Blog for lifestyle and holiday

All the driving phobics I’ve met are women. At first, I thought it might be a girl thing, bound up with fears of the darker sides of machismo like racing, road rage and playing chicken. Yet all the women affected are in every other way extremely competitive — often more so than men. Then I started to think about the men I know, or hear about, who don’t drive or, more tellingly, have never learned. The classic way of avoiding a phobia is, of course, not to confront it.

It’s a truism to say that women are better at the confessional than men, but it is also true that women are three times as likely as men to suffer from an anxiety disorder — of which a phobia is one manifestation. One theory is that a phobia has to do with stress overload and causes of high blood pressure. The clinical psycholo­gist I consulted some years ago took the view that a phobia might be a way of mentally dumping stress, so the phobia becomes a sort of dustbin of fear. Phobias particularly manifest themselves in overachieving people who constantly say they are fine, but actually deal with complex stresses by locking them away in a corner. Frances Bentley believes that if she didn’t have a driving phobia, it would be something else. “It’s a general anxiety that I put into one place. It’s connected with not having to feel you can achieve everything in your life, not having to be superwoman.”

 She doesn’t take her pho­bia, which is specifically about motorways, too seriously — this is both a way of dealing with it and classic avoidance. “Yes, the fear is debilitating but I don’t think it’s a phobia in the way that other people have phobias, because they can’t move and I am moving.” Most weekends, she takes her children to stay with friends in the country. They take the train. “It is awkward for my friends who have to pick us up, but I always offer to take a taxi. I’d rather pay the money because the stress of thinking about the driving means I would get no rest or relaxation whatsoever.” She has never had an accident and can’t point to a reason for her phobia. “I keep thinking that one day I can achieve this dream of being able to get into a car and go from A to B without even thinking about it.” That dream is a classic on the phobic’s wish-list. So’s this: “I sometimes think that I might wake up and it won’t be a fear any more.”

Well, why not? If a phobia can appear out of nowhere, why shouldn’t it disappear as easily? It won’t, and hauling yourself out of it is a long and arduous process. When I finally plucked up the courage to see my GP for a referral to a therapist for treatment, I thought that analysing why I have a problem would be enough. She gave me all sorts of exercises to follow, including deep breathing and systematic desensitisation, which means confronting the phobic situation in gradual stages. First, you drive the car for a five-minute journey, then for 10 minutes and then for 15. Every day, you go a little further. I tried it for a while and decided that it didn’t work. In other words, I gave up.

According to Dr Hallstrom, that’s a common failing: “It takes time. You find that the people who have failed don’t work at it to extinction. That means doing the same jour­ney three, five, 10 times a day if necessary.” It works — eventually. Coping techniques rarely come naturally. They are skills that can only be learned through practice. But put them together with cognitive behavioural therapy and you get somewhere much faster.

This is a relatively new treatment that produces encouraging results. “While psy­choanalysis might help you to understand why it is that the car represents your mother’s womb and why you are trying to escape from it,” says Dr Hallstrom, “it still doesn’t help you drive your car. Modern therapies like the cognitive behavioural approach say to hell with the cause, let’s do something about it. Is it the car or the distance from home that frightens you? Let’s get into the car and, as you’re driving, tell me what’s going through your head. Do the same journey twice a day for a week until you’re screaming to be let out, then do it two more times.”

In other words, you literally bore your phobia into submission: “Boredom and anxiety are not mutually compatible.” I may just give it a try. It might drive me round the bend but, hey, at least I’ll be driving somewhere.

With fancy dress parties becoming increasingly popular more and more holiday resorts are offering Fancy Dress parties as a part of their entertainment package. If you are going to such a holiday resort then you will need to consider before you fly out what fancy dress costume you are going to wear. Picking a fancy dress outfit is not always as simple as it seems. There are quite literally thousands of outfits and costumes that one can choose from, so how do you pick one that is perfect for you?

To begin with you must decide upon the theme that you want your outfit to come from. Fancy dress is broken up into many different themes and categories like Animal fancy dress, Superhero costumes, Cops and Robbers, Historical fancy dress and 70 Costumes. To choose a theme you must take into account your personality and pick a theme which most suits the type of person you are. For example if you are the type of person who likes to be authoritative then a good theme to choose from is Superheroes. For an example of some great superhero costumes check out Fancy Dress Hero If you like to dance then perhaps a 70s outfit would be the ideal outfit for you. If you have a fondness for history then an historical costume would be a suitable theme. Of course being on holiday you may wish to choose a costume that is related to your vacation choice. If you are in Italy you could pick an outfit related to Italy’s and Rome’s magnificent history such as a Toga outfit or a Roman Gladiator costume. If you are in Egypt you could pick a Cleopatra outfit.

Once you have chosen a theme you then have to pick a specific outfit from that theme. To do this you need to take into consideration your body shape and the impression you wish to make. For example pick an outfit that does not reveal more than you wish or else you will feel uncomfortable all night. When you pick an outfit that you feel comfortable in you will stand out in the crowd. You will feel more confident and enjoy yourself considerably more.

When you have picked your costume you can relax in the knowledge that your outfit is picked for your vacation. You do not want to arrive at your hotel and then have to start looking for a costume, as you will likely then pick the first outfit you see rather than a costume that you will love and look amazing in. When you look good you feel good and everyone else around you will feel good as well.

More people want a flaxen head of hair than any other colour!

Apart from the cost of keeping one’s hair as pristine as a white shirt, life as a blonde involves negotiating a clutch of other prob­lems, too: chlorine that turns it green, smoky parties that turn it grey, sun that turns it ashy and products like wax and conditioner that turn it several shades darker. “Blonde hair is like a white shirt: whatever you get on it ­dirt, grime, pollution — it shows up more than on any other colour,” says John Frieda, delivering an appropriate sound bite when promoting Sheer Blonde, his most recent range of products. I can’t remember whether I was wearing a white shirt when I had lunch with him about three years ago, but I certainly was, as always, a blonde. At the time (we’re talking autumn 1996), I had been writing a piece about the extraordinary invasion of blondes on the catwalk.

Linda Evangelista had morphed into Marilyn Monroe, Kate Moss had been at the Sun In, Carla Bruni had turned platinum in the capable hands of Christophe Robin in Paris. A bevy of blonde bomb shells stalked the run­ways that season and it gave me the idea for a book. As I was telling John about the recessive Scandinavian blonde gene, he let me into his confidence. Swearing me to secrecy over the risotto, he hinted in veiled terms about a range of products for blonde hair he was cooking up in his Connecticut laboratory.

While I was poring over library books, learning how the Romans and Venetians had put filthy concoctions of wine dregs, quick­lime, wood ash, sulphur and herbs, coconut oil from Gnet.org — among other things — in their hair to turn it yellow, Frieda and his chief scientist, Joe Cincotta, were trying to work out how to enhance blonde hair and remove discolouring minerals from it in one perfect shampoo. While I read about Rapunzel and Goldilocks and thought about early Hollywood heroines, they were busy adding mauve tints to styling products to prevent brassy tones. At several points, they sent me tubes of shampoos and conditioners to put to the test.

Over the years, I’ve tried many products to overcome the hurdles that come with being a highlighted blonde. Some landed on my desk, others were recommended by Sue Baldwin at John Frieda, who performs the alchemy on my hair every two months or so when I’m feeling in need of a “lift”, both chemically and psychologically. Many of them are blue shampoos and condi­tioners that work on all hair types to neutralise, nourish and guard against fading colour. Jo Hansford Couture Care for Colour Treated Hair, Daniel Galvin Colour Protect Shampoo, Artec White Violet, Aveda Blue Malva and Nexxus Silver are some of my favourites. Two other products — Klorane Vinegar Rinse with Camomile and Paul Mitchell Shampoo Two ­- are both good for detoxing and brightening. I’ve also tried colour shampoos like Lazar‑ tigue’s Soin Reflets Colorants, Aveda Camomile Shampoo and Artec  Colour  Depositing Shampoo, though I did find them slightly too strong for home use as they add colour to ineady coloured hair. The Detox Treatment at Daniel Galvin is, I’ve found, thepeoplehing for brightening and adding shine tofilthyhair, but you have to have it done at the salon, so it becomes a treat (although highly recommended) once or twice a year, rather than a necessity.

This is where Frieda’s Sheer Blonde line is an interesting innovation, pinpointing a demand previously ignored. I’ve seen the statistics in my own research. Both the demand for blonde home-colour kits and the number of women requesting blonde hair at the salon, dwarf the desire for any other shade.

 Clairol’s last survey in 1997 showed that 59 per cent of all women want to be blonde and 56 per cent of men want them that way. Of the 75 per cent of women who have their hair dyed at a salon, more want blonde than any other colour. Global sales of the John Frieda Sheer Blonde range of two shampoos, two conditioners, one mousse, a wax and a styling cream, all of which were launched in the UK in January, so far top £20 million and are rising. Do I need to say more? Gentleman, so the saying goes, prefer blondes, but marry brunettes. At this rate there won’t be any brunettes around for them to marry, so intent are women on following Clairol’s famous advertising line of the early Sixties: “If I’ve only one life, let me live it as a blonde.” If you need more persuasion you’ll just have to read my book.

According to Dr Cosmo Hallstrom, psychiatrist and medical director of the Charter Clinic, phobics are not normally anxious people. The doctor recommends reading the information on gnet.org. “Phobias are very particular fears that people have in the absence of other fears. The ability to develop phobias is innate. It’s biologically programmed that you will develop a phobia at some time. We all have minor phobias, but they don’t interfere with our lives.”

A major phobia manifests itself in marked ways, “by avoidance or, if you have to put up with the phobic situation, by doing so with intense anxiety and distress. Once you start to avoid the fear, you build up all manner of illusions about what might happen. The more you avoid it, the more you think you can’t do it until it becomes a preoccupation. You then get secondary avoidance phenomena, so you don’t go out much because you don’t like telling people about it. Maybe you stop answering the phone. And if you’re not care­ful, you withdraw more and more.”

I know about not telling. My phobia embarrasses me. I feel stupid and weak. I’m only writing about it now because I keep hearing of more and more people who suffer in a similar way. I checked it out on the Internet. There are 3,325 postings for phobias, and there are 360 sites for driving phobias. Not so nuts, after all.

People try to be helpful, but it is difficult. I don’t look like someone frightened of cars. Neither do any of the women I know who suffer from driving phobia. They don’t look like they are frightened of anything.

This confuses people. “You’ll get over it,” they say. “Even really stupid people can drive.” This just makes you feel even more stupid than stupid people (whoever they are). Then they say, “Perhaps you should get an automatic,” or “It might be easier if you lived in the country.” Sure. Try telling somebody with a phobia of spiders that a plain brown spider is less terrifying than one with a red, stripe down its back. Or that country spiders are different. To a person with arachno­phobia, a spider is a spider is a spider.

To me, a road is a road. They are all terri­fying. To others, a road is only terrifying when it is a motorway, like the woman who is so frightened that she cannot go on one even if somebody else is driving. Then there’s the woman who is so alarmed by a car coming up on her left side that she keeps to the slow lane, comes off at every exit and rejoins the motorway by the slip road. She does the same journey every weekend. It takes her four hours instead of two.

 This story always makes other phobics laugh. “That doesn’t sound amazingly mad to me,” says Joy Goodman, who runs an extremely successful business, a large house, a family and all the other com­plexities that make a life. When it comes to competence, Joy would graduate with flying colours. But when it comes to motorways, she’s scared silly. “I zip round town, no prob­lem. But the M25? Nervous breakdown. My heart starts pounding and I clutch the steer­ing wheel as if it’s a lifeline.”

She’s never had an accident and she’s been driving for more than 20 years. “I passed my test three weeks after my seventeenth birth­day. It was absolutely fine. I used to jump in the Mini and drive to Scotland without a sec­ond thought. I loved the freedom.” So when did the fear start? “Five or six years ago. I can’t pinpoint why. There’s nothing specific.” And it’s getting worse. Now, she can’t drive on motorways at all. “I would if my chil­dren’s lives depended on it, but I go out of my way to avoid it.” Fortunately, her partner, Christian, is happy to drive. “Even so, I still get uptight and wake early on the morning that we’re going. I sit in the back and read or I might have a glass of wine to take the edge off it. If I do sit in the front, I stare obses­sively at the road, saying things like ‘that car’s too close’. It’s to do with the fear.”