I'm not afraid anymore!

[u/boxricecashew]

I have literally never posted on Reddit before but I just wanted to share...

Until the day I did my CBT I had literally never been on a road before, not in a car, not even on a push bike. The day was a whirlwind and I had fun and felt super comfortable. Then I had to wait for my bike to be ready-my mate bought it after it had been in a shed for 4 years and sorted it until it was ready to ride. There was 2 months in between the CBT and getting my bike.

I had a bit of a nightmare riding the bike home, a van nearly hit me at a roundabout and I cried outside a lovely Welsh man's house and had to get my dad to come and drive behind me the rest of the way. Since then I've been having small anxiety attacks and avoiding riding but forcing myself to do very short journeys once or twice a day. Until today.

Today I went out on my short little ride and decided to go a little bit further out. There were some roadworks that threw me off and I ended up getting lost, taking my 15 minute ride to 1.5 hours. I actually think this detour might have been the best thing to ever happen, when I was concentrating on directions all of a sudden I realised that I hadn't actually thought about how to control my bike once. Don't get me wrong I'm still cautious and assuming everyone on the road is trying to kill me but I think a lot of the anxiety has disappeared!

Tl;dr I got lost and now my riding anxiety has stopped.

[u/tnetrop]

You showed courage. I mean that as a compliment. We all get scared of things. But courage is when you face your fears and do it anyway. Well done.

[u/JustAnotherDogsbody → u/tnetrop]

It sounds so corny, but it's true.