A cold shiver runs down my back when I think of getting into my car tomorrow morning.
It’s not my job. I’m not burned out. I’m not on meds or any other substances. My name is Josh and I’m 36 years old. I got my license 20 years ago, and never had any kind of driving related anxiety.
Well, I was nervous as hell during my driving exam, but everybody is, right?
The part of me that is a father, a husband and a tax-paying adult knows there is nothing to make a fuss about. But my body is pretty sure that my commute is worse than going up the cellar stairs after turning off the light. I feel like a kid, scared of the dark. It’s ridiculous.
—
Let me start in the beginning. Driving gets dull. It’s awesome at first, but after a few years the magic becomes routine and the best part of a long drive becomes a podcast, an audio book or some music from your local radio station.
We get used to stuff if it happens often enough. Sometimes it takes a big change to see through the things you stopped questioning.
For me, it took a global pandemic for me to realize that driving to work is something I can do without? Scratching ice off the windshield in the morning, sitting in traffic, trying to spot the idiots on the road to keep a safe distance…
I know, I know. Breaking news: man would strongly prefer to stay home instead of driving to job. Boo hoo.
That was what I thought at first when I received *the commuting email* from corporate, right before Christmas. End of the “unprecedented times”, the economic development, hurr durr, “happy to re-open the offices”, “getting back to normality”.
My boss was friendly enough to spell it out in a meeting later that day: coming in was a hard requirement. That is, if I wanted to remain employed. As the hiring market was (and is) a shit show right now I said goodbye to my comfy sweatpants and extra time with my family.
What a nuisance, I thought.
—
The first week was a drag, but doable. I expected to get used to it.
Being at the office was surprisingly fun. Seeing people is so much better than staring at small portraits on the screen.
I expected the second week of commuting to be more tolerable, but it wasn’t. Was it just me, or did people forget how to drive in the mornings and evenings? I never have been cut off more often before. There were traffic jams on three days out of five. What usually was a 40 minutes ride to get to work turned well into over an hour each time.
My body began to notice that something was off on Tuesday that week. I sat there, stuck in traffic for the second time that week, and felt a mix of annoyed and tired. Zoning off and watching TV in the evening tired. It had been a long day at the office, and a few hours since my last coffee. “I need to watch my energy levels better in the next few days” I thought.
When I reached for the radio, I noticed that my hands were shaking ever so slightly. I’m not a nervous person. It takes a near-accident to get my adrenaline up enough to scare me. Nothing like that occurred during the drive. I thought nothing of it, but remember the moment just too well now.
—
The next day was a three for three. It was late in the evening, rainy, and a bit foggy. I was on my way home, after staying at the office longer than usual. Again.
Red and yellow blinking lights ahead of me told me that it was time to press the party-lights button and get ready for some serious snail traffic. I let the car roll to a halt, considering whether it was worth letting my wife know that I’d need 10 to 20 more minutes to get home.
I realized that the traffic jam was at about the same spot as the day before. The road I am taking goes across two highways. They are connected by an older, noisy road segment, about two thirds of the way home. It’s kind of a dead-end of a highway. There used to be a lot of industry around there, but whatever kept it alive dried up and people moved away. The highway project was finished but did not get much love since then it seemed. I could tell when I was driving over that segment - my tires always started bumping rhythmically and humming at the same time on the old asphalt.
Stop, go, stop and go. Following the car in front of me and going around the disturbance ahead.
It felt cold in the car, was it because it was taking so long, and the engine was cooling off? I remember there was a shiver coming up my spine then. In Germany we say, you get that feeling “when a cat runs over your grave”. A weird thing to say, I know.
The end of the jam was in sight, it looked like two cars collided real bad. One was turned over by the side of the road, the other looked like it was narrowed down by one third. Poor souls, I always feel a pang of guilt at getting annoyed at getting home a bit later, instead of cherishing that I’d be getting home at all that day.
“Don’t swerve” said a voice right next to me. I almost jumped into the driver-side door. Was it one of those freak-killer stories where some murder hobo had slipped into your car, and waited behind the seat, trying not to giggle and scare their victim one last time before the stabbing started? I hit the breaks and turned around in my seat, staring like an idiot. Ready to fight or shit myself, whatever turned out to be possible.
There was nobody behind me, nothing off at all. A car honked behind me. I started accelerating after looking around long enough to feel really stupid about it. “It must have been the radio? Had I fallen asleep for a few seconds?”. I was level with the crash site. Going around it. Accelerating again. My heart racing.
That’s when I heard three knocks. “Oh shit no, don’t break down you piece of crap.” Two more knocks against the windshield. I was driving at highway speed again. There was nobody running next to the car or on top of it. i know what kinds of knocks an engine or a flat tire make. That was nothing like it.
—
“You look pale, is everything alright?” my wife asked when I got home. There was no way in hell I would tell her about voices in the car or something knocking at the car when going 100 kilometers per hour.
The next morning, I took extra long to get ready. That evening I stayed at the office later than necessary. I think I did not want to drive past that accident site again. Even though I had to. Have to. Every single day.
I feel anxious when starting the engine. The trembling and chills going up my spine get more and more pronounced every time I go past that old highway stretch now.
Nothing has happened since that night, but the dread is with me now.
I KNOW I did not imagine that voice. Still, I don’t want to talk about that experience to people I know - I would feel like an ass. What was knocking at my car?
I think it might be that old stretch of road. That’s where my symptoms first started and where I feel them getting worse.
Have you heard of a stretch of road scaring the shit out of a person? How come I did not notice anything like that before taking a break from commuting? How would you go about finding out more about what’s happening to me - without getting myself committed to an asylum preferably?
Appreciate any ideas you can share. I’ll keep you posted, I think that writing about it helps me to feel sane and grounded.
- Josh