Roads Less Travelled

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As a kid, I had a recurring nightmare where I would die in a car accident. I would jolt awake, gasping for air on impact. 

After a dazed moment of panic-induced confusion, I would feel signs of life course through my body, along with the realization that I was safe in bed, albeit awash in sweat and tears. As someone who grew up Christian, this felt like a sign — prophetic fate even. “Do not get behind a wheel, or you will die,” my mind subconsciously told me.

At 26 years old, I can’t drive on my own. I don’t have my full license. When it comes up in conversation, I feel shame and embarrassment.

Many people assume my not driving is a form of complacency, laziness even. But it stems deeper than that — not only for me but for the many people who experience driving anxiety. Though it is not well-researched within Canada yet, a study by The Zebra in the U.S. revealed 66 per cent of 1,500 surveyed adults have driving anxiety.

Driving anxiety is an intense fear of driving or being in a vehicle. Severity and factors differ from person to person, as with other forms of anxiety. For me, driving anxiety manifests itself in the form of a paralyzing fear of being behind the wheel.

When I look back on my childhood, this fear makes sense.

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I was raised by a single mother who owned a busy cleaning company. We lived in the Interlake region, roughly an hour north of Winnipeg. She commuted regularly to the city to work her commercial cleaning jobs. It wasn’t financially feasible to leave me at home with a sitter multiple times during the week, so I would join her after school and on weekends. I know she felt guilty she didn’t have time to give me a lot of one-on-one attention. I think bringing me along was her way of trying to give me that.

I was good at entertaining myself in the car. Throughout the years, I would bring whatever books and electronic devices I had. When that got boring, I’d use my imagination. When I was around eight or nine years old, I would spend hours pretending my fingers were characters and dressing them up in capes and hats made of tissue paper, or I’d listen to my mom’s classic rock like The Tragically Hip and Red Hot Chili Peppers and imagine music videos to go along with each song.

I like to think these little shows planted the seeds for the stories and music videos I’d make years down the road.

Even though I knew how to entertain myself, the hours were difficult. It would take an hour and a half for us to drive to Winnipeg, but the main bulk of the time was when I would wait in the parking lot for her to finish one of her jobs. Most days, I would spend over eight hours in the car. I can still recall the motion sickness I experienced from my mom’s erratic starting and stopping, the ache in my backside from sitting for too long, and the nauseating smell of fast food mixing with the smell of the sun-baked city pavement. I came to resent these trips, wishing I could have just stayed home instead.

I know my mom did her best to make things fun for me. Sometimes before a job, she’d take me to Coles and buy me books to get me through the hours. As I got older, she’d drop me off at the mall with $100 in my pocket, pick me up after she was done, and we’d grab dinner. She’d opt for my choice of Olive Garden over her preferred Red Lobster. When I recall moments like that, they almost seem like fond memories.

But then I remember our fights in the car.

She endured a lot of stress, and it made her quick to anger. The immense strain of running a business and being a single mother got to her, and she took it out on me. Driving in the city seemed to add to it. 

I recall my mom screaming about what an ungrateful child I was during these fights, sometimes threatening to drive us both into oncoming traffic.

She would regularly end up in accidents. I can call to mind several vehicles she bought second-hand that either got wrecked, stolen, or sold.

During one icy trek to Winnipeg, our car slipped on the sleet-slick road, causing us to flip multiple times into the ditch. As far as accidents go, this one must have been less severe than most. I don’t remember the car being smashed or having to pull myself out of the vehicle. The only thing I remember is the child-like adrenaline I felt, like I had just gotten off a rollercoaster ride, and I said, “Let’s do that again!”

This made my mom laugh in a state of shock and confusion. Being so young, I didn’t recognize the seriousness of the accident, or if I did, maybe I tried to lighten the mood. If I couldn’t control what situations I was put in, I could at least control how I reacted.

I also remember pitch black nights on Highway 9 where I would watch to make sure she didn’t fall asleep at the wheel, despite barely being able to stay awake myself. The snowflakes hitting the windshield reminded me of stars streaking across the endless expanse of night, but instead of travelling through a spaceship at lightspeed, we were just trying to make it home.

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I swore to myself I would get my driver’s license as soon as I turned 15. I didn’t want to be reliant on my mother to go to my friend’s house or to buy a new outfit for school.

But then 15 passed, then 16, then 17…

I felt frozen.

The idea of driving terrified me. All the negative feelings I associated with my mom’s driving accumulated and attached to the idea of driving in general. By the time I was 17, I had moved into my high school boyfriend’s family home in Selkirk to get away from the constant conflict under my mother’s roof. I was in a deep depression, and I indulged in it. I didn’t do anything to work toward my license for years. I never even attempted the free driving lessons offered in school. I was in survival mode.

It wasn’t until years later I enlisted the help of friends to take me driving around town. I was in my early 20s, and the more I put off getting my license, the harder it seemed to do. I was extremely nervous, but having their presence and guidance helped calm my nerves. I was starting to feel more comfortable behind the wheel.

My friend Matt helped me a lot. His easy attitude and assuredness created a calm environment as I drove around town while he sat beside me in the passenger seat. One time while we were driving in Selkirk Park, he gasped while I did something I shouldn’t have. I can’t remember what it was, but I do remember slamming on the brakes so hard we could hear the crunch of what I thought was metal. It turned out just to be the gravel road beneath us. I was sure that I had broken something in his car. It was fine. He assured me it was okay, but I was mortified.

Then I moved to Winnipeg for college. It was harder to see my friends and access the driving lessons they offered.

I got used to getting around the city without a license and vehicle. It was more convenient to take the bus to my campus in the Exchange District than it would have been to drive and find parking there. I became complacent, yet again. Instead of being stuck outside of the city, I was stuck within it.

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During my first summer in the city, I took the bus for the first time on the first day of my new job. That’s a lot of firsts. Nothing could go wrong.

It was one of those uncomfortable cloudy days with a cloying humidity. I attempted to scan my credit card, thinking it would work as bus fare. I kept getting an angry chirp from the scanner and a screen that said, “Card was misread.” The bus driver eventually waved me on, wanting to continue their route. I sat down thinking it must have just been a machine error. 

I looked around the bus and tried to romanticize my life. I felt a sense of independence and freedom, much like when my mom trusted me to go to the mall alone for the first time.

I successfully took the 18 bus route to work and felt a sense of pride in my accomplishment, but when it came time to go home, I accidentally took the wrong bus back. I ended up in a seedy part of the city I was unfamiliar with. I got off at a bus loop and hurriedly booked a $12 Uber home seconds before my phone died.

A man picked me up in an SUV lined with a leather interior and heavy with the scent of cologne. As he pulled up to my building, I breathed a sigh of relief as fresh air entered my lungs and I knew I was safe.

Since then, the number of bus interactions that have left me feeling uneasy are the punchline to the joke that is my transit life.

Today, a lady unloaded all of her clothes onto the seat beside mine and left, bras and all.

A weird man twice my age sat beside me, showed me some vintage forks, and asked if I wanted to go home to see the rest of his collection.

I was on the same bus as a group of girls who just jumped and attacked a customer at work earlier today.

A man got punched and left on the next stop with a bloody nose. The driver stopped the bus to clean up his blood trail since it was probably a biohazard issue.

These are just some of my recollections during my time taking Winnipeg buses.

Riding the bus brings its own set of anxieties. Most days, it’s hard to muster up the mental energy to see what kind of wild interactions await me either at the stop or on the bus itself.

On a recent trip home from school, I witnessed an older man harassing two Indigenous women with coloured hair, accusing them of being gay.

“Hey man, leave them alone.”

The words firmly left my mouth before I could think twice about it.

He staggered a bit.

 “Says who?” he muttered.

I shook my head and glared in response.

To my immediate relief, he stepped back and made his way to the front of the bus, finding a seat.

I suppose he wasn’t used to people calling him out. I wasn’t used to calling people out either.

It’s easy to let fear take charge. It was the first time an opportunity arose on the bus where I could help someone, and I took it without thinking. One of the women smiled and gave me a soft “thanks” before they both left on the next stop.

My heart hammered in my chest for the rest of the ride home. As I got off at my stop, I shoulder-checked every couple of seconds to make sure the man didn’t follow me off.

I mainly opt for Ubers these days. With the safety concerns and the unreliability of getting to my destination on time, I’d rather just charge another $12 to my account.

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This thought crosses my mind as I map out my way to Le Croissant, a bakery in St. Boniface. What would normally be a seven-minute drive would take me 40 minutes by bus due to the Provencher Bridge separating St. Boniface from the centre of the city. That’s the same amount of time it would take to walk there.

I took an Uber and arrived 10 minutes early for my meeting with Emily MacDonald, a therapist who specializes in treating anxiety patients. 

MacDonald also experiences driving anxiety, but there was never an inciting incident that brought it on for her. When she attended driving lessons in high school, she felt that it didn’t come as naturally to her as it did her peers, so she chose to avoid driving altogether. 

“The more I didn’t drive, the less confident I became,” said MacDonald. “It just became my personality. I was the one who didn’t drive. I was the one that got picked up.”

Though she has her full license now, she still prefers to take alternative travel methods. But when she does have to drive somewhere, she will plan out her route in extreme detail. She will go on Google Maps, zooming in on traffic lights and turns along her route so that she may visualize herself getting to her destination safely.

MacDonald starts by imagining herself in the driver’s seat, slowly grasping the wheel, pressing the gas, and thinking about where she’s going to go. She then does breathing and grounding exercises to calm herself down when the anxiety starts to flare up. These are all techniques she teaches her patients to help them calm their anxiety during their sessions.

For MacDonald, gently managing her driving anxiety is a form of self-acceptance. She recognizes driving isn’t her strong suit, but she won’t let it limit how she navigates the world. When she and her fiancé were preparing to move to Edmonton, he encouraged her to get her license so that he knew she would be okay if an emergency came up when he wasn’t home. 

She booked her first driving test at 26 years old, the same age I am now, and it pushed her to do what she had been putting off for years. She barely passed, only getting one more point than needed.

“It’s accepting that we go through these difficult things, and we learn how to live with them instead of learning how to avoid them, so that we can live the life we want,” said MacDonald.

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In February, I got behind the wheel of a vehicle for the first time in years. After my conversation with MacDonald, I figured it was time. I asked my boyfriend Everett if he could take me driving. He enthusiastically agreed and chose a quieter part of the city where we could practice. 

In preparation, I created a driving playlist to ease my nerves and practised visualization and breathing techniques.

We went to the Seven Oaks Pool parking lot because it’s surrounded by a residential neighbourhood with ample school zones. Everett parked his car in the lot, turned to me, and asked, “Are you ready?”

I tried my best to calm my rising nerves. I’d been jittery all morning. It was time.

“Yes,” I said, unconvincingly.

He looked me reassuringly in the eyes. “You got this. You’re going to do great.”

I thanked him despite the self-deprecating comment clawing its way up my throat.

We got out to swap seats. After a routine adjusting of seats and mirrors, I reacquainted myself with the controls. I grasped the wheel with my hands, shifted the car into drive, and slowly released the brake pedal.

I did agonizingly slow turns around the parking lot. I eventually increased my speed from 15 to 30 km/h. After I exhausted the most basic maneuvers, he asked if I was ready to drive on the roads.

I surprised myself by agreeing. I already felt much better than I did an hour ago. We swapped seats again and he took me down the route, helping me to observe every turn, stop sign, and school zone. He returned to the starting point and it was my turn now. 

It was going smoothly, but I couldn’t ease my vice-like grip on the wheel or stop my body from tensing at every advancing car.

We were the first to arrive at a four-way stop, followed by a truck on the left. Since I had the right of way, I advanced … only to be cut off by the truck driver, who ran the stop sign. Everett lifted his arms in the air to the man as if to say, “What are you doing?” The man then proceeded to flip us off and mouth, “F*** you!” Everett was incredulous. I did my best to assure him it was fine and turned into the school zone.

Everything after that point went well. I was weirdly glad that I got to experience “Friendly Manitoba” driving for my first time behind the wheel in years. It felt like a comical stereotype come to life.

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I still have many more lessons to go before I will be fully comfortable behind the wheel — if I ever will be.

But I also don’t like the feeling of being trapped without a license. It limits how I travel to destinations and how I move through the world.

For years, I lacked confidence both on and off the road. I didn’t walk confidently through my life, but my perception has started to change. I’m realizing the problem doesn’t lie solely within me.

Why do I feel my not being able to drive is a source of personal shame? Is it because Winnipeg is a car-centric city that seems to value its motorists over pedestrians and cyclists? Maybe. Are there classist connotations placed on those who take public transit? Probably. Are most Canadian cities’ urban geography built around cars? Definitely.

While going on this journey, my mentors and peers immediately let me know I wasn’t the only one: I have driving anxiety too, I know someone who has driving anxiety, I used to have driving anxiety they said. 

For so long, I’ve felt stuck. It’s been an overwhelming feeling of stagnation that felt impossible to break — but only by reframing my perception and tackling my fears instead of avoiding them can change happen. I’m 26, I don’t have my license, and it doesn’t need to be a source of shame. I am working to accept myself where I’m at, and I’m doing my best to live the life I want — whether or not that will include driving remains to be seen.