Middle of November on my way to work an on coming car lost control and crashed head on into me. Resulting in a seriously broken arm requiring surgery and a broken shoulder. There was literally nothing I could do. I had slowed right down as I saw the crazy over taking maneuver unfolding.

I am on the mend and I have been referred to a psychotherapist for PTSD. This has helped but I have no idea what I’ll be like when I have to pass the accident spot every day on my way to work.

I was very lucky and of course people have had far worse than what I suffered. Any tips for recovery?

Cheers

MTFU 😉

Seriously though, just get out and go past it as soon as you feel you can you the longer you wait it will probably feel worse.

Mtfu is what I was expecting and in a sense correct. 🙂

Hugs. Lots of hugs.
A relative of ours had similar – two broken ankles and broken ribs n collar bone, and had braked to a stop when the oncoming car hit.
She just thought that getting back out and active was so helpful. A walk to the shop, coffee morning with the old dears at the hall on her road (she was 30), a trip out somewhere just because…
And heal quick sir.

I had a head on as a passenger and saw it coming told the driver to get his feet away from pedals and had my heels on my seat and head tucked in at moment of impact (76mph according to AI). Always felt nervous and cautious when travelling that same bend even one and even though there was nothing we could have done. I also had flashbacks and the smell of rotting flesh for years from dragging a rotting body from a car having been told that it was a suicide in progress and being young and not looking and assessing things fully first! There is a therapy for helping you file away bad memories that no doubt your psychotherapist will take you through….it works and can be done as a self help technique once you have learnt to correct the pathways of the memory.
My advice is also a MTFU along with expose yourself to the fear be it location, experience as I found that the one horrendous experience with a body coming away in my hands in chunks of rotten flesh pretty much made me ‘immune’ to dealing with dead and injured people for the ensuing 28 years. Likewise with crashes, whilst I will do everything to avoid one or the risk of one once you realise that what happened to you was nothing that you could control, there is an inherent risk with driving as there is with most things in life.
Hope you get healed both in body and mind soon and that the randomness of our lives on this planet doesn’t do you such an incident again!

And talking about it is also a therapy in itself 😛

Yeah the pathway memory thing is helping for sure. Weird thing is, I almost expected it one day because of the terrible road it is. I even practised avoidance techniques just in case, that I am certain saved me.

You will get there eventually, near death experiences are sobering to say the least! In some respects the dwelling on what could have,should have,nearly is the bit that stops you from moving on. I look back at my past and have so many interesting/ gross /weird that I am sure I could write a book but it would only appeal to others that have had similar experiences or plain weirdos 😆

I broke my back & legs in a car crash, which ultimately ended my Army career. I’ve got over the driving bit, but I’ve lost my bottle on my MTB.
Completely see where your coming from, but speaking from experience, you’ll get there.
In your own time.
Good luck.

Healing vibes.

I was a passenger in a car which hit a flyover bridge at 70mph. We were lucky to live, the car was the size of a crate afterwards, yet I had only minor injuries. I was young and barely recognised any mental trauma arising from it. That said, it took me until 31 until I “wanted” to sit my driving test. Weird as it is, I’m super comfortable at the wheel of a car, its the only time i truly feel comfortable in a car, but I still often sit with my eyes closed at times as a passenger in a car where I’m not 100% comfortable with the driver.

Get yourself to a place where you’re back in “control” and accept that life will always try to throw a curve ball at some point. Easier said than done!!!

And talking about it is also a therapy in itself

I’ve been in a couple of funny situations where we’ve ended up having counselling to prevent long term issues. The important ones seemed to be having a specific friend you could talk to about it who could listen to the same story 1000 times and then also writing it down if you needed to. Both basically ways of getting it out rather than bottling it up

I got T-boned in my old XR2 (remember those?) many moons ago. I had a fear of folks pulling out on me for a short while but due to a lot of weed smoking around that time my memory was shot to sh!t and this soon passed. Probably doesn’t help you at all, sorry.

Any tips for recovery?

go home a different way…problem solved !

(not very useful help)

I crashed a car and ended up in hospital for 3 1/2 months, was let out and the next day a mate came to pick me up. I was still using crutches with this weird cast on my femur. Got in the car and Ilsey (the driver) took off like Ari Vatanen 😯 we had gone about a mile and a half when he threw it into a left hand junction. The car in conjunction with the tyres said sod this and we rotated into someone’s front garden. I really thought I had soiled myself.

The owner of the house came out and started yelling at us, Ilsey got out and started saying his mum was going to kill him. I eventually got out and was wobbling around with my crutches.

Strangely that seemed to of cured me of being nervous in a car.

To the OP really try not to think about it, what happened happened and it’s time to move on.

Just get in a drive (esp past the ‘spot’) with someone you trust sitting in the passenger seat as soon as you can – just in case you freak out.

I had a massive smash in May 2005 when I blacked out at the wheel of my car on the way to work, veered across the oncoming traffic and hit a tree at about 50mph on the other side of the road. I had relatively minor head injuries, shattered my T12 and L1 vertebra, in a spinal jacket for two months and finally discharged from orthopaedic trauma surgeon and neurosurgeon the following February (2006). Thankfully there was no-one else in the car and I managed by sheer chance not to hit anyone else.

Strangely, when it came around to driving again, I was very nervous first getting back into a car but when it came to it, I just got in and set off. This may have been because I was unconscious whilst the mayhem unfolded round me (I think it took about 45 mins for the fire brigade to arrive and cut me out of the wreckage) so there was no memory as such to enable me to suffer from post-traumatic stress.

My advice would be to try not to leave it too long. Get back in a car as soon as you’re cleared to drive.

It will be OK.