[E_Hyde]

Here's a question for my fellow sufferers of anxieties and phobias:

Have you had an anxiety or phobia which was originally confined to something very specific, but gradually, over time, came to expand and include other related things?

If so, how did you cope with it? Are you able to make it "reverse course?"

The reason I ask is because I have an intense anxiety when driving, as I described in another thread. I can handle calm country roads, but in even a little traffic I become terrified.

Originally, from the time I learned to drive in my late teens, this was the extent of it. But in just the past few years (in my mid to late 20s) I've noticed that I've felt bouts of panic and anxiety hitting me when in heavy traffic even when I'm a passenger, not the driver. This never happened before.

Does anyone have an similar experience, and if so, how did you deal with it? Does anyone have any advice for stopping this "expanding" anxiety?