PTSD sucks, and healing isn’t easy

To say that I’m still impacted from the two back to back car accidents that happened recently is an understatement.

I have a lot of lingering anxieties and fears left from both of those accidents. Like, I can’t let anyone else drive. When me and my husband have to go somewhere, I drive now. Which I hate, because it causes me a lot of physical pain to drive. And I basically have to be driving ALL day long between all the appointments and therapies and driving my husband to and from work, now that we only have 1 car.

When it’s raining, I basically feel the need to cancel my entire day. It just feels like a risk that isn’t worth taking.

I’m SIGNIFICANTLY more weather aware. If it’s raining, I’m staring at the radar waiting for the “safest” time to leave the house if I HAVE to go somewhere.

And I feel like any time someone isn’t home, my husband or my kids and I can’t keep an eye on them, something is going to happen and someone is going to get hurt. Or die. Or get in some kind of accident.

It’s definitely something that’s interfering with my life in a big way.

Last night in therapy, we did (or tried to do?) EMDR to help with the massive anxiety and fear I have now.

If you know me, you know that we’ve been trying to do EMDR for trauma and stuff for years…but I’m just not very good at it. My brain won’t just allow itself to go where it needs to go. So we’ve just never been able to do it.

I don’t know if we did a legit version of EMDR, or if it was a watered down version or whatever, but we definitely did something.

I drew 2 pictures, one of the site of the accident which is permanently engraved into my mind, and the second one was of the present day, where things are “safe”.

Going back to those memories, which were only just a few months ago, so they’re still pretty raw and fresh, wasn’t easy. It isn’t a scene I like replaying. Nothing about that day was. And I could definitely feel the emotions wanting to boil over.

I think it did help a little bit, but definitely not to a degree where I’m “all better now!”.

I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be “all better” when it comes to this, the trauma and ptsd of losing both of our cars just weeks apart from each other. One due to a completely freak accident with a deer, and the other…just a stupid driver towing a too heavy load on a rainy day.

I’m glad we did kind of go into it though, because it has been weighing me down more than I’m able to admit. And I do really need to be able to let some of it go.

I’m unreasonably exhausted today, and I really have no idea why. It seems like I’m disproportionately tired for the amount of sleep that I got.

But I let my husband drive this morning while I sat in the passenger seat. It was terrifying. Not because I don’t trust him, just because I feel like I need to be the one actually driving. I trust myself to keep us safe because I’m ridiculously paranoid about the very real and valid stupidity of everyone else.

I do think this can get better. I really do. Maybe not today or tomorrow or this month, but I think there’s a reality where this doesn’t have to affect me so much.

And in case you’re wondering, my pictures were obviously amazing. Because if there’s one thing I do well around here, it’s drawing. (Please read that last bit as sarcastically as it’s meant to sound. 🙃)