So many things send me into panic attacks or trigger flashbacks that it's extremely difficult to live my life normally.  There are some partyers next door tonight, and the University is having a celebration, so it's to be expected.  But for some reason, the sounds outside the windows sent me into a wild panic.  I took my meds, and it went away, but I don't want it to happen in the first place.  Why should I have to be a slave to my own anxiety?  It's absurd.  Practically, though, I have no idea how to make it stop or even to make it slow down.   Bah humbug.

What happened: That summer I decided to drive to Florida to visit my parents.  It’s a 28 hour drive.  The whole way there was safe and exciting.  I drove and my friend/boyfriend, Travis, was the passenger.  When we got there, after a few days we were going to visit one of my Florida friends.   We had to take the interstate to get to her nearby town.  In that part of the state most of the ground is actually sand, and there was sand all over the road.  I was driving south in the left lane, and tried to merge into the center lane.  At the same time, someone else tried to merge from the right lane.  Did I mention Florida drivers are really ballsy?  Well, I had to swerve to avoid him.  Actually, I’m not sure if it was a him.  Anyway, my car swerved, hit a patch of sand on the road, and spun out of control.  The median was actually a 10 foot drop from the road on both sides.  The car flipped end over end 3 times before lodging itself nose-down in the sand in the median.  The back window was crushed, the roof was crushed, and the engine was crushed.  We had been following my Florida friend, and she saw my car flip in the rear-view mirror.  She later told me she had to pull over and throw up because she thought I was dead.  The ass who swerved into me didn’t stop. 

 

How I felt:  When the car was flipping, I wasn’t sure what was happening.  I knew we had gone off the road, but I hadn’t seen how deep the median was.  I had closed my eyes to keep the sand from them when the back window busted out.  Travis said he kept his eyes open the whole time.  When we landed, I said, “I’m okay.  Are you ok?  I’m okay.”  I just kept repeating that.  It didn’t occur to me that I might be injured and I should stay put, so I got out.  Travis had to get out on my side because the door was crushed on the passenger side.  I felt unreal and dazed.  I remember looking around at all the lights, being confused, and just walking around.  I assume someone called the state troopers and 911 because they showed up.  They chastised me about walking around, and put me on a stabilizing board and neck brace.  I was confused about why they didn’t make Travis do the same.  Later, I saw that the car’s roof had crushed around my head, and Travis is 7 inches shorter than me.  I felt relief when people started arriving to help, because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.  I just kind of stared around. 

 

 

The troopers called my family, and my mom freaked (like I thought she would).  The degree of her freak out really bothered me.  It was as if she was mad at me for getting hurt.  I know she just cared, but what it did was cause me to put my own feelings in a box and pretend it was nothing just to soothe her.  That’s why, I think, I’m having problems with PTSD around the event now, because I never dealt with it.  My little brother was 13 at the time, and we didn’t really get along since we’re 6 years apart.  But that night, he really showed me he cared about me.  Without being asked to, he walked back a mile and retrieved my purse and its entire contents scattered about the median (it had been in the back seat and had flown out with the flips).  It was really thoughtful.  I think I’ll always remember that.

 

 

Then:  They put me on the stabilizing board, put me in the ambulance, and I must have passed out because I woke up in the ER with all the curtains drawn around me.  I had even been unconscious through the MRI’s, X-rays, and various tests.  When I woke up, Travis was with me.  He explained to me what had happened, since I hadn’t really been coherent at the site of the accident.  I started crying and kept saying, “I love you.”  I meant it like,  “You’re my friend and I’m so glad you’re here with me right now to keep me sane,”  but he took it literally.  That made me more upset because I couldn’t get him to understand what I was saying.  I guess I still wasn’t making sense.

 

The tests all came back, and the results were that I was perfectly healthy.  I didn’t have a scratch on me.  I had a bruise in the middle of my back (weird) and a stinger (when your head gets pushed down and hurts your muscles) and a concussion, but other than that I was just dirty from all the sand.  God was definitely watching and helping me. 

 

Conclusion:  I shouldn’t have survived.  I shouldn’t have gotten out without injuries.  But I am blessed.  This makes me feel not peaceful, but more afraid.  For a few years I believed my blasé attitude about the accident.  When I started thinking more in-depth about it, I got scared.  I don’t want to die.  And I remember the driving that led up to it.  That swerve could have happened to anyone, it’s that common.  Now when I drive I’m excruciatingly intensely hypervigilant, and when other people drive riskily I get upset. 

 

This is just one of my many car accidents.  I have own several cars in my 8 years of driving (I’m 24) and totaled all but the current one.

 

1 – got smashed by another car (T-boned)

2– Flipped 3 times

3 – Transmission exploded

4 – Snow/slush/ice country accident – hit an electrical conduit

5 – (no accident, the engine just stopped working)

6 – fingers crossed!

 

Coping skills I demonstrated:  I suppose dissociating and ignoring one’s emotions can be technically classified as coping skills, since that’s what I did, but it wasn’t healthy.  One good thing I did was to get us out of the car as soon as it stopped moving.  The paramedics yelled at me for it but I’m glad I did it.  The engine had just been smashed, our airbags hadn’t gone off, and I knew there was a chance the car could ignite.  I went into action automatically to prevent that.  I even sat us well away from the car in case it exploded (it didn’t).  Looking back at my other accidents I didn’t do as well in acting automatically, but maybe I just need to examine them like this, too. 

 

What I feel now:  scared (for myself back in 2003), worried (that it will happen again), angry (that no one thought I needed help for my near-death experience), sad (that I let my mom’s emotions rule my own), terrified (when I have random flashbacks of the event to this day). 

 

So maybe writing all this down will make the flashbacks of that event stop.  I doubt it, but I can’t think of anything else to work.  Does anyone know any strategies or resources for PTSD sufferers that’s not related to veterans?  I’ve got PTSD for like 18 different events in my life.  I hope if I tackle one at a time they will eventually dissipate.

 

My therapy assignment:   Did I prove myself capable, resourceful, and all that?  What do you people think?