In case I wasn't already terrified enough by driving

Post Reply New Topic

This weekend while I was out of town helping my sister move into a new house at her College I was in a car accident. My sister and I were driving in her car to the Uhaul lot where my dad was going to return the truck we'd used. Our parents had stopped to get gas so they weren't around. My sister was making a left turn into the lot when a car hit us. we spun around across the road and stopped. Inside the car I was really freaked out because I've never been in an accident before and also the airbags scared me. We got out right away and when we saw the other car my sister really lost it. There were four people in the car: an older couple, their daughter, and her husband. The older lady was leaning against her husband and her head was bleeding, but she was conscious. My sister was pretty much sobbing and shouting "I'm sorry", and she started to collapse in the middle of the road. I had to semi-carry her across the road and sit her down. People were already out of the building and had called 911 by then. There was a really nice lady who was doing her best to comfort my sister while I went back to our car to find my sister's phone and call our parents. things started happening very quickly after that with the police and paramedics, and my mom jumped out of the truck which got caught in the resulting traffic and ran to us. My sister and the older couple were taken to the hospital. As near as I can figure their car seemed to be missing the rear view mirror and the lady cut her head on the piece that was there. The man just seemed a bit banged up. I noticed pretty quick that at least the two in front hadn't had their seat belts on. Although apparently when asked if he'd been wearing it, the man said "I think". My sister was in a lot of pain but at the hospital they did x-rays and she hadn't broken anything. I somehow wasn't hurt at all, not even sore. I think My eardrum may have popped but I've had an ear infection and overall my ear just feels better. I think it's kind of weird because I think it hit more on my side of the car and had we been further in the turn I think it would have hit my door. Although I don't feel much more nervous riding in a car, It feels like it verified my fears of driving, because I have so much trouble paying attention to all the things I'm supposed to pay attention to. It's like one little misjudgment or distraction and this could happen or likely something worse. I've voiced this to an extent with my family prior to this and they seemed to pretty much understand it, but I live in an area where I don't have much choice. There really isn't a very good public transport system and I can't rely on my parents to drive me everywhere. I'm really not sure if there's anything I can do about this because I already got so nervous driving, and I can't even imagine driving across bridges. I've always been scared of bridges. Once in New York My parents had us walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. That was a terrible day.

From reading that I would say you were pretty darn focused. You were doing things right in a situation where others weren't functioning. It's never nice to be in that kind of thing, I get nervous too. Then of course there are the times when I'm in a grocery store with poor lighting and I kind of want to freak out. But I could tell you of times when others were dumb struck and I was moving when they couldn't. It was just me being aspie and it can come in handy sometimes

You did well and should be proud and I bet you'll be a good driver. It just takes some practice, it isn't like we were born with a steering wheel in our hand

As far as the Brooklyn Bridge goes, it's terribly old. I think you were just having common sense when others weren't

I think the fear of driving after an accident is pretty normal. I was in just a little fender bender and I felt like I just wanted to just give up driving completely for about 1 week. For the two weeks after that I was able to calm down a bit more each day and be ok with driving again.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/A-Pill-That-Wipes-Out-Bad-Memories-58989.shtml

I use propranolol which can block most the physical effects of fear/panic when needed. Its even experimentally used to treat the bad memories from posttraumatic stress disorder.

Thanks, they 're going to start gving me grief about the one I'm using now, if and when I tell them I want to up the dose. I'll bring this one up to them for consideration.