LIVING WITH AMAXOPHOBIA/Venophobia
For years, I hid it.
I was embarrassed, ashamed even, that something so simple for others—getting behind the wheel—felt impossible to me. I told myself it was temporary. That I’d “get over it.” That I’d try again next month, next year, someday. But deep down, I was living with a fear that I didn’t have the language for.
It’s called amaxophobia—the intense fear of driving or being a passenger in a car. It sounds dramatic, I know. But what people don’t realize is that this fear isn’t just about being nervous or inexperienced. It’s physical. Emotional. Consuming. And it’s not something you can “just get over” because someone tells you to.
When people asked why I didn’t drive, I’d casually brush it off with an excuse—“Oh, my car’s in the shop” or “I’m just not a fan of driving.” But deep down, I felt broken. Incompetent. Like I was missing some adult life skill everyone else had mastered by 16. And because this fear isn’t widely understood, the people around me would poke at it—teasing, joking, or expressing confusion. And every time, it made me want to shrink further into myself. I stopped talking about it altogether.
The thing about hiding something for so long is that it becomes a silent weight you carry. You start building your life around it, creating a maze of avoidance and workarounds. And the shame? It grows.
It wasn’t until my 40s that I finally came to grips with the idea that I may never drive. That maybe this wasn’t a phase. That maybe I could stop pretending, and just be honest—with myself first, and then with others. I had to learn to speak about my fear without flinching. To say, “I don’t drive,” without following it with an apology or a justification.
And in doing that, I realized something deeper: anxiety is real. It doesn’t always make sense. There is no rational reason I start to panic when I’m behind the wheel. No checklist that helps me calm down. And for some people, like me, it’s not about a lack of skill. It’s about something inside me that spirals out of control in that setting.
Some doctors say my amaxophobia may be tied to past traumas, things I’ve long buried. But I know for sure that it was compounded in 2020, when my family was in a devastating car wreck that left my son with serious injuries. That moment broke something open in me, and whatever small hope I had of trying again was buried under the weight of that trauma.
Still, I’m here. I’m healing. And I’m finally talking about it.
Because there are so many people living with this fear quietly, thinking they’re alone. Thinking they’re weak. Embarrassed to speak up because it feels like something they should’ve “figured out by now.” But anxiety doesn’t care about logic. And trauma doesn’t follow a timeline.
I want to be a voice for those people. To say:
You’re not broken. You’re not less than. You don’t have to carry this in silence.