Freaking out behind the wheel

I had a first yesterday. Some of my early healing triggers were being the passenger in a car when a male was driving...especially if we were lost. Panic of finding the way back. If I drive myself, I have experienced a protector driver with me when I'm feeling triggered. I have sometimes been lost from making a wrong turn or getting off the wrong exit but always found my way back. Not to say I wasn't kind of freaked out during the period of being lost.

I experience highway hypnosis fairly frequently which is sometimes weird but not triggering. I had never zoned out for any substantial time knowingly before...until yesterday. I decided to take a back route I knew well to avoid a traffic jam. I remember being at a familiar intersection of a well-traveled road that looked "out in the country" because it was heavily treed. The next thing I knew I was passing something vaguely familiar but wondering if I needed to be turning. Possibly I zoned out again. When I saw the road I was on, I knew none of what was around me. I decided to turn around and the panic became palpable. Thank heavens for cell phones.

My SO knows my "I need a helicopter to airlift me outta here" panic and talked me through getting headed back to known territory. I was at least a five minute drive away from the mark but had been heading even further away after turning around. It seemed like forever until I got to where I should have turned. I had no recollection of turning onto the road which would have been a right hand turn about 1/2 mile from my last conscious memory. I didn't like it. I didn't like my panic. I didn't like being lost. This was my first "awake" fugue state.

Consciously I know I was taken places where I had no idea of the location. And consciously I knew I had driven to locations where I'd been hurt. I think I know what my next Forbidden Topic post will be.

Asleep at the Wheel is a singing group from at least 20 years ago. Such is how my brain jumps from thought to thought.