(no subject)
i don't want to have to explain to anyone why i'm back here. i don't even want to be here. but i don't know where else to go, who to call, who to email, who to talk to. jesus, i never thought i'd be here again. i thought i had moved on, was long gone, was well past all of this.
we were in a car accident about 6 weeks ago. no one was hurt, the car was hardly damaged. but it was really scary because it could have been really bad and it wasn't our fault at all.
since then i've been gradually getting more and more depressed. and then i started having nightmares, bits of flashbacks. in the car i am constantly terrified, whether i'm driving or she's driving. i flinch involuntarily all the time. it's embarrassing and ridiculous. dena gets mad at me because i scare her when i jump. to me it feels like something really bad is about to happen but rationally, afterward, i know nothing bad was going to happen. in that moment, i am absolutely convinced.
i don't know why it took me so long to put it together, that i was experiencing PTSD again. when you have a second, similar trauma, your PTSD response comes back faster than you expect. i didn't expect it at all. it makes since now. i just don't look fondly upon reliving the worst experience of my life. srsly.
i also found out that despite the fact that i saw therapists after the first accident, i never got the kind of treatment i should have. there are specific things you should do, therapeutically, with PTSD and none of the therapists i saw ever did any of that stuff. so i have an appt at the beginning of april to go see a therapist again, with the express intent of working on ptsd stuff. i am SO excited...or something.
i've been thinking about it a lot today and maybe i never really processed like i thought i did. i mean, i thought i had worked through everything and was, you know, good to go. i thought i was ok thinking about it or talking about it or whatever. i could tell the story and have some distance, some perspective. but today i saw a therapist and talked about it for an hour and a half and now i just feel dead inside. i was in a really good mood before i went to the appt. the sun was bright, it was a glorious 50 degrees, i had all sorts of ideas about how i wanted to spend the rest of the day: playing with my dog, going to bike-o-rama, watching a movie, playing shining force 2 on wii, cleaning the house before dena comes home. and instead i drove to the mall and wandered around for a while.
so what this all makes me think is maybe i just got busy, or found other things to think about. maybe i dealt with it the one was i never wanted to-- denial. let's just pretend it never happened. don't think about it, don't talk about, and it will be just like it never happened.
i could have gone on like that for a long time. the rest of my life maybe. one relatively harmless accident (it felt like we hit the snowbank hard but the airbags didn't even go off) and it's like so little time and distance has passed. i wake up remembering things i haven't remembered in years. i'm useless in the car. i startle myself awake in the middle of the night and am all over again convinced he's in the dark corner of the room.
speaking of, i don't know what it is that i think he's going to do. i mean, what is there to be so fucking scared of? it's not like he physically assaulted me. all he did was die. why am i so afraid?
the therapist i talked to today said i did a very good job of protecting myself that night. i never really thought of it that way. she also wonders if there are things i saw in the aftermath that i don't remember. i think that's pretty likely. she also said the whole experience had so many layers to it that it was very complex and that made it hard to deal with. i've never heard someone list it out like she did, and hearing from a virtual stranger's mouth, i thought, wow, holy shit, imagine having to deal with all that crap. like it didn't happen to me at all. but it did. i did experience all of it.
the actual accident itself, the cops, the glass, the flashing lights, the seemingly hostile bystanders and witnesses, my parents. then the next day, his death, the police report, the college calling me, and the ever-present never-ending instant replay of it in my head. then his family filing a claim with my insurance company, finding out his criminal history, his dad coming not once but twice to the school looking for me, strange hang-up calls almost every day b/t 4 and 4:30 from a 903 area code and a denison exchange. getting my cap and gown and finding out the dad had been back and lying about me and what happened, being whisked away as soon as my last exam was over, a campus police escort through the entire graduation ceremony, leaving as soon as we took pictures afterward, the phone calls to the vet clinic, having to quit the vet clinic. and all of that was just trying to get the hell out of sherman. i just...never heard anyone say it all like that. never saw it from that perspective. never thought that everything piled on top of just that one night made it almost like a prolonged trauma, something you couldn't just walk away from. it didn't happen in a vacuum.
i feel so numb, so empty. i think it's the only way i know how to deal with it now. i don't have room in my life or in my heart for this right now. i guess i have to make the time and the room but it's just....almost unedurable. go back to the very worst part of your life and think about it, talk about it, process it, dream of it, all over again. who the hell wants to do that? i just want it to be over.
this will NOT be the defining moment of my life, goddamit.
random-- i'm not yet sure why shivers says shining force 2 is his most favorite game ever. i hope it gets better because it's been a slow start.
we were in a car accident about 6 weeks ago. no one was hurt, the car was hardly damaged. but it was really scary because it could have been really bad and it wasn't our fault at all.
since then i've been gradually getting more and more depressed. and then i started having nightmares, bits of flashbacks. in the car i am constantly terrified, whether i'm driving or she's driving. i flinch involuntarily all the time. it's embarrassing and ridiculous. dena gets mad at me because i scare her when i jump. to me it feels like something really bad is about to happen but rationally, afterward, i know nothing bad was going to happen. in that moment, i am absolutely convinced.
i don't know why it took me so long to put it together, that i was experiencing PTSD again. when you have a second, similar trauma, your PTSD response comes back faster than you expect. i didn't expect it at all. it makes since now. i just don't look fondly upon reliving the worst experience of my life. srsly.
i also found out that despite the fact that i saw therapists after the first accident, i never got the kind of treatment i should have. there are specific things you should do, therapeutically, with PTSD and none of the therapists i saw ever did any of that stuff. so i have an appt at the beginning of april to go see a therapist again, with the express intent of working on ptsd stuff. i am SO excited...or something.
i've been thinking about it a lot today and maybe i never really processed like i thought i did. i mean, i thought i had worked through everything and was, you know, good to go. i thought i was ok thinking about it or talking about it or whatever. i could tell the story and have some distance, some perspective. but today i saw a therapist and talked about it for an hour and a half and now i just feel dead inside. i was in a really good mood before i went to the appt. the sun was bright, it was a glorious 50 degrees, i had all sorts of ideas about how i wanted to spend the rest of the day: playing with my dog, going to bike-o-rama, watching a movie, playing shining force 2 on wii, cleaning the house before dena comes home. and instead i drove to the mall and wandered around for a while.
so what this all makes me think is maybe i just got busy, or found other things to think about. maybe i dealt with it the one was i never wanted to-- denial. let's just pretend it never happened. don't think about it, don't talk about, and it will be just like it never happened.
i could have gone on like that for a long time. the rest of my life maybe. one relatively harmless accident (it felt like we hit the snowbank hard but the airbags didn't even go off) and it's like so little time and distance has passed. i wake up remembering things i haven't remembered in years. i'm useless in the car. i startle myself awake in the middle of the night and am all over again convinced he's in the dark corner of the room.
speaking of, i don't know what it is that i think he's going to do. i mean, what is there to be so fucking scared of? it's not like he physically assaulted me. all he did was die. why am i so afraid?
the therapist i talked to today said i did a very good job of protecting myself that night. i never really thought of it that way. she also wonders if there are things i saw in the aftermath that i don't remember. i think that's pretty likely. she also said the whole experience had so many layers to it that it was very complex and that made it hard to deal with. i've never heard someone list it out like she did, and hearing from a virtual stranger's mouth, i thought, wow, holy shit, imagine having to deal with all that crap. like it didn't happen to me at all. but it did. i did experience all of it.
the actual accident itself, the cops, the glass, the flashing lights, the seemingly hostile bystanders and witnesses, my parents. then the next day, his death, the police report, the college calling me, and the ever-present never-ending instant replay of it in my head. then his family filing a claim with my insurance company, finding out his criminal history, his dad coming not once but twice to the school looking for me, strange hang-up calls almost every day b/t 4 and 4:30 from a 903 area code and a denison exchange. getting my cap and gown and finding out the dad had been back and lying about me and what happened, being whisked away as soon as my last exam was over, a campus police escort through the entire graduation ceremony, leaving as soon as we took pictures afterward, the phone calls to the vet clinic, having to quit the vet clinic. and all of that was just trying to get the hell out of sherman. i just...never heard anyone say it all like that. never saw it from that perspective. never thought that everything piled on top of just that one night made it almost like a prolonged trauma, something you couldn't just walk away from. it didn't happen in a vacuum.
i feel so numb, so empty. i think it's the only way i know how to deal with it now. i don't have room in my life or in my heart for this right now. i guess i have to make the time and the room but it's just....almost unedurable. go back to the very worst part of your life and think about it, talk about it, process it, dream of it, all over again. who the hell wants to do that? i just want it to be over.
this will NOT be the defining moment of my life, goddamit.
random-- i'm not yet sure why shivers says shining force 2 is his most favorite game ever. i hope it gets better because it's been a slow start.