Hodophobia

On the eve of the second major snowfall in less than a week, I thought I'd write a little about the hodophobia I apparently suffer from. My daughter diagnosed me at the dinner table a couple of weeks ago when I cancelled plans, due to the snow, disappointing myself and others.

Here are the 9 symptoms of hodophobia taken from wrongdiagnosis.com:

• Irrational fear of travel
• Feeling of panic
• Feeling of terror
• Feeling of dread
• Rapid heartbeat
• Shortness of breath
• Trembling
• Anxiety
• Extreme avoidance measures taken

Taking a look at these, I can make a strong case against having this. I definitely don't have an irrational fear of travel altogether. I'll get on a bus, a train, even a plane, no problem. I love to drive. Give me a beautiful day, an open road, some good tunes and I'm am happy as a pig in you-know-what. I look forward to those days. Add torrential downpours, snow, or dark, winding, unfamiliar roads and that's when my fear sets in. I won't call it irrational, because to me, it's entirely rational.

I definitely don't experience panic, terror, dread, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, or trembling. But that's due to symptom #9. I won't drive when any of the above conditions are present, so I don't experience symptoms 2-7.

Do I take 'extreme avoidance measures'? Depends on your definition of extreme. Have I cancelled plans due to the weather? Yes. Have I rearranged an entire weekend trip, spent a fortune on trains, and added hours to my travel time just so I didn't have to drive in the rain? Guilty.

In my defense, this all started after a bad accident in the snow, where I hit a patch of ice and flew across a 4 lane expressway, taking down a couple of other cars with me, and thinking I had just murdered my entire family.

Post traumatic stress disorder? Ok, so maybe I have hodophobia limited to driving and bad weather conditions. I wonder if there's a specific word for that. If I had to leave the house in the next couple of days to find out, well then, hodophobia it is.