Phobias

It's no secret I'm riddled with phobias, some which are so acute but are not classified since they are so uniquely my own. Out of those that are classified, there's my aichmophobia, coulrophobia, and ondontophobia. This weekend's trip to D.C., or rather, the suburb of D.C., where my in-laws reside, brought my amaxaphobia to light.

D.C. and Los Angeles are more similar than people realize. Both are one industry towns. And power is the name of the game. Both are cities that can't shake its parochialism, no matter how hard its desperate attempts. And each suffers from the debilitating, mind numbing traffic snares of the urban-suburban sprawl. True, D.C. has a much better public transportation system, but that's not saying much since LA's is a joke. Again, LA is the only city where the bus riders are unionized. They're the only riders in the country, if not the world, where they filed a lawsuit against the MTA, and won.

We arrived at Dulles where we picked up the rental car we were going to use for the weekend. And that's when my anxieties about driving, now cemented into a full-blown phobia during these two months of being car less, came to light. D.C.'s myriad of freeways was what made my husband realize my fear had taken on a new form. This new phobia's not at the stage where I am debilitated, yet. But I can see how this will turn into a big deal in my life, where I will spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out ways to get to places without having to spend much time in a car, particularly on freeways.

It's not fair to blame my phobia on LA. The euphoria of this new found freedom of being 16 and a driver was short lived for me. I was involved in two car wrecks in high school, both where the recklessness of the other drive caused the crash. The sound of metal on metal, the thundering roar of broken glass are sounds hard to shake from one's memory. Each crash was probably the start of a tiny fissure in the youthful immortality and invincibility you feel when behind the wheel of a car. The brand new Jetta, a high school gift from my parents, sat unused while I attended college in D.C. Unlike some of my peers, the thought of living in Chevy Chase or Crystal City where a car was necessary simply didn't enter my mind. I stayed all three years in Foggy Bottom and happily used the zoned cabs of D.C. My junior year in London was an extension of this life where a car was unnecessary to living since I chose London and the University of London instead of any of the other universities outside London.

Yet, my fears hadn't gotten the best of me. I was the woman, fearless enough to whip down I-95 from New Haven to D.C. for quick weekends when I was working at Yale University Press. And the same woman who drove cross country across the expanse of 3000 miles in her new Acura, feeding the cassette player with the mixed tapes of my college life since all the radio stations east of the Mississippi played the honky tonk country of 20 years ago. How this woman morphed into the woman, having a full blown panic attack in the car as my husband maneuvered the traffic of D.C.'s 495, is hard for me to reconcile.

Yes, I'd grown to detest, on a level unlike anything I'd experience, getting behind the wheel for every minute of my life in Los Angeles. And I'd put a ban on freeways at some point. Yes, driving with me to any destination far enough where freeways were a necessity was always interesting, to say the least. And true, I'd had two other car accidents in LA, both where I was the victim--I was at a red light and an old man decided the red light was not red, and the other was, ironically enough, in a cab on a rain-slicked road--. Perhaps it is this sense of control, or the lack of it when you are driving, that has made this new phobia the most acute. It does not help that people view driving as not a primary act, but secondary, if not tertiary to their phone conversation, paper reading, coffee guzzling, and bites of their sandwich.

The paralysis and chest pounding occurs when I'm in a vehicle on those long stretches of road, cars racing at speeds where stopping in time to avoid a crash is impossible, a split second rewriting your life story in ways never envisioned. See, I'm not afraid of dying. But rather, it's the fear of surviving a life altering crash, where you end up debilitated for the rest of your life that makes my hands clammy, my chest tight, my throat closing up. It is this thought, which makes me shrill as I clutch at the hand rail, pleading with my husband to slow down. And in fairness to my dear husband, he does not drive recklessly, no more than any other driver out there. No, my phobia is such that Mother Theresa could be driving the car at the speed of a horse drawn buggy and I would still be screeching at her to slow down.

This weekend's trip has made me think about the rest of my life, and how this phobia will change the way I live my life. I know cars are a necessary evil to our existence. And perhaps living in Manhattan, the easiest city to avoid driving, is not helping me to overcome this phobia, but is in fact making it more acute. When I lived in LA, each car ride was a chore, but I kept my fears in check enough so that I wasn't debilitated by the thought of getting behind the wheel. How could I since I had to drive every single day, every time I needed to get anywhere? But now, my life is such I can avoid cars for many days on end. Strangely enough, I don't feel the panic when in the cab since I've discovered the one way boulevards that cabs travel to be controlled chaos. Yes, my cab could be blind sided by a drunk driver, barreling his or her car through a red light. But I don't let myself think about that too much when I'm sitting in the back of a cab, watching the cityscape passing in a blur outside my window.

Phobias make for an interesting life where you are constantly monitoring your world, your hyper vigilance all in an effort to keep at bay those things that are at the root of your phobia. It can seem, for those blissfully free of phobias, stifling or claustrophobic--a phobia I do have, but not acutely enough since I have no interest in scuba diving or being a magician's assistant. But a fear of cars is one that may be the most challenging. Many therapists over the years have suggested therapies to address my phobias. And I've had no reason to undergo any of these treatments since most of my other phobias are not constant, not in a way a phobia of a car can become. This new one may be the start of me facing down these irrational fears for good. Or not. I may end up the eccentric person who arrives at any destination via train, if available, or plane, or horse drawn buggy whenever possible.