Fear Took Away My Ability to Drive

I was looking forward to the drive. I had just visited friends near Langley, and was about to enjoy some time alone on the drive back to my apartment in Vancouver.

Then my GPS led me to a new exit I was unfamiliar with, towards the Port Mann Bridge. Normally, I drive to Vancouver through North Delta, my hometown.

Confused, I looked around the 10-lane bridge. It was dark and I didn’t know where I was going. Suddenly, my car felt like a sauna, my heart rate rose, and I started to feel dizzy. For the first time, I thought, what if I faint right now?

After this, I kept driving. I drove from Vancouver to my hometown, North Delta, every weekend. The trip didn’t take me over the Port Mann, but it did involve crossing the Alex Fraser Bridge. Each time, the same thought popped up. What if I faint right now? The thought grew louder each time I crossed. Soon enough, even looking at the bridge began to make me afraid.

The Alex Fraser Bridge looms over North Delta. It’s as high as a 50-storey building, with a bridge deck of 930 metres. While it should only take a few minutes to cross, heavy traffic sometimes makes it take an hour.

Soon, I started avoiding the bridge altogether, taking the George Massey tunnel under the Fraser instead. But the avoidance made things worse. The intrusive thought expanded. I became afraid of fainting in the tunnel too. Then, on the highway. Then, anytime I was driving.

Intrusive thoughts can consist of thoughts, images, or impulses that arrive uninvited and are bothersome, says Ingrid Söchting, the director of the UBC Psychology Training Clinic. “They don’t feel like they belong to you, and they typically scare you.”

Most people experience intrusive thoughts — one study estimated they affect 80 to 99 per cent of us.

After a year of therapy, I made it across the Alex Fraser Bridge one time. Then I began avoiding it all over again, and my intrusive thoughts intensified. Finally, a panic attack on the highway made me pull over. The battle had become insufferable. Once, I was a person who could go cliff jumping. Now I’m someone who shakes at the sight of a bridge.

When I was 11, I placed my head down on my pillow and began to pray. “Dear God,” I started. But I was interrupted by a thought that appeared out of thin air. It screamed, Devil! The thought emerged like a voice in my head that I couldn’t control, like someone had made themselves at home in my mind.

The more I tried to quiet it, the louder the thought became. Soon, it happened every night. Then, during the day, any time I had a moment to myself. Not knowing what else to do, I prayed more often.

The next thing I knew, I was having new intrusive thoughts. Scrub your hands again, you’re not clean enough. I washed my hands until the skin was so raw that it bled.

From the age of 11, I thought there must be something wrong with me. At 19, I started therapy, and it was finally confirmed — I was suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

OCD involves recurring intrusive thoughts (“obsessions”) that are followed by mental or physical responses to relieve the discomfort that the thoughts bring (“compulsions”).