Travel phobia -anyone else?

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I have a poor sense of direction .This is coupled with what may,or may not, be a mild case of agoraphobia . I say ‘mild’ because I can get out of my flat , but on my own stick to a small area in town I know. I have a fear of going outside of that area and getting lost and trapped.

This as you can probably guess restricts me quite a lot. For example there are autism groups in nearby towns, but I’d struggle to get to them on my own, and the chance of my having a public meltdown , in trying to do so, would greatly increase. My stepdaughter would take me , but all groups meeting at a range of times and days makes that more difficult in terms of her being available to do so.

When I was little long drives used to cause me anxiety because I was afraid of being stranded. What if the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and there is no phone signal?

Going around in populated areas did not stress me out that way. But at the same time I had the fear of getting separated from whoever was with me.

These days while I do not worry about it as much, if I got seperated I know my wits would start spinning out of control and it would be a horrible ordeal.

It certainly has a deep psychological effect on me . I don't remember many dreams , but the ones I remember quite often involve getting lost and/or being struck dumb.

I'll say one thing, no matter how well an outing goes, I am always happy and relieved to get back inside my room.

Sensory sensitivity and social phobia are more the problem for me. It's very variable; I've had times in shared digs when I couldn't even leave my room for dreading having to talk to anyone (to the point that I'd take something in there to pee into). I'm always extremely anxious going anywhere that I couldn't easily make my way home from alone on foot (taxi or public transport are a complete no-no if I start to get overwhelmed).

Yes I've had a number of bad dreams about travelling going wrong, and I usually feel apprehensive about travelling any appreciable distance. It doesn't stop me, but it stops me enjoying the preparations and the journey. I think it's a fairly rational aversion to travelling. My experience is that surprises are common, and some of those surprises can leave a traveller stranded. The worst points are making connections between rides. It's hard for me to navigate around large buildings and new streets, and sometimes the time constraints are tight. I can rarely hear the announcements. I don't always cotton on to the procedures. Travelling economy class can also be uncomfortably cramped, maybe I'm more sensitive than most to it, but I've noticed a lot of people hate it.

I usually feel uncomfortable when I'm planning a journey, noticing each stage in the journey and how it might go wrong because I've never seen the buildings or the streets, or can't remember them. I have trouble packing because so many things often can't be packed in advance, because they're needed before the journey, so most of it has to be done quite late.

But in spite of how much it bothers me, I still make journeys. I seem to bear up quite well under the sense of risk that it often brings. I was just guessing my way the other day during a long walk, but it didn't render me incompetent. I was lucky enough to have gone the right way, it would have been much harder if I'd taken a wrong turn, got lost and had to ask for directions, but I'd have been OK, just uncomfortably scared for a while.

It's always useful to have access to a lot of money while travelling, and to have good communication with somebody who can help if things go wrong. I can't remember ever needing them, but one of these days I think I could end up stranded. There's something about the NT way of processing that makes it easier for them to disentangle a messy travelling situation and talk to people about it to get help.