Every drive in the car chipped away at my confidence and impacted how I felt about myself

Throughout my childhood years, I had low confidence and self-esteem.

At a certain point in my life, when I found my passion, my self-esteem and confidence began to build up. However, I still had a long way to go. I struggled to trust my own decision-making and believe in my abilities. In saying that, I still felt I had enough to get by and function as a seemingly “normal human being”. I always wished for more confidence and a better self-image but never really understood the importance of actually working toward those goals when I was younger.

Part of me also thought that when I got older, I would have it figured out a bit more and my confidence and self-image would naturally improve. I never anticipated that if I didn’t work at enhancing these elements, I could risk losing the little I already had. Driving was something I always put off because, naturally, like a lot of people, I had some fear and anxiety about it. I thought the fear just surrounded being scared of ordinary things like getting into an accident or causing an accident. It wasn’t long before I realised the fear was about more than just that and was a mental health trigger.

I felt immense pressure, that I was in the way and that I was being a burden on the roads, even if I was going the full speed limit and driving with minor errors. Besides that, learning to drive was a totally new experience and I had no insights into what that would be like. I put it off for so long and had never driven any vehicle before. I started the journey with my usual drive and dedication and some good self-esteem and confidence. However, it wasn’t long before every drive was chipping away at more of my confidence and impacting how I felt about myself.

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Like traditional anxiety, overthinking and being hard on yourself is normal and it was only heightened with driving, especially because it was so hard to convince myself that it wasn’t justifiable. Where replaying conversations in my head probably doesn’t come to much, over-processing my errors during drives didn’t seem unreasonable because there is a genuine danger associated with them. When operating and driving a car, I also felt my inner child coming through and all the issues I had yet to resolve being magnified.

Driving impacted my mental health so much but what it showed me throughout the journey is that things like self-esteem and confidence should be taken more seriously

I was vulnerable and it was one of the only situations where it was clear my act of being confident and sure of myself wasn’t genuine. I try to function with a “fake it until you make it approach”, but in these scenarios, it couldn’t have come across more fake. I really hated the person I became in the car. Where my trauma and anxiety have made me a highly independent person, driving revealed that I’m not fully independent. Additionally, it unveiled that I have poor self-esteem and confidence which I have always been ashamed of. Throughout my life, I was always jealous of those with a strong sense of self and this was only heightened during this period.

I always tried to do everything perfectly, but, naturally, no one’s perfect and this was also a tough pill to swallow. The idea that there was something I wasn’t good or polished at was something I really struggled with. There were so many times I wanted to quit but that would go against my character as I’m not someone who gives up. In saying that, the experience was making me become my “worst” version. Even when I wasn’t driving, I began feeling incompetent in other areas of my life and dealing with things like impostor syndrome. I started to go back to questioning things like what value I bring to other people’s lives and being really grateful to those who did sacrifice time to be with me even when I felt I was not a fun or enjoyable person to be around.

Driving impacted my mental health so much but what it showed me throughout the journey is that things like self-esteem and confidence should be taken more seriously. If you have poor self-esteem or confidence, you need to work on improving it because you may find yourself in a situation later in life that further chips away at the little you have. Low self-esteem and confidence can lead to the development of mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Today, more people are speaking about various mental health disorders which is fantastic. We absolutely need awareness to remove stigma so people can comfortably access help and get better. Confidence and self-esteem are two words that pop up all over wellness blogs and products.

However, not many of us actually prioritise them until we start to have issues. With my driving experience, it took me slipping back into intense anxiety and depression to recognise I need to work on them. Before things got bad, I thought the level of confidence and self-esteem I had was fine and workable. Having good mental health is not about having all sunny days. It’s about having days with rain and showers, wind and storms but being able to cope better. Having a good level of confidence and good self-esteem is the starting point for ensuring you appropriately look after and take care of yourself.

While I felt triggered behind the wheel, I could feel questions of incompetency transferring over to my work life and personal life too even when I was far from the car

Just as we are starting to take mental health issues such as anxiety and depression seriously, we too need to act on feelings of low self-esteem and confidence. While driving would have always been a trigger for me due to my past experiences struggling with putting myself out there, feeling incompetent and feeling like a burden, I believe I would’ve navigated the experience a lot better if I had more confidence and a better relationship with myself. I feel it would’ve helped me stay away from the darkness and remain in the light even in challenging times.

There are lots of resources out there to help improve confidence and self-esteem, such as coaching, counselling, self-compassion exercises, journaling and more. Often, it seems we wait until things get very bad to start tackling these issues. However, low-self esteem and confidence can reduce the quality of a person’s life in a variety of ways. While I felt triggered behind the wheel, I could feel questions of incompetency transferring over to my work life and personal life too even when I was far from the car.

We must work to address and bridge this gap and restore our confidence and self-esteem in preparation for when the hard times do inevitably come so we can be that bit more resilient and strong in coping with them.