Anxiety and the Multiplier Effect

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Beginning this past spring, I have become tremendously anxious when driving on highways outside my home base of Minneapolis. Driving the interstates and highways in the metro area does not bother me. But the moment I hit that 70 mile per hour speed limit beyond the beltway, I tense up and get extremely nervous. It is hard for me to drive faster than 60, and impatient drivers behind me swing around to pass me.

In each case, I was driving to one of a number of state parks I frequent to go hiking. A couple times, the anxiety got so intense I wondered if making the trip was worth it, and I love hiking. My stomach would tie up in knots. My legs and arms would feel weak. I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my forearm muscles started to ache. I worried about being so tense that I might cause an accident.

What was I so anxious about? As the other cars sped down the interstate around me, I was quite afraid of getting in an accident and dying. Sometimes, while driving, I actually visualized bloody smash ups. I was also convinced the wheels would roll off my car, and I would get in an accident and die.

I restarted therapy this fall when I was having some medication issues. I told my therapist about the anxious driving, and she was encouraged that at least I wasn't avoiding hiking because of it. After a few sessions, she had a suggestion that proved quite effective. She wondered if I were getting anxious about being anxious. She said I could just let the anxious feeling come up, notice it, and then focus on something else, such as some music I might be playing.

The next time I went hiking, the anxiety started to build just as I got to the 70 mile per hour speed limit. I noticed it. I let it wash through me. Then I focused on John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley's saxophone solos on Miles Davis' album Kind of Blue. I got up to 70 miles per hour and drove with the traffic. On the way back, a similar process occurred. I didn't feel good, but I wasn't bound up with anxiety, either. My forearms didn't get too sore.

Anxiety comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and one size does not fit all. Some sorts of anxiety may be subject to this multiplier effect. We get anxious about being anxious, and we're off and running. I think about this today as I've gone through a couple weeks of sometimes searing anxiety and occasional insomnia. I noticed that I once again was getting anxious about being anxious. 

When will it end? How do I feel now? Is that feeling panic? What am I going to do? These are all questions I pose to myself when anxious, and they make the anxiety worse. I am better off if I distract myself and focus on what is happening right now in my life. Too much thinking about feelings is not a good thing.

Of course, not all kinds of anxiety can be controlled by mere distraction. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and need to use an Ativan to help me through. In the end, though, short circuiting the anxiety can be an effective way to combat it.

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