Three days ago I got in a serious car accident. My car was totaled and, although I walked away from the collision with few injuries, the trauma was severe. Ironically the prevalence of extreme trauma corresponds with my location, New Orleans, and my research, vulnerable bodies during and after Hurricane Katrina. During the accident things simultaneously moved in slow motion and in fast forward. I know this may not make sense at first, but that is the only way I can describe it. I saw the car coming from the driver’s side of my car and although I had time to think “why is this car coming, it needs to stop, what is going on?” I did not have enough time to react correctly to avoid the accident. By the time the last thought crossed my mind the driver’s side door came crashing in. Silence and darkness.
I really don’t remember much. I don’t know why I could not react quicker. When I discussed the incident with my mother she explained how later in the day, the accident happened around 1:45am, cognition and reaction decreases. All of which is a part of fibro fog. I am not one to blame everything on an illness, but it makes sense. I am normally such a defensive driver, yet I was frozen in confusion so much I couldn’t react. Immediately after the accident, once I realized what happened, a stream of consciousness ran through my mind. “What happened? Did I die?” followed by pinching myself to confirm that I was in fact still alive. That’s when the extreme pain in my left side kicked in and when I looked over I saw the car door reaching towards me as if in distorted pain, pain that was projected on to me.
As I looked over I also saw the other involved person’s car start to smoke under the hood, the same hood that now appeared to be part of my car like a Siamese twin, the panic kicked in. Ignoring the pain, I climbed over to the passenger’s side, one shoe and all, and ran out of the car unsure if the other car was going to blow up. The rest is a blur. Somehow I ended up in the ambulance with a neck brace and two very friendly paramedics talking to me to keep me calm.
The ride in the ambulance was a blur of tears, confusion, and internal disappointment. All I could think of was my mom. On several occasions she expressed to me how I am on of the few things she has to live for and I just almost died. After all the health issues and threats I lived through and I it didn’t matter because there in that intersection it could have ended in a second. The tears became louder and progressed to hyperventilation. I couldn’t deal with the pain from the car accident and the pain in my heart. I felt like I was disappointing everyone, I expected more from myself and I didn’t live up to my own expectations. Although, looking back I realize my expectations are extremely high, flirting with perfection. No one could live up to those expectations. But at that moment, nothing else mattered. The lights and siren of the ambulance provided the perfect soundtrack for my disappointment. I never felt more alone, surrounded by those paramedics, in my life.
I suffered from bruised ribs, slight whiplash, other bumps and bruises, a black eye, and general soreness. With a script for painkillers in hand, I head home around five in the morning still numb inside with the external pain closing in on my heart.
A few hours later, deprived of sleep and overexposed to trauma, I forced myself to handle business in zombie mode. Food had no taste, I couldn’t smile, I couldn’t think, all in all I couldn’t function. This carried on to the next two days. I contemplated leaving New Orleans and my research and hiding in the refuge of those who I loved, but then I started to wonder who exactly that would be. Would I be any less alone if I went back home? I decided against it realizing that I didn’t want to add failure to the growing list of feelings.
In retrospect, I realize these emotion and affects of trauma are not a new phenomena in my life. Through the plethora of events leaving me traumatized, the reactions were similar, if not identical. I can handle the pain, pain is the norm for me. But the reason the trauma is so difficult is because it brings back emotions that I work very hard to repress.
I don’t want to compare this experience, or any experience of trauma I experienced in the past, to Hurricane Katrina and the people who lived through it. But I cannot help but to better understand how, after five years, there is still this fear and the ability to talk about Katrina like it happened yesterday. It’s because of the trauma. The way, when I force myself to drive since the accident, I am steadily nervous and wondering if a car is going to come out of no where, people share a sentiment of “I just don’t want to move again,” or, if another Hurricane happens like Katrina, I’m not coming back.
We are survivors, but there is a limit of how much trauma one can endure and my accident pales in comparison to Katrina and I realize this. Soon the pain will ease, but as the physical pain seizes, the pain and emptiness in my heart widens. I don’t know if it will ever close, after all, there’s only so much trauma we can endure.
