Last time I wrote in this blog I talked about taking up driving again, and how I was facing up to my fears. Well, a few weeks on, I thought you might be interested to know how that is going.
Well, first of all, the driving itself is going well. I am beginning to think about looking for a car of my own, and although I do not yet feel that I could drive without an instructor by my side, I feel that with the right amount of forcing myself to practise, I could get confident enough to at least cope with short, local journeys until I build up to more difficult driving.
Facing up to my fears has been a bit more challenging. I rather naively thought that once I started facing my fears, all of the stress and anxiety would melt away. Unfortunately this has not exactly happened how I thought it would. Put simply, just because you are being brave and facing your fears does not make the fear itself go away. You still feel the fear, but have resolved to continue in spite of it. This is what I have been reminding myself of repeatedly in the last few weeks. I am still afraid of not being a safe enough driver, of being dangerous to myself and other road users by not being able to drive as well as I ought. But I have to keep reminding myself that I was deemed safe enough to drive all that time ago when I passed my test, and I can regain that level of competence with practice.
I am focussed on the goal of the independence that car ownership will bring. I am choosing to look at that rather than at the nerves and stress I currently experience behind the wheel when I am taken by my instructor through busy traffic (particularly if it involves roundabouts!). There's a great couple of verses in Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter 3 verses 13-14, which talks of a man running a race, keeping his eyes fixed on the prize in front of him. This passage is talking about the prize of heaven, but it is a good analogy for what I am trying to say as well.
But the next few weeks will be challenging. Not only do I hope to start my search for my own car, but I will also have the yearly flashbacks and unwanted emotions that have plagued me for a number of years since my abusive relationship ended. Even when I choose not to think about it, I remember the way I was treated, just how horrendous it all was, and I mentally count down another year of his sentence gone, another year less of his incarceration... I find myself dwelling on things that are best forgotten, even when I tell myself that it is all in the past and not part of my life any more.
It is in these moments that I need to remind myself what I have achieved. I have faced the fear and survived; no, more than that, I have overcome. I kept my faith in God and would now consider it to be stronger than when my ex tried to take it from me. I healed physically and mentally, and am now tackling my fear of driving which was a result of the mental health scars I had. I found a loving relationship, married and have a child - something I would never have considered possible. I went back to university, proved to myself that I have a brain and am capable of so many things he made me believe I wasn't.
In fact, I would love to turn the anniversary of his arrest into a celebration of my own freedom, rather than a series of flashbacks looking at what he did in the days leading up to that day. I am thinking of trying to organise some kind of special day with friends, so am going to get planning!
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