Nervous "Brake"down and Excellent Fathers

I hate driving. So much. I cannot put into words how much I hate it. It's very inconvenient to abhor so vehemently something so integral to life. In order to be a fully functional member of society and live a decent life, I must be independently mobile.


But I simply cannot do it. After one epic fail at the driver's test, Dad began to grow alarmed at my shocking inability to effectively operate a motor vehicle. Now he takes me driving whenever he finds a spare second and it's stressful and awful and occasionally near-fatal.


I can do the basic things. I can drive around my little four-stoplight town without much problem. But put me on the highway and all hell brakes loose. (Get it!?)


In order to pass the test (and get back to the DMV, which I'm guessing is a slightly important part to passing the test) you have to switch lanes. This sounds simple enough, right? Well, I can't. I hesitate too much because I want to sit there and draw a map of the surrounding cars and calculate their speeds relative to mine as to find the optimum time to drive over, and there's really not that much time available... All in all, it seems as though I'll have to spend my life at places on one side of the road.

This frequent irrational panicking resulted in having a nervous breakdown in a random parking lot. I don't think my dad fully understood how much this driving thing plagues me until I quite uncharistically lost all of my composure, my ability to form coherent sentences, and just repeatedly beat my head against the steering wheel. With concerned patience, he talked me back into sanity until I even cracked a smile.

He must be the most patient man on earth. We've only been going through this driving fiasco since I turned 15. Still, he tries. I do make a little progress each time, but the leaps are so minute they're hardly detectable. But still he tells me "I did well" and that he's proud. He couldn't possibly be proud of the mess that was sitting in that driver's seat today.

At one point, he asked "would it help if somebody else taught you? Am I not doing this right?" and this alarmed me. I quickly reassured him that I wouldn't dare get into the car with anyone else. I hope he believed me. Anybody who could get into a car with someone who almost kills him at least twice daily, and not yell and scream at me, is a remarkable human being. My inability to drive my resign me to living with him for the rest of my life, but at least I know I'm safe with him.