is not an option!!

I didn't always used to be like this.

So you may think I'm this high-achieving, neurotic bitch who just has to do better than everybody else and to hell with it if I trample on you to get what I want. I'm not. Okay, I admit I have a streak of the kiasu in me. I really do want to be good at things I care about, especially if I see someone who I deem to be my equal in ability and brains achieve the things I want. I like doing my job really well and sorting other people's problems out. I like people, especially my seniors, telling me what a wonderful, A-class job I've done. I like people thinking of me as the reliable, super-efficient, know-it-all. I like going home from work and thinking 'Yeah, I've kicked ass today." The stumbling block is that I'm too bloody disorganised and too lazy to sort my life out. And if someting's going wrong, I become an emu. Even though I know that burying my head in the sand won't solve my problems, there is still this small part of me that hopes that if I go to sleep and wake up, it'll be the day after tomorrow and that horrible thing I've been dreading has been and gone.

Is there a name for this? I've got a massive ego which thinks the world will collapse if I slip up but equally never have the confidence in my own abilities and strengths. When, I wonder, did I turn into this self-doubting, pessimistic creature? I used to say that I'm glad I'm not a child anymore; I'm glad that I'm no longer a naive, unaware child, vulnerable to whichever persons responsible for my whole spiritual, emotional, and intellectual care; I'm glad that I have the intellectual capability to understand the world, and to take charge of and be responsible for my life. How stupid could I be? God, wouldn't it be nice not to have to think for once? To not always go what if, what if, what if?

I didn't always used to be like this.

I was always, the calm, unexcitable, sensible one in the family. The one who will keep her head on no matter what happens. Oh, yes, nothing fazes that girl. Well, fuck yeah, that's because I didn't have a worry in the world and nothing I did had any consequence whatsoever! Now, I could face poverty in old age if I don't get started in the right pension scheme when I was 21(which is too late now) - oh, dear God, don't get me started on freaking pensions! So not only will I be living on less than what a poxy teenager makes in McDonald's in a week, I didn't make it to the top of my profession because I was too stupid and incompetent and I live on my own because I was too much of an egoistic, self-absorbed neurotic to form any sort of decent relationship with anyone. Welcome to my hell.

What does this have to do with driving, you say? Fuck all, it's just another thing I'm worried about.

Comments

qrswave said…
you gotta chill out, girl!

have some faith in God and in yourself. most of the things you fret about never happen.
Maryam said…
Kere, you're a goooooood driver
gg said…
dear mummer two,

this entry is old and u probably won't read this but i just neeeed to say this;

reading this, I felt like I could've wrote it myself! (not with such good english though). I totally relate to how you feel and I am terrified of driving! Once I had to drive an hour for a course and I came home totally exhausted from all the stress and worrying!
I worry about every single thing and expect too much of myself and others around me. If I wasn't the best at what I do I already judge myself to be a failure. I totally understand how u feel.Sigh.

No amount of reassurance from my loved ones could minimise this, unfortunately.
Kere said…
Dear gg,
Yes it is old and I got around to reading this by accident. It was a slow news day!

Glad I'm not the only one who felt this way. I've calmed down a lot now, but I don't expect the feeling to go completely away.

I guess all you have to do is recognise your fears, think of those fears as normal and try not to beat yourself up over it.

Oh and blogging about it helps too!

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