It’s 10:41 on a Friday night. I’ve had a surprisingly busy/productive day considering I was in bed ALL day yesterday, trying to recover from bumping my head, awful turbulence on all three of my flights the night before, and an insanely busy week out of town, that I pushed myself too HARD in every way imaginable.
I would much rather be crawling into bed instead of sitting down at my computer, but I’ve got some words, and these words jus’ have to be said, ya know what I’m sayin’? So here we are.
This morning, I ran out the door and hopped in my van. Yes, I said van. I just got this beaut two weeks ago…and while I feel like a soccer mom minus the “mom,” I’m LOVING the space for all my ridiculous things I need to drag around.
And side note, while shopping tonight…I found the MOTHER LOAD of all sales. Usually, space is an issue in my small car. But tonight? No problem in my VAN. All these bags will fit nicely in the back with the seats folded down. Oh wait, I have to pick up a large lamp from a sweet Facebook Marketplace find on my way home from all that shopping? No biggie, toss her in.
(Also, I feel it’s necessary to let you know that I do, in fact, still have my car. I don’t want to completely lose all credibility here. I’m still cool, I swear! Haha.)
Back to the story at hand.
As I’m driving down the road, I get a text…I open it and -- WAIT. To be clear, I’m on a back country road, that’s DIRT, and there’s no one around for miles.
Okay, so I open the text. It’s from a friend of mine. I like to keep my personal life separate from my writing life…so we’ll call this fella Jeff.
Now, mind you I’ve been traveling this past week…all my days are running together. For instance, I thought yesterday was Wednesday. Anyway, not even knowing what day it was, LET ALONE THE DATE, I read the message. It said, “been a bad morning.” Okay, nothing too out of the ordinary, we often share our struggles if we need some support.
It then goes on to say, “Trying to find a rental to get back home.” Immediately my spidey senses start tingling. That’s NOT ordinary.
I then get another text, a picture this time. And it’s of the back of his vehicle smashed in.
Let’s pause for a minute. For those of you who don’t know, I was in a car accident four years ago. I was rear-ended and it literally ended my life as I knew it.
Now, for those of you who also don’t know, when one has a life-altering accident happen, there’s a bit of, let’s say, PTSD that comes along with that accident. For instance, the fear of being in a car. The fear of driving down the road. The fear of other drivers on the road. The fear of someone else hitting you…AGAIN. The fear of a rando hitting someone in your circle of people. Soooo, there’s all that.
I don’t know about anyone else that’s experienced my injury via a car accident…but for me, literally just thinking too hard about my accident, OR driving down the road and passing an accident, OR seeing/hearing a car crash in a movie, OR seeing pictures of a vehicle that was in an accident is EXTREMELY triggering.
I don’t want it to be that way. I try to fight it…but yeah, my mind kinda grows a mind of its own and does its PTSD thing. I get super emotional, I can’t catch my breath, I get an immediate headache, I fatigue super quickly, my brain gets foggy, I can’t stop thinking about it, sometimes for several hours…ect, etc, etc.
Okay, resuming the story.
So, another follow-up text comes through. “Got rear-ended this morning.”
And it all clicks. This guy, that’s been a huge part of my life for the last 3.5 years was just rear-ended. Is he okay? Is he in the hospital? I hope he went and got checked out. I’m quickly doing a mental inventory of all his past injuries to calculate the probability of him, if he hit his head or even just got whiplash, ending up with an injury like mine.
What would he do if he did get PCS (post-concussion syndrome)? How would he work? He has a very physical job. His daughter. Shoot. This is going to impact her in a terrible way if he is hurt like my injury. Will he be able to get through what I went through? Okay, but at least I know how to lead him through healing from a rear-ending injury. And he could probably heal quicker than I am because we’ll know what to do and in what order, what doctors to go to immediately, etc.
Literally, that all ran through my head in probably 10 seconds. I looked at the picture of the car again and started tearing up. How could this be happening?
Not knowing what to do, it finally occurred to me I needed to call him and make sure he did go to the hospital, even if he didn’t feel injured. Make sure he didn’t need anything. Or if there was anything I could do.
So, I call. And he answers. Okay, thank God.
I don’t even remember exactly what I said, but I know I started asking questions. Was he okay? did he go to the hospital? He said yes. I asked if he had gotten x-rays of his neck. He said yes and it’s all jacked up. At this point I’m on the verge of panic. This is what I feared. Even just whiplash can wreak havoc on a body especially that’s been primed with past injuries.
He then started saying something about the paperwork they had him fill out when he got to the hospital. And something about what the date was. I stopped him and said, “what?” He repeated it. And I was like, April 1st? And it dawned on me. I said, “is this APRIL FOOLS?!?!?!?” And he starts laughing. I don’t remember the next few exchanges. All I know is there was quite a bit more laughing on his part and he said he’d call me on his way home from work.
I literally said, “You’re a jerk,” and hung up the phone.
Side note, I don’t hang up on people. To say I was mad is quite an understatement.
The tears I had been fighting spilled down my cheeks. I was trying to convince myself that this awful thing that I thought had just happened was just a joke. But my brain wasn’t having it. It was full fledge into flight or fight mode in all its glory. Headache? Check. Pounding heart? Check. Brain fog? Check. Feeling ridiculously emotional? Check.
I kept trying to shake the all-too-familiar feelings that a situation like this brings up. But once you’re there, you’re there.
I was so freaking mad him. I went from being so concerned for him to pissed off beyond belief in about 3.2 seconds.
A short while later, I sent him a nastygram, which, in my opinion, he kinda deserved. I know he felt bad and explained that he had sent that to several people, and it just didn’t occur to him that I would relate it to my situation and be upset by it. Okay, sure. I’ll give him a little credit there. He hasn’t been through what I’ve been through. He doesn’t know what that does to a person in my situation. Okay, fine.
Aside from the already spoken of PTSD triggers, here’s the other reason I was upset.
Jeff has been apart of my journey almost since the beginning of the accident.
You know what’s worse than having PCS? The thought of having to watch a close friend have PCS. The thought of a random person, carelessly taking their life from them by hitting them just like they did to me. Knowing all the struggles, pain, frustration, deep sorrow, the loss. How hard it is to fight your way back to healing and to life. The heartbreak of missing out on EVERYTHING. Missing out on moments you won’t get a do-over on when you are healed so you can have those memories with your loved ones. Knowing the sadness of not being able to do the things you love. Having your independence taken from you. Needing to be cared for because you no longer can.
I would rather go through PCS AGAIN, than to watch a loved one experience this. I know I can do it. I have done it. But I cannot, CANNOT imagine sitting by and knowing exactly what they’re going through, knowing there’s a part of this journey they must travel alone. And how utterly dark and lonely it can be. I wouldn’t wish this injury on my worst enemy, let alone someone I cared about.
Excuse me while I go get the tissues. This is tough to write about.
So, yes. I was pissed. I was pissed that I was brought to this place of fear for him all in the name of a laugh. I was pissed that symptoms came back after I finally felt a little better from my setback this past week and I finally was getting a little reprieve my AWFUL headache yesterday.
I was pissed my flight or fight was kicked into overdrive. I was pissed I was using such a large amount of energy to deal with all the rush of emotions, fear and panic for him…only to find out it was a joke and that I then needed to spend MORE energy calming myself down. I was also pissed because I knew my battery started out low this morning and I didn’t have energy to waste…I was hoping to be somewhat productive today without completely tanking.
I spent the next few hours in a crabby, crabby mood. I eventually got over it and even tried to call him tonight to make sure we were good and to smooth things over.
I know he didn’t intend to upset me. I know he was just thinking of the good laugh he was hoping we’d both get out of it.
But can I just say, for those of you who haven’t gone through a horrible, life-altering accident, be gentle with those of us who have. We can’t joke about people we love getting hurt, because to us, it’s the difference between living and just surviving. It’s raw. It’s real. And it hurts us to think of you experiencing what we have experienced.
My life, as I knew it, ended the day of my accident. And I’ve spent four years…FOUR YEARS, trying to put it back together. Four years that I would rather have spent doing the things that I love to do, instead of things that I “need” to do in hopes that someday I’ll heal and get to do the things I love to do again.
Yep, we’re overly sensitive about it. Yep, we’ll get irrationally mad when someone’s safety and wellbeing is joked about. Yep, our PTSD will shine through with the brightest of colors. Heck, we may even seem a little crazy at times.
I know it’s one of those things that you can’t fully understand unless you’ve experienced it. But I hope this helps you somewhat imagine what it’s like for us. And just know, if given the chance, we’d take a PCS bullet for you.
- L
