I haven't really been advertising this, so a lot of my friends and family are still kind of finding out and bombarding me with questions and concerns (which I do appreciate, by the way), but I figured it was time to turn to the one thing I can always count on to help me work through some trying times: writing. I was recently in a pretty serious car accident and it's kind of been rocking my world ever since - and not in the party rock kinda way, more like I'm on a boat in the middle of the ocean where the waves won't stop tossing me around until I finally heave over the side and.. puke.
This was the most serious car accident I've ever been involved in. I was in one back in high school where we slid out on some ice on the highway and hit the center median. It was scary and we were really shook up but there was no serious injuries and the car was still mostly drivable. We mostly were just scared. And before anyone starts making those annoying women drivers jokes I can't stand, I have always been a
passenger in a serious crash, never the driver. Just figured I should note that before we carry on.
Anyways, this accident was not like anything I've ever been involved in. We got T-boned by someone running a red light. He was also driving with
no car insurance and a suspended license. The car I was in was impacted twice and we spun across the intersection for about 40 feet before we came to a stop. The car was obviously totaled, the drivers side doors wouldn't open, there was gas and glass all over the street and shortly after we stopped moving I went into survival mode and just bolted from the car.
But let me back up for a second. After the first impact, as the car was spinning, even to this second when I think back to it I remember it being in slow motion. I remember looking up and seeing a red light in front of me, and the headlights of the car that hit us in my peripheral vision. I closed my eyes and remember seeing a bunch of things while the car continued to spin. Not like my life was flashing before my eyes, but kind of. All these random memories started popping into my head from high school diving and my college graduation and Ryan and Connor and Disneyland and the kids I babysit for. I don't know why but my mind was spinning with the car and as soon as it stopped I started to panic.
I knew my body had just been rocked but I couldn't tell what had happened until I fled the car. My leg was throbbing and my head was pounding inside my skull. This big black couple that had witnessed the accident was standing in the street helping us out of the car and I don't remember how I got there, but I ended up in this lady's arms sobbing. I was panic stricken, hyperventilating, and my head was still spinning. I couldn't think of what to do or where I was or who I was with. I was only thinking about getting away from where I was, so I ran. I ran into the parking lot of a Walgreen's and sat down. I went through the thought process of who to call. 911? My parents? The people whose house we'd just come from? I was in Florida. I knew nobody. My parents were across the country. I could hear sirens already on their way. So I called the only other person whose number I had to come rescue me from this hell I couldn't even fully comprehend yet. My entire body was in shock and I didn't know where I was except I knew I didn't want to be there anymore.
The ambulance came and immediately started drilling me with questions - what's your address? Phone number? Birthday? Where's your ID card? Is this address current? Are you on vacation? How old are you? Height? Weight? Are you sure that's your birthday? Do you have an insurance card? I couldn't THINK! All the questions made me start to panic until I just became hysterical and started screaming about the throbbing pain in my leg and how I needed to get my pants off right this second because I was sure I was bleeding underneath. They finally could see that I couldn't handle the obscene amount of questions they were asking me so they took me in the ambulance and let me rip my pants off to find that my leg was really banged up. Then they proceeded to ask more questions about if I wanted to go to the hospital or sign a release and go later. At this point I couldn't make a decision to save my life (literally) so I just broke down crying until someone told me what I was supposed to do. All of this happened so fast I just couldn't think, and all the while my mind just kept flooding with these images of spinning in the car and high school diving and graduation and Ryan and Connor and Disneyland and Sophie and Nick.
The time period between sitting in the ambulance and arriving at the hospital a couple hours later is just a blur now. I don't remember how I got there, I just knew I was going. I called my parents from the bathroom and just cried. I just wanted them there with me but they were so far out of my reach and there was nothing I could do to make them closer. I had to do this alone, stuck in my own head. I had to make decisions for myself and I didn't know what the right decisions were. I felt like a child needing to be told what to do because I was incapable of making any decisions by myself.
I felt like a fucking child.
We waited at the hospital for a long time until I was put in a room where the doctor started questioning me again about the accident. The details were blurred by all the spinning and I just did my best to recall what had happened, while new images of the accident kept flooding in. No airbags deployed. I just remembered. My neck snapped back and I slammed my head on the side of the door. I just remembered. My foot is bleeding. There's a giant bruise on my arm. Probably from the seat belt. "It's not from the seat belt," the doctor told me.
(It was from the seat belt.)
I was put in a neck brace and taken back to get x-rays. First on my knee that was red and swelling up fast. Then on my neck. Then a cat scan on my head. Then I was placed on my bed in the hallway (didn't even get my own god damn room) to watch an old man who had had a stroke have his rectum examined. Front row seat into someone elses personal hell. Great. I was listening to the beeping of a machine in my left ear that they would not shut off. My head was pounding. I could feel my temples pulsing and no one would bring me advil. More questions. More insurance information. Stay in that neck brace until we get your results back. Listen to the beeping until you go insane. I was just in a car accident. My head would not leave me alone.
I started doing what I always do. Making light of the situation, trying to joke around with the nurses, anything to get myself out of this nightmare, but as soon as the first joke popped out I felt a lump swell up in my throat, and a week later this lump has yet to subside.
I constantly want to break down crying at what I saw in my head while the car was spinning. What I saw in the ambulance. What I felt when I hugged the big black lady that I'll never see again. When I think of what the car looked like. When I replay what the impact sounded like. I get ANGRY when I think of the other driver driving with no insurance and a suspended license and how he was NOT arrested on the spot. Thanks to him I have to now constantly deal with insurance agents calling me throughout the day with
more questions,
more information that I have to deal with. My head still hurts, my knee is still black and blue all down my leg, I can't turn my neck to the right. And yet these constant questions will not stop. The constant phone calls, the constant hugs people want to give me, the constant examining and touching of my leg, and the constant flashbacks of the spinning car. It makes me want to throw up and cry and scream like a crazy person. I'm constantly anxious and panicky ever since it happened.
The next few days I could barely walk. I couldn't talk without my voice quaking. I couldn't sleep. My entire body hurt from head to toe. I looked and felt like a mess and it scared me to the point where I would have given anything to be alone, just being able to deal with it in my own way. But instead I was across the country without the things I needed most: my parents, my cats, my bed.
I finally got home and I've been answering phone calls from my doctors and insurance companies ever since. Am I ok? ...do I sound ok? Physically, I'll hopefully be fine eventually. My leg is healing, but I'm back in chiropractic care twice a week for my neck. I'm eating and sleeping like semi-normal again. But my mental state is not as well. I'm in this hole that's caused me to re-evaluate my life and the choices I've been making. I'm looking at what's important to me and what's not. It's clear to me that I'm not happy with where I am and of course that's also been upsetting to me. I've been completely shaken by this and I don't feel like there's anything I can do except sleep and take alone time to just process everything until it goes away on it's own.
So yeah, I'm alive, if that's what you're asking. I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to get back to where I was before all this happened, but for now what I need is space and sleep and silence and my cat to just lay with me and let me pet him. I need to work through my own head before I can get out of it and get back to normal.
Thank you for all the thoughts and wishes you've sent my way. It means a lot to me to know I have friends out there who care about me, and I appreciate it so much.
