It was the most ordinary of trips with my 12-year-old son in the car. But I’ll never forget what happened next. I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to kill us …

Published: 21:53, 7 April 2026 | Updated: 21:53, 7 April 2026

It happened in November 2019. My mother had taken a stroke and she was really ill, my work was really busy and I was at that stage in life where the kids are in school and college and you're just juggling everything and trying to keep the scales balanced.

Having said that, life had always been like that. This attack came on suddenly.

I had no prior incidents leading up to it. I'd been driving on the motorway for years, both in Ireland and Europe.

A few weeks before, I drove from Limerick to Dublin airport to collect my daughter. I'd never had an issue with driving on the motorway.

I felt confident and I felt safe. Then one day in November 2019 that all changed.

I was travelling out the motorway to visit my mother, my usual route and my youngest son, who was about 12 at the time was beside me in the passenger seat.

I was about to overtake an articulated truck and I was half way up the side of the vehicle when I glanced in my rear view mirror and noticed a car coming up behind me.

This was all perfectly normal, we were both trying to do the same thing, overtake a slow-moving vehicle. But suddenly, and for no explicable reason, I felt trapped.

I had been in this position many times before, confidently overtaking cars and long vehicles but this particular day, I felt completely locked in.

My heart started to pound in my chest, my palms became sweaty, I was unable to grip the steering wheel and I felt as if I had no power in my body. My limbs felt as if they had turned to jelly.

I could not accelerate my car, my leg just wouldn't work. I wanted to give up control of the vehicle in the hope that an automatic pilot might take over but I knew that wasn't going to happen.

The car behind me was gaining speed, edging me forward.

But I loosened my grasp on the wheel and I eased my foot off the pedal and I felt the vehicle decelerate. The young woman in the car behind flashed her lights and sounded the horn but I just couldn't move forward.

I'm not sure what happened next. It's all a bit of a blur.

I must have slowed my pace because when I looked in the rear view mirror again the car behind me had moved back and this allowed me to indicate and change lanes so that I found myself behind the truck. The driver of the car glanced at me with a look of confusion before continuing on their journey.

I've since found out that the trapped feeling is one of the most common factors of motorway panic and it makes sense to me now

Moments later I pulled on to the hard shoulder and I flicked the hazard lights on. My heart was still racing and my body felt sluggish.

I had no idea what had just happened.

I glanced over at my son in the front passenger seat beside me. He had his headphones on and he was watching something on his phone and he was completely oblivious to what had just happened. But I thought that I was going to die.

I thought I was going to kill us both.

Slowly, my breathing returned to normal and eventually I got back on the road and took the next exit. I thought it was a one-off at that point. I visited my mother and on the way back I took the motorway.

But it happened again when I was passing a slip road.

A vehicle was coming up on my right trying to merge into traffic and the same feeling started to build and took a grip of my body. I lost power in my limbs, my heart raced and I thought we were going to collide with the merging vehicle.

I have not been able to drive on the motorway ever since and, thankfully, I have not had another panic attack. But I fear that it will happen again if I do venture onto roads with multi- lanes.

Initially I felt anger and disappointment in myself and I kept asking the question - why had this happened? What had caused it? Was there some underlying fear that I hadn't realised I had?

Now I find alternative routes.

I take the back roads, the rural country roads and the old national roads to get to my destination. I discovered a feature on google maps that allows you to find non-motorway routes. Quite often it takes twice as long but at least it allows me to travel.

I listen to the radio, I practice my breathing. Everything is planned so that it won't happen again.

I've since found out that the trapped feeling is one of the most common factors of motorway panic and it makes sense to me now. Motorways remove your usual sense of control because there are fewer exits, we can drive at a higher speed and there is no easy place to stop.

Your brain reads that you can't escape and therefore it thinks that you are in danger even though you're actually safe.

When I first started writing the Lana Bowen series I wanted to give her character a genuine struggle, something that people would relate to. She doesn't get panic attacks while driving, they happen to her when she finds herself alone and isolated.

When panic takes hold she has all these techniques to help her overcome the feeling. It's quite debilitating and she attends regular therapy but it allows her to live her life.

For Lana, she has experienced a deep-routed trauma and because she took time to face it head on, another one emerged.

The body keeps a score.

* Tell The Truth by Karen Fitzgibbon is out now published by Poolbeg