I have been doing a lot of exposure work with freeway driving lately, and it has been going pretty well. It's really hard to make myself stay on the freeway when all I want to do is pull off at every single exit I pass, but my anxiety levels have dropped significantly as I've continued to work on this, and the number of panic attacks I have has dropped, too. As I've gotten more comfortable (or, really, less uncomfortable) with it in general, I've noticed lately that driving on the freeway at night is about 50 times LESS stressful for me than daytime driving. Sometimes I'm even able to enjoy it! Before, I had major anxiety and panic attacks regardless of whether it was day or night. I've been doing about equal amounts of exposure work at night and in the daytime, so I'm really baffled by this new contrast between the two. I wish I could figure out what about it is less scary for me at night. If I could transfer those same feelings over to daytime freeway driving, my life would be a LOT easier!!! Has anybody else noticed strange things like this as they've done exposure work? If so - were you able to figure out why?
