Anyone notice any mental health effects that driving hgv a lot may exacurbate? Any symptoms in yourself?
Not at all, the voices in my head tell me everything is fine, so that is good enough for me.
My imaginary friend in my passenger seat was just saying the same in fact the other day, .
As long as I carry my bible,.wear my crucifix, and have my collection of various knives at hand in my locker, I know I m safe from anything anyhow.
So basically nothing to worry about from my end, no effects whatsoever,.everything’s cool. 
Are you talking to me?
Is getting increasingly fed up with the antics of others on the road a sign of mental issues, especially when some of the most stupid antics are performed by our highly trained and test certifed brethren in other lorries.
If so i went gaga donkeys years ago, but have found the answers to staying out of care in the community, hang well back, assume everyone else is an idiot, and set your cruise control to a speed several clicks below your limited max and let the world go to hell, as it surely is.
For those on nights out, getting away from the bloody lorry for several hours and stop stopping in bloody roadside laybys where you lock yourself inside for 9 hrs only to resume maximising…for trampers maybe once a week or fortnight treating yourself to a reasonable hotel or B&B to get away from the vehicle would help make the job, this latter method i found i looked forward to a comfortable normal human being restover with ensuite shower or bath and room to breathe.
Its a rush job Pete,
Youll have to put the hammer down.
Let’s just say that given the choice between double manning or single I and most others would choose the latter.
Let alone the idea of getting off the road and out of the truck and working in a factory or a warehouse with others for the supposed benefit of your health.
The job ( hopefully ) involves lots of hours spent driving with just your own company just like numerous other jobs like driving a train.
Some can’t hack the lifestyle while others prefer it and thrive on it.That’s nothing new.
I can say that the closest I ever came to clinical depression was being shut up working in a factory 8-9 hours 5 days a week in the company of lots of others and luckily for me my guvnors knew it.
While at my happiest driving with an open road ahead of me and decent scenery around me and that was just for my holidays.
JeffA:
Anyone notice any mental health effects that driving hgv a lot may exacurbate? Any symptoms in yourself?
Surely it’s the sitting alone that may exacerbate any problem, rather than driving an HGV?
Personally I relish the solitude most of the time. I have a low tolerance of idiots
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JeffA:
Its a rush job Pete,Youll have to put the hammer down.
JeffA:
Anyone notice any mental health effects that driving hgv a lot may exacurbate? Any symptoms in yourself?
Definitely.
Last month (driving a 12T Man TGL) for 20 hours a week (no not a typo) delivering beer to largely the same 4 drops I’d done 100+ times before I wasn’t spending much time on here.
THIS Month, 3 weeks (and 4 nights out) and about 160 hours into my new Class 1 job, I find myself more and more sucked back into this Forum/Madhouse, so my long term Mental Health outlook definitely looking a bit dodgy.
Still at least now I’m much less likely to die of boredom.
We all have to put the hammer down peter…
Please put it down!!;
Monkey241:
Personally I relish the solitude most of the time. I have a low tolerance of idiotsSent from my SM-G981B using Tapatalk
^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^
Unfortunately this includes most people
I am not a people person and relish the solitude and look forward to time on my own
Juddian:
Is getting increasingly fed up with the antics of others on the road a sign of mental issues, especially when some of the most stupid antics are performed by our highly trained and test certifed brethren in other lorries.
If so i went gaga donkeys years ago, but have found the answers to staying out of care in the community, hang well back, assume everyone else is an idiot, and set your cruise control to a speed several clicks below your limited max and let the world go to hell, as it surely is.For those on nights out, getting away from the bloody lorry for several hours and stop stopping in bloody roadside laybys where you lock yourself inside for 9 hrs only to resume maximising…for trampers maybe once a week or fortnight treating yourself to a reasonable hotel or B&B to get away from the vehicle would help make the job, this latter method i found i looked forward to a comfortable normal human being restover with ensuite shower or bath and room to breathe.
Agree entirely with first paragraph Juddian, some stuff you see today makes you wonder how some iof these ■■■■ s passed their truck test,
I’ve been off this week and done a lot of driving in my car…it’s a ■■■■ good job I ain’t nervous on the road, I’ve had it all this week, including the d/head sat right on my back bumper for no reason, where I had absolutely nowhere to go ,.and not entirely knowing what he thought I was doing wrong,.(nothing,.trust me) and exactly wtf he expected me to do. 
Anyhoo I digress, but for the record I still managed to keep my sanity…I think. 
As for paragraph 2, Tramping…again could not agree more,.sitting in a cab like some of em you see sat in their passenger seats entirely bored with life,.doing the straight ahead ‘death stare’ whilst actually willing 11 hours (or mostly in their case 9 hours) to tick over, night after ■■■■ night,.parked in a lay by or worst case scenario …an MSA 
, really would tip me right over the edge (do you remember that vid ''Men who sleep on trucks?,.a classic example of how NOT to do tramping, and what it can do to your mental health and well being.
As for your point about sleeping out,… as much as I love staying in a nice clean hotel (as I have been this week on a break with the Mrs) it has NEVER bothered me sleeping in a cab,.as long as it us comfortable and well equipped with home comforts.
I look upon it as a small motor home, and you know people PAY to hire them and do what we do.
Maybe I’m a bit of a loner ,.a free soul, or a descendant of the old ‘saddletramp’ type cowboy I stopped short of saying gypsy btw. , but you know what I mean.
It always amuses me the ''sleeping in a tin box ’ analogy you often get on here, my reaction is always a bemused … ‘‘Yeh?..so what’’
Hey just realised maybe my reaction to sleeping in a truck cab actually proves the job has got to me after all these years, and I actyally AM mad because of it.
I’ve always found the solitude to be one of the most enjoyable bits of the job: you, the truck, the open road, the phone set to silent or switched off, CDs/MP3s/Audiobooks/Radio 4 at hand - marvellous!
Drugs and drinks usually helps
I went into HGV driving so I could be on my own all the time. People drain me very quickly. For me, one of the golden nuggets of the pandemic has been not sitting in RDC waiting rooms for the past 18 months. My mental health was never poor, but something in me has certainly improved during that time.
Zac_A:
you, the truck, the open road,
^ The definition of the job of a truck driver and why most want to do the job.
Zac_A:
I’ve always found the solitude to be one of the most enjoyable bits of the job: you, the truck, the open road, the phone set to silent or switched off, CDs/MP3s/Audiobooks/Radio 4 at hand - marvellous!
A man after my own heart!
Sitting alone on a cab is child’s play.
Currently sitting in a small tent…in the rain…on my own…pursuing a fish that I’m not totally sure,exists.
■■■■■■ off
Airfreight Manchester to Heathrow 5 nights a week. I still avoid the M40 to this day unless absolutely necessary.
Boring boring boring.
Tedious and mindnumbing.
Warrington to Uddingston 5 nights a week decent run summer and spring come the winter it’s a different story.
My heart would sink after the Blackpool split as it was lights out .
Then you would lose the radio signal .
Get depressed thinking about it,
Having time to think is great but 9 10 11 hours 5 nights a week was too much for me to spend thinking doing nothing other than sitting on the limiter for hours on end.
I got off nights wasn’t doing me any good mentally.
Wasted hours as far as I’m concerned.