MVA Near miss of an accident and i am triggered for days

[user27357]

It has been 4 days so far, this time.

I saw a dump truck slide around a corner coming at me probably doing 60 MPH. He should have been at 45, tops. the corner is marked 45 mph. He managed to Keep it upright and on the road and I had plenty of time to stop, in fact I didn't need to stop. He slid all 8 tires on the back 2 axles across my lane and steered into the slide, getting it straight and in his lane by the time I got there. It would have been a certain death accident in the small vehicle I was driving. If I had made one more light getting out of town, if I had driven the last ten miles just a mile or 2 an hour faster, if if if.....

Now I spend all my time trying to concentrate on other things, I am beyond irritable and I wish I could just park my cars and trucks and move to a city where I can walk everywhere......4 days thinking like this.

Why is it OK with everyone that we drive on roads where the only thing separating us from impact with a 15 ton (empty) dump truck is a yellow line?

If he had killed me, it wouldn't have even made the news. I am the opposite of a road rager, I am more likely to pull over and check my emails, look at craigslist unil I am calm enough to go back out into traffic. Thats kind of what I did this time, but, If I had chased him down and taken a shot at him, I would be in jail and it would be front page news even if I missed, even if I had fired a blank round in his direction, even if I had just waved a gun at him, even if that gun was plastic! How messed up is that? A dangerous corner that has killed, a dump truck driver that could have killed, and I feel like I am the only one that gets it. Like everyone just sees the danger they think might affect them someday, not the real danger just a few feet over the yellow lines.

I have responded to accidents at this corner as a first responder, we have lost most of two generations of one family in one wreck at this corner. But it is not the corner that is causing me to be so triggered. Every corner on that road has a victim in my memory, or two or three. It is the memory of a dump truck sliding sideways at me in my lane, the image that appeared suddenly and then quickly became a non-threat, the fact that I had no control over it before, while and after it was happening. The feeling that someone had just pointed a shotgun at my neck.

I am pissed at the world, I am arguing with my wife, I am faking my job. Xanax and a night off and then back in a car and off to work again tomorrow, probably only to come home and get pissed off at my wife again. more xanax. I feel the spiral of darkness coming on here..........

what helps you? I am able to get it out of my conscious enough to do what I have to do, to write this post, to follow some good advice. Anyone got anything for someone that is feeling the end of days coming at me around a corner?

I should clarify: I was a first responder firefighter years ago. I was in a horrible accident at 15 that should have killed me. I have been hit and run, ran into by drunks, and seen the aftermath of hundreds if not a thousand wrecks. My PTSD was caused by my parents abuse but I really got it perfected after the physical traumas of my own accidents and seeing so many others. I honestly feel like someone has pointed a shotgun at my neck after each close call. That was how I got my diagnosis in the first place- after a near miss that would have killed me for sure but I avoided by being vigilant and frankly, scared of what might be about to happen and vindicated by being a witness to and not a victim of a horrible wreck. I am the safest driver I know but I shouldn't be out there. All of this concern for safe driving leaves me vulnerable to this aftermath of hating everyone and everything and wishing I could make it all go away because I deserve to not be endangered by morons driving dump trucks anymore.

long posts dont get read....thanks for reading this far. Anyone know the way out of this hell?

 

[Muted]

Are you in therapy? It sounds like trauma is getting stirred up when you drive. The only way I know how to help this is to work through the past stuff, because then the current issues that come up won’t feel so intense.

 

[Deleted member 541]

I would just keep reminding yourself..... Shit happens. People are assholes. You’re still alive and it could have been worse.... Hang in there.

 

[user27357]

Shit happens. some of that shit didn't have to happen.

When I was responding to these accidents that was the most common attitude I heard people express, except it was remorse for thinking that it was all just "shit happens". The most common thread between all of the victims I dealt with was the wide-eyed statement: "I didn't think this was going to happen to me".

I can't find solace in "shit happens". I want to keep shit from happening, I want to avoid the shit.

A week now and I still get the adrenaline when I think about it and driving is a sure trigger thats going to cause thinking about it. I have to drive for work, I actually enjoy driving and would be out travelling on these days off for the holidays except I would be on the side of the road somewhere surfing the net on my phone trying to get my mind under control after the first aggressive move or near miss.

I swear, some day this time in history will be remembered as the time when people still killed each other with their cars.

Yes I am in therapy, weekly EMDR where we are still dealing with my childhood. All of this trauma is still on a back burner, waiting and bubbling.

 

[Friday]

A week now and I still get the adrenaline when I think about it and driving is a sure trigger thats going to cause thinking about it. I have to drive for work, I actually enjoy driving and would be out travelling on these days off for the holidays except I would be on the side of the road somewhere surfing the net on my phone trying to get my mind under control after the first aggressive move or near miss.

Most of the state of Oregon is on my permenant shit list, because the roads are garbage. I can maaaaaaybe relax 10% of the time (OMFG! The road is actually maintained??? Without blind corners, on a narrow 2 lane road, posted 50mph, tuning into an intersection??? The f*ck is this? Someone take the city planners out and get them drunk, so it’s laid out motherf*ckig sensibly? :eek: :facepalm: :mad: :shifty: ) Sadly, though, that 10% usually has dead cars alongside it that throw my other warning systems into high alert. Ambush ambush ambush... Oregon, Oregon, Oregon... no one is running k&r in Oregon you daft bitch. And right about the time I convince myself that there are neither roadblocks nor bombs in my future the roads go to crap, again. I f*cking hate driving across that state. I will very cheerfully add a day to my transit to drive arooooound it.

Same, I love driving. I’m moderately decent at it, and have logged a few hundred K over the years, on 4 continents. It’s usually enjoyable/relaxing at worst, and damn that was fun! at best.

But there are times and places when I simply do not and will not drive. For real reasons, or remembered, it’s simply not worth it. <<< Sigh. When I have to? Damn straight I treat myself before, during, and after. Because -dammit- if I’m driving when I don’t want to be? I deserve it.

 

[user27357]

if there was a way to make it worse than it is I am sure it has been suggested by some out of touch state moron.

Latest lunacy? someone actually suggested tunneling under the Columbia river to avoid building a modern bridge for the interstate!

In reality I think the roads are bad almost anywhere you go but the rural roads don't get funded and the interstates don't support the traffic load. Pro drivers would rather be in motion on a longer route that they can count on being open than on a shorter route that will predictably get blocked, so we get hazardous loads and double trailers bombing down 2 lanes with farm tractors and school busses instead of out on the big track. In rural volunteer fire districts.

It does help to vent, thanks.

 

[user27357]

Only when I get a bigger thing to think about do my thoughts go away from the feeling of impending death. A friends mother has had a heart attack and my daughter has had a cyst rupture. I am home alone and worried about other people and doing OK personally when I would probably be going a little crazy after being triggered this long if everything had remained the same.

Luckily for me I drive very early in the morning and then home during peak traffic. This time of year that means I am on empty roads in the morning and crawling back home on the same roads with max capacity stop and go. Even in summer I usually only see the farm traffic in the AM, and the crawl home is tolerable because I feel safer around other cars doing 0-5 MPH anyway.

A few years back my Neighbor was creamed in the stop and go by a drunken idiot doing twice the limit on a doughnut tire. He was frustrated by the stop and go and when he hit open pavement he opened it up and killed a very nice person who was just sitting there probably listening to NPR just like I do every day. I feel safer if I don't think about it, but I do think about it and I use the right lanes so if another drunken moron does the same thing I will be sitting to the right of the person that gets creamed.

And then I will have it haunt my thoughts and raise my blood pressure for years on end.

That's the danger of being a firefighter, I have ghosts on all of the roads I drive.

 

[shatter eyes]

Hey thanks. I been wondering for a while why i am such a fukn asshole to people after days of close call.

One in particular... in was in taxi (cuz i cant drive anymore) and traffic was clear steady speed.. we approached intersection and a fukn idiot in a white bmw in the left turning lane suddenly pulls out without warning. The taxi evaded like a stuntcar driver...our taxi swerved... bumped on and off the rightside curb and regained control. I was scared silent. He was bitching and racing to catch up to the bmw....then they had a honk duel and middle fingers.

My nightmares and symptoms spiked close to a week before simmering back...during this time i was ready to hit anyone in public that bumped me or looked at me strange.. i was a real dick to those around me.

Theres alot guilt surrounding my behavior from close calls

 

[SaharaSon]

Hey thanks. I been wondering for a while why i am such a fukn asshole to people after days of clos...

Shatter, I had a similar deal at an intersection, cruising at 45 inside lane. An old zombetic basket case heading the other way in the left turning lane, turned into my lane. There would be no chance to live if we made head on contact. It was all instinct. I made a Starsky and Hutch move. Did two 180's into head on tracffic with about 20 cars watching.
Not a scratch on anybody. It was just not my time to take the proverbial dirt nap.:D

 

[shatter eyes]

I had a near miss today. I had to get myself to the forum or my mind will want to dead. It drains me and i feel like hidong from the world but i know that will only get darker...so i am here.

I am getting use to predicting the patterns. I will be spooked and irriatable.

Why to fukn stupid careless idiot drivers signal left and decide to go straight? The taxi driver honked and swerved speeding up. I thought i was done. I was waiting for the sound of crunching metal...

What piss me off is that the driver didnt even seem to notice or care. He just came straight at us while we turned left. He had his left turn signal slowed down and then we turned when clear...then the driver speeds straight instead of turning left while we were maybe half a lane into the left turn.. the car came right at us and when the taxi sped up the car was coming right at me sitting in the back.

Mind is upset..thinking of clipping idiot drivers one by one to reduce the population of idiots. I have so much discontent with the system giving licenses to bad drivers and when the innocent gets hurt we have to be further mistreated by an insurance companies. Broken and weak yet still have to fight for services to recover.

Another near miss....

 

[user27357]

It gets better.
I recently realized (with the help of a great T) that my fear isn't of pain and injury, my fear is the loss of control and losing everything I have worked for because of an accident.
It happened when I was about a year out of my parents home, I lost my freedom and everything I owned after an accident. I had to go back to my parents and the true source of my PTSD, the inescapable confines of their cult-like religion. It was even worse after the accident because I was physically unable to even get up and walk into another room. They took me in, but weren't very good at hiding their excitement at the prospect of being able to convert me in my weakened state. It was hell, and thats what my brain tells me is waiting out there for me in the traffic, another glimpse of hell.

It was a big breakthrough for me. I still hate bad driving and I still fear injury and death, but somehow that is better than the overwhelming fear of loss of control of my life.

 

[EveHarrington]

Yep yep yep.

I had a near miss in a car sliding sideways into a big box truck.

It took me three weeks to calm down.

My original traumas are not car accidents.