Still Freaked Out

Can't Seem To Sit In Cars

I've had the opportunity to sit in a car a couple of times since the accident, and I've noticed my stomach seems to churn every time we come to an intersection with traffic. It's like my sympathetic nervous system kicks in with the Fight-Fright-Flight and I just get tense. I see potential accidents everywhere now, and I just keep seeing the worst at any and every intersection with it actually happening - but my heart skips a beat every time some idiot takes a chance.

Years ago, a friend of mine DW had a bad accident on a motorcycle in Borneo. She almost lost her foot but somehow she avoided amputation. She's been on painkillers ever since. When she came back to Sydney she said she just couldn't handle sitting in people's cars, and it would freak the hell out of her any time something remotely like an accident might happen and she could sense it. At the time I thought, "wow, that's a little sensitive," but what do you know? I've got something much like it now.

I've been thinking about it a little and what it is, is that some kind of imprinting takes place during crises and once that happens, your white brain goes, "uh-huh, learn that shit quick so you don't end up in it again!" I swear, I see potential accidents at every crowded intersection.

Not sure how long this effect is going to last. If it keeps going I think I'm going to have to go get it diagnosed as PTSD or something. It's seriously a freak out.

I Nearly Died Tonight

Near Death Experience
I went out tonight to pick up my missus. I drove 2 blocks to a roundabout and got hit from the side by a guy trying to drive through the roundabout without slowing down. Miraculously, I wasn't injured.
The glass shattered, the door bent like tin foil, but it held enough integrity that I wasn't touched.

Seriously, I was lucky the other guy didn't hit my car hard. Had they been going another 10kph faster, it probably would've put me in hospital. If it had been 15kph more I might have been dead.
Anyway, I walked away to tell the tale. I'm one lucky son of a gun.

I'm comprehensively insured. So the financial aspects are not pleasant but not impossible. The guy was screaming "You better have insurance you bastard!" for about 3-5minutes as I sat there stunned in my car. He was pretty pissed off. I was more like "Holy shit. My legs work."
his partner came over and asked if I was alright.
Nothing hurt, so I knew I was okay but I was shaken so I said I'd tell him in 5 minutes.
He said he would call a police car. I said fine. he came back and said the police said it was a minor accident so they wouldn't come. I thought, "wow. I could've died but the NSW Police don't want to come."

After exchanging details, I drove home, hanging on to the door. I was calm in most part, but mostly in shock. Then this seething anger came... and went. I rang the police and reported the accident.
Now I'm here typing this stuff up. It's 1:15 AM. I'm wide awake and can't go to sleep.
Even after a stiff drink.

EDIT: having posted this, suddenly I'm getting a memory flooding back about Erica at my school who died in an accident after completing her exams. Erica was a nice girl who reminded me a little bit of that girl who likes Jughead in the Archies comics. Shortly after finishing her last exam, she was at a party in Strathfield sitting in a parked car when a speeding Porsche T-Boned the car she was in and that was that.
By the time I turned up to do my last exam, I was accosted by a girl called Melanie, who said, "Have you heard about Erica?"
And when she asked that question, I knew in a flash something dreadful had happened from Melanie's expression. And thinking how frail and transient life actually is - And I think that moment influenced my decision to quit med school.
And I think that could have been me tonight, except I'm longer in the tooth and I wonder if I've done anything of value since that day. Probably not, if my best songs are Dungeon Dad and Pony the Orangutan, but there you go. :)