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I Should Not Drive When I Don’t Feel Well

I’ve noticed a correlation between my driving and how overloaded I am feeling.

When I am overloaded the sun is a little too bright even behind the clouds, my focus is divided, I miss my turns, and become jumpy when I hear car horns honk. I always feel like they are honking at me because I missed something I should have noticed on the road.

But the number one thing I’ve noticed about when I’m not feeling quite right is that I tend to”bump”things. I bump the trash can on my way out of the parking spot; I bump the tree when backing up, and most often I misjudge my turns, either taking them too wide or cutting them too close, and I bump the curb.

Well, today I left the house for my doctors appointment and I was feeling terrible. Every smell in the house was overwhelming me causing my gag reflex to go into over drive.

I got in the car nauseous, and flustered from wrestling Tantrum Tot into the van. It was extremely cloudy out today but was still too bright for me, so I slipped on my shades.

After two missed turns on the way to my mother’s house with only one block to go to drop off the little guy, I was forced to cut the last turn too tight. Of course I “bumped”the curb with my back tire. This was the result:

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Yup, blew out the tire. Drove one block to my mother’s house on this thing where I was stranded.

In my defense there was a car taking up both sides of the road which caused me to have to turn so close to the curb, but that bump should not have blown out the tire, not if the tire was any good in the first place.

We are terrible at all things maintenance related, which includes remembering to take notice of things like the conditions of tires, or the last time we had the oil changed.

How do”normal”people remember all of the many details to navigate life without always living on the brink of chaos anyway?

Seemingly simple things like changing the oil in the car regularly feels an impossible task. I usually don’t realize I need to change it until the flashing oil light comes on, or when I suddenly remember that almost a year had gone by since the last time I visited the jiffy lube.

Upon examining my tire,I realized that it was completely worn down with no thread left whatsoever. My other rear tire looked the same and had almost no air! How have I been able to drive with tires like this? It’s probably a good job that I’ve noticed it now as this could get very dangerous, not just for me, but for other people around me too. My friend regularly gets her MINI Cooper serviced by this MINI Cooper repair in Norcross and they always make sure that her car is safe enough to drive. I definitely need to consider doing the same as I don’t want to be driving in a car that has a lot of problems, especially when it concerns the tires.

It occurred to me that I haven’t changed a tire, or even thought about a tire on my van since October…not the one that just passed either, October of 2011!

Jeannie Davide-Rivera

Jeannie is an award-winning author, the Answers.com Autism Category Expert, contributes to Autism Parenting Magazine, and the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. She lives in New York with her husband and four sons, on the autism spectrum.

8 Comments:

  1. Hi I have linked to your blog in my blog post about driving and executive function. Hope you don’t mind. http://disabilityableismautismandmotherhood.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/executive-function-and-driving.html

  2. Seriously, this is so me. Ask my husband, I am always comming home with new dents and scratches on my vehicle. Once I even forgot to shut the car off when I went shopping. I did however remember to lock the car. Luckily the hatch back was unlocked and my daughter crawled through to unlock doors. Your not alone.

  3. Pingback: Aspie Exhaustion from Driving? | Aspie Writer

  4. I know this feeling. I liked your line about always living on the brink of chaos. So true for me. Always noticing what I should and forgetting what I shouldn’t (e.g.- a coat when its cold) and I’m always banging into corners.

    • The brink of chaos drives me bonkers I have to admit, but I can’t seem to live any place else. And what it is about those corners anyway? I wind up with so many bruises on my thighs and hips, the back of my arms…half the time I don’t remember what I ran into. I’m just all bruised up.

  5. yeah i have issues too, though ive never bumped anything. i do have trouble with curbs, i either park too far away or try to park too close. my perspective is off while driving, i KNOW that no vehicle takes up the entire lane, but i feel like they do. LOLmy husband went to school and was qualified as a mechanic. these things are always on his mind. in fact, our car is currently sitting in the garage, as it has been since snow flew, because he says the tires arent good enough to drive in the snow. as in, not at all, i guess. i would never notice these things. he usually changes our oil, and knows when to do it. i seriously would never think of these things. they arent “important” to me, so they just never cross my mind. drives my hubby nuts that i dont check the oil, but honestly, its not something i ever ever think about 😛

    • You hit the nail right on the head so to speak. I never ever think of it! There are just too many other things to keep in my mind and juggle all at once. How do people do it?

      Unfortuately my ADD hubby does not do well with maintaining things or remember either…what a pair huh? He will drive the car until the tires fall off and the engine seizes before realizing or remembering to do something about it!

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