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.”

Sometimes — OK, often — I am paralysed with envy. All it takes is the sight of somebody jumping into a car. It happens a hundred times a day, and every time it takes my breath away. They look so blithe and careless. They look so free. I know how to drive. It’s just that I can’t. I am grounded by fear.

I suffer, you see, from a phobia of driving. When I have to drive to my daughter’s school — a route I know like the back of my hand — I spend the hour before in terrified anticipation. And it is terror; an overwhelm­ing sensation of pounding heart, nausea, difficult breathing, sweating hands and shaking. I do it, nonetheless. It ruins my day. I find all manner of ways to avoid getting in the car. My daughter’s nanny drives. So does my husband. There are taxis and tubes.

There are my legs. I convince myself that changing trains three times is an easy option, or that walking the three miles from my house to the West End is quicker than taking the car and finding somewhere to park. Cheaper and healthier too, check http://www.gnet.org/defy-aging-and-tired-eyes-remain-the-fairest-in-the-land/. I know what I’m doing. I am practising avoid­ance, a classic symptom of a serious phobia. And when I can avoid no longer, I shake. I am not alone. A friend tells me of a woman who recently moved house. She used to be able to walk her kids to school. Now she has to drive. She loves her kids and would do anything for them, but she is making them change school, even though they are happy where they are. Suddenly, the old school is no longer good enough. Or that’s what she says. She probably believes it. A true phobic makes an art of self-deception. Curiously, I am a good driver. I passed my test first time.

And when I do drive, I am as aggressive as any other Londoner on the road. I don’t dither, I move fast and I’ve never had an accident. When I am actually driving, I can get the fear so under con­trol that nobody notices, except me. It is before I drive that I feel ready to col­lapse. Afterwards, I feel pure happiness. We’re talk­ing just a trundle to the supermarket here. When I get back, I celebrate. It sounds nuts. It is nuts. I am a person who has done a number of quite seriously scary things in life, including launching and editing a major magazine for Rupert Murdoch. I don’t say this to brag, just to explain that in certain ways, I am fearless. And here I am, high on happiness because I managed to drive a car.

I never enjoyed driving, and learned late, but friends recall how I used to bat around town, seemingly without a care in the world. It was when I became pregnant that the trouble began. At first, it was no more than a vague anxiety — the world seemed to be an increasingly dangerous place. The fear really took hold when my daughter was born. When she was tiny, I could hardly get myself into a car, let alone drive one. I can only think that this was associated with my terror that Molly might die. I think all new mothers feel this but I believe that my fear was particularly bad because I had seen a very close friend suffer the loss of her child, aged six months, through cot death. I have never witnessed so much pain and I never want to again. I can only assume — and this is the most amateur self-analysis — that I some­how transferred my fear to the car.

I don’t understand it, but then phobias aren’t really understood. They exist, but nobody really knows why. What is known is that you develop an unreasonable and excessive fear of a particular situation but at the same time you know it’s unreasonable. It is very tiring, attempting to reason with the unreason­able. People ask me what it is I fear. I don’t know. I try to explain that it’s not driving that I fear; it is the fear that I feel when I drive that I fear. You see how it can drive you nuts?

Shape Up

Former ballet dancer Dreas Reyneke has been teaching Pilates since the Seventies. Now, clients like Juliette Binoche and Martin Amis wax lyrical about his teaching. His new book, Ultimate Pilates, sees him committing his philosophy to paper.

Lotta Bottle

Florence Gunnarson created bespoke fragrances for a select clientele of Thirties Hollywood starlets and It-girls. Each had access to her private, unrepeatable phone number—the only way to get their hands on her products. Gunnarson’s five vintage bath oils are now available to buy­ hand-blended and packaged as before, and still extremely special.

Perfect Partners

Make-up artist Linda Cantello has joined the Yves Saint Laurent fold. She is helping to develop the label’s range and is responsible for fabulous summer colours that come in sexy packaging designed by Tom Ford. Partnerships don’t come much cooler.

Brow Wow

Eyebrow tattooist Sophie Thorpe has developed three products to soothe, protect and enhance the eyebrows post-treatment. All of them contain lavender for its healing properties.

Brush Strokes

If applying foundation with your fingers feels too much like hard work, then do as make-up artists do and use a brush. Invest in Ruby & Millie’s Demi-matte Base: it’s a chunky, foundation-filled pen (designed by Mitsubishi) that deposits the product directly on the brush end, allowing you to create a totally professional finish.

Beauty Flash – Take Art

Can’t find the make-up colour you’re after? Create it yourself with new paints.

Now that Christian Dior, MAC, Mary Quant, Chanel and Three Custom Color have launched clever make-up paints mimicking an artist’s set of gouches and oils, the possibilities are limitless. From creating an eyeshadow to match your favourite dress, to putting an end to the search for that long-lost lip colour, these new colours are so versatile, they’re sure to become dressing-table staples. Get messy and don’t be afraid to experiment.