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Hello,
When were feeling anxious, we can worry about different things. We often want to avoid situations we're not used to. But sometimes thats not possible. Avoiding things doesnt usually make the anxiety go away, and sometimes it can make the anxiety grow.
Usually its better to find ways to cope with your anxiety so you can get on with day to day things without it affecting everything else. Im wondering if there are things you can do to manage your anxiety to help you get through the taxi ride to school.
Perhaps you can come up with a taxi plan. This could be a set of ideas for what you will do before the taxi ride and during the ride. For example, before the taxi arrives, you might want to do some relaxation breathing. You also could do that during the taxi ride, if you think it might be helpful.
Another idea is to figure out how you might distract yourself during the ride. Maybe bring along something like a puzzle or a pad for doodling or drawing. Another idea is to look out the window, but do something like count backwards in your head. All of these ideas are about distracting your mind from anxious thoughts.
Finally, as part of your plan, you may want to keep a diary record (on a piece of paper or on your phone) of the date of each taxi ride youve taken and what happened. It sounds like at the end of each ride you arrived at school safely, but you can keep track of that. Sometimes its really helpful to remind yourself when things have worked out okay in the past, so that some of your worries can lessen over time.
Im sure you can be creative and come up with your own, personal plan and it may be that talking to one of our counsellors the day before a taxi ride might give you some extra support.
Take care,
Sam
You can talk privately to a counsellor online or call 0800 1111 for free.
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