I get that, my safe place is riding my bike, I get stressed at any attempt to leave the house, but where going for a mile walk or driving a car (traffic jams, I melt down in traffic jams) is “painful”, riding my bike for 80 miles, is well, pleasant, when it was taken away from me it was a downward spiral, without some sort of validation, I ended up self harming and I took “an incorrect amount of medication”, it wasn’t on purpose, just trying feel something different, and it shocked me how somebody he feels “mentally stable”, reacted, pandemic hasn’t helped me either, 2 years of being told to stay at home, just validated my fears
Personnally, the best thing that I did was find somebody to speak to it about, I have a great counciller (started talking to her about 4 years ago) and she has put everything into context, it took me a while to actually be honest with her about my anxiety, but she has made me think about “blockers”, and what I want to do, and igore all the other stuff, I struggle with super markets (single, feel trapped by the trolly infront of me), I was a making a big deal about it in my head, the conversation with her, would basically be, don’t waste energy on that, get a home delivery, so you have the energy to ride you bike. I’ve done things for years to avoid situations, and she really making me think about what I want to do, and what is ok to avoid (if you don’t want to do it, don’t, just don’t invent blockers)
I get that so much, but is it why you started cycling, if you were to never go outside cycling, would you continue to train, after all, it is ok just to ride inside if that’s what you want to do, I make all the rides outside ones that I want to do, thursday chain gang, I tend to plan my Sunday long ride all week, so that it is something I want to do / go, rather than just “I’m riding for 4 hours”
I’d suggest talking to her, asking her if it’s ok and what time she would like you to get back by, what she is going to do when you are out, and is there anything she would like to go and do, just feeling selfish without addressing it, could just be a blocker
Again, sorry if my reply was off the mark, but if was even close, happy to talk, feel free to PM me if you feel like it, I’m not a expert on these things, just have my experiances