I spoke about it before but whenever I have things I need to do, I find myself putting them off even when I'm out of the house in no small part because of how constantly busy traffic is. I may live in the middle of nowhere, but it's car dependent so there are near constant traffic jams.
Even at the grocery store I find myself wandering aimlessly because of how constantly packed the place is. The gym? It's full all the time too so it's hard for me to actually do my workout. When I'm actually in traffic I feel myself getting more and more angry and irritated. I despise how poverty forces me to stay a basement dweller in rural Ohio, I despise how slow going from point a to point b is because of how busy traffic is at all times. It makes me sad seeing fire trucks not go anywhere because of how backed up traffic is.
I think it's cutting a lot into my productivity in trying to find a job and get myself off my feet when I have to take care of other things, and I wonder if any neurodiverse people feel the same way.
I know it is for my anxiety disorder. I'm constantly as afraid that I'm either doing something wrong or someone else doing something wrong is going to ruin my life. It's the most dangerous and boring thing any of us do, and that combination is deadly. At any moment, something could happen and then my car will be wrecked and I'll be in the hospital or dead. Maybe I'll kill someone. Maybe I'll go to prison.
And on and on like that.
Thank you for saying this, you’ve just affirmed what I think every time I get in the car and what others around me never understand
YES
When we're planning our family road trip every summer, I specifically map out a route that avoids all major highways and roads. Driving in traffic is Hell on Earth—driving on open roads is like meditation for me. A few decades ago I did a 13 hour stretch and I still remember the experience fondly.
Same. We still own a car and when we have to do the relative rounds we avoid all major highways and just aim for a chill roadtrip down country roads. I no longer drive myself, but my adhd partner does and very much prefers this as well.
Rural driving really is the best. We use our car strictly for Girl Guides / weekly grocery trip (at the same time), and I dread it every week.
Open road driving, though? It ranks up there with sex, and overthrowing capitalism. It's euphoric.
It's absolutely bonkers driving such large distances in America, it's exhausting doing the mental work of driving, I drive only if I have to, and drive just above the speed limit in cruise control in the last lane.
Noise also has a thing on us - we can't continue thinking our thoughts, and I've realized it can be a trigger to my anger.
And it's upsetting when you can see the bigger picture and find all the driving is such a pointless waste of our time and mental resources.
Noise also has a thing on us - we can't continue thinking our thoughts, and I've realized it can be a trigger to my anger.
This was such a huge realization for me. Is there a name for this?
I'm just ADHD but I find I will fully forget what I'm doing for a moment in traffic. Like "oh shit I'm not parked I'm just waiting for cars to move" forget. I have times where I'll be almost home and not remember passing key landmarks on my commute. Very disorienting and freaky.
I think I'd take it over an irritating response, though.
fun story: my bus commute going to work used to take ~50min, but going back home could take over an hour due to different bus routes and rush hour traffic. i always got home tired and i always thought it was bc of the work day
then covid hit, we were immediately told to work fully from home and i never felt tired after work anymore. turns out, the commute was what was making me tired, not working
mind you, I wasn't even driving like you are and even then the traffic drove me mad. so yeah, i 100% see where you're coming from
edit: for context, since most of you seem to be from the us, i live in rio de janeiro, which is still way too car-centric, but not nearly as bad as the usa it seems
it's certainly part of my recovery from burnout (if that's even possible and my executive function isn't just like, permanently stuck like this) to be particularly avoidant of traffic and to be mostly in my home. that said, i find when i'm outside that being a pedestrian near traffic requires a lot of attention and energy, and driving saps me like it used to not. just having to navigate normal traffic is incredibly exhausting.
This is one of the biggest reasons why I don't drive.
There are places where you can get by car-free and are cheap enough that you can have a decent standard of living even with a fulltime minimum wage job. You're in the right region, but probably need a town of 10k-200k that either has a transit system or is bikeable. Or even one of the cheaper big cities.
Packed grocery stores and gyms and traffic that fire trucks can't get through? Sounds more like exurban expanse than middle-of-nowhere.
Yes.
Actually relocated to a big city after living all my life in a rural area where you had to drive everywhere. I started to despise it so much, especially in poor weather. Then one time got into a very close call type of situation in bad rainy weather with my small child babbling away on the next seat and my driving pretty much ended then and there. I was a good driver, used to even do it for a living and never connected how drained I felt after a longer drive to my neurotype until lately.
I am lucky to now live in a place where public transport is so good that I don't have to drive even at work, but the downside is the intense traffic where we live. Constant car noise, constant blinding bright lights when it's dark, constant stress. I miss the rural silence, but not the driving. I truly think I am more sensitive to it than neurobasics.
I absolutely hate being stuck in traffic, it's legit one of my top 5 most annoying situations, and I think that what makes traffic so particularly irritating is the fact that you cannot disengage.
If I get annoyed at something that's going on with my computer or cellphone or even if I'm in a social situation that's getting under my skin, I most often can just get up and walk away to recharge and then come back if I want to. This is obviously not an option when you're in traffic. You're stuck inside the car and there's fuckall you can do, you can't just get out of the car and come back to it later when you're in the mood.
The one thing that I find makes being stuck in traffic less of a torturous experience is having a podcast or audiobook playing. If I have nothing else going on aside from the traffic, my ADHD brain cries in pure agony.
Also, that's a banger of a username you have there, lol
You sound like me, I feel much more at peace when I don’t have to think about or see the highway/road and as a result spend a lot of time at home. And it seems like people make my hatred of cars a me thing
And the more I think about it, cars are an invention that should’ve been left in the 20th century
I have autism and ADHD and had to really make a concerted effort to remember that traffic is other human beings trying to get where they need to go as well. This sucks but it sucks for all of us. I just try to find a speed that matches the average speed traffic is moving between jamming on their brakes and slamming the gas and just cruise slowly with a lot of space in front of me, hitting the brakes as little as possible so I just feel like I’m making my way there, and don’t have to stress about the gas/brake/gas/brake.
It just makes the whole experience require significantly less brain power and thus less stressful and has really helped me not be incredibly overstimulated for the first hour after arriving somewhere by car.
This is the secret. It doesn't cut the pain of driving completely. And it took me a long time to learn. But it improves the process. That and cruise control so I can concentrate on the road rather than the speed.
Yep our strength is recognizing things objectively for what they are (I am the traffic) and then optimizing for lowest personal effort required to solve repeating problems (commute).
It sounds so simple but unfortunately being in the car majorly sucks and can easily distract you from the goal which is not only to get through the traffic, but also to not have the worst time in the world and make yourself miserable while doing it
Oh I agree, I've been plenty miserable. Your goal is to get from point a to point b safely while minimizing personal misery and exhaustion. But be miserable long enough and you'll realize there's not much you can change about your circumstances but only how you respond to them. Optimizing for self preservation means trying not to get too angry or worked up about things outside of your control and applying minimal effort in getting the job done.
Of course nothing could cut the pain of driving completely, especially in traffic, but this method legit has saved me so many meltdowns and faux pas over the years. The funny thing about it is that you have to unlearn driving that way like you have to unlearning masking. If you drive the way neurotypicals drive, who also hate driving in traffic, how do you think that’s going to make you feel?
Also this method saves you a ton of money. It’s expensive to make your car keep speeding up just to slow it down again.
Yes
If I didn’t have to drive I absolutely wouldn’t. I have autism/adhd as well, and luckily I have a job where I start at 5am so traffic is very low but my return trip always has me so drained.
Early in my marriage that caused some trouble but we’ve worked that out now, both of us get some time after work to decompress without having any social obligations to each other.
Yeah my walk to the station I'd go via a busy road and every fiber of my body hated it. I then decided to take a longer route but avoid the main roads and now I enjoy the walk. I hate cars i hate being near cars i hate crossing roads i hate people in the cars i hate looking at cars
Same in a way, the fact that rich people keep insisting that we MUST drive and build expensive infrastructure to essentially FORCE us to (but it's ok we're not legally REQUIRED, just coerced) into buying their shitty product made me realize that the rich don't care about MY property rights. Hell, if you cave and DO buy the car then you are legally forced to buy insurance, a useless rent-seeking strategy to essentially take your money and do absolutely nothing else.
I hate traffic more than I hate almost anything else in the world but then when there's no traffic and I have a stretch of open driving my brain gets so bored that it desperately tries to fall asleep.
Why can't I just climb trees all day like when I was a kid?
