Went To Accident Site. But Now Want To Throw Myself In Front Of A Car

[sarafina]

Exposure therapy is supposed top be gradual like looking at a photo of the site, or photo of a different accident, for example. Your therapist not showing up at a crucial time is worrisome and your extreme reaction indicates that you were overwhelmed. Exposure therapy is supposed to make you a little anxious and then you breathe, talk yourself down, etc. It is not supposed to make anyone suicidal. Maybe it is time to look for a new therapist.

 

[Notsowild]

@bluedressinggown... Sorry you are going through such tough time. My second trauma was a car accident. It's been rough. I'm finally seeing a trauma therapist and doing CBT. I don't think I could ever go back to my accident site. But then it happened 300 kms from where I live. I have a hard enough time just driving around town. Just thought I'd tell you I understand. :hug:

 

[bluedressinggown]

Hi @Notsowild thanks for the comment. I just feel really cross that I am traumatised by this. I am sick of feeling like this. I find driving myself ok- but being in other cars I find hard to deal with. Being a pedestrian I find hard to deal with too. Hearing sirens, seeing police cars and ambulances seem to particularly be hard. I even hear sirens when there are no sirens. Like when the washing machine is spinning or traffic noises. Even the chickens in the garden!

I saw my therapist today. He was very apologetic about last week and he doesnt understand how the mishap happened.I told him about the thoughts I had. I was hoping that he would say it was normal. Instead he said he thought I should go back to the GP tomorrow and ask to be referred to a community mental health nurse. I feel a bit shocked. BUt at the same time I feel I would benifit from that. Thanks for your support @sarafina and @TimeToHeal .... I think you both take me a lot more seriously than I do but I guess you must be right after all.

Therapist wants me to focus on improving my mood and says he will leave the exposure part completely for now. It is a relief.

 

[sarafina]

Okay, it sounds lke you have a good reponsible therapist who accidentally miscommunicated. It sounds like he is giving you very good advice and I urge you to follow up on it. No exposure therapy yet.

I do understand about being triggered by the strangest things. With me it is police but I have been made to feel uneasy by a white taxi cab, by a white car with MAZDA written on it (I looked 3 times to see if the letters actually spelled police!) and by a tow truck with flashing lights, also by a row of trees in the woods. Up here we do not have leaves on trees yet. The dark tree trunks reminded me of a wall of riot police that surrounded me for an hour when I was detained at an environmental protest with others.

I did some exposure therapy myself yesterday. I think I was ready for it. There was another protest, this time with thousands of students. I could see that police were not getting aggressive so I joined in. For an hour everything was okay. No violence. I left after I got tired and sour. Good thing I did because about half an hour later things turned ugly. Police made arrests and 2 people were injured. One was an old man over 70 who was just trying to cross the street with his bicylce - he was walking next to the bike and I do not think he had anything to do with the protest. A row of riot police knocked him over deliberately and he was bleeding from a head wound - not a serious wound. He got first aid on the spot and was taken to hospital to be checked. A university journalist was hit with a rubber bullet. A bad bruise but not more serious than that. My city is too exciting! And I do not need more exposure for now. I have too much of an adrenaline rush - otherwise I am okay. I do not recommend that you try exposure now but maybe later you will be strong enough. You have to get depression under control first.

 

[bluedressinggown]

Still confused @sarafina. Just posted in depression and suicide forum. :-(

We share the police trigger. Today I was in a restaurant with a yellow glass panel around the windows. Every time a white car drove past- the yellow made it look like a police car in the corner of my eye. It didn't help that the restaurant was next door to a police station. I just tried to ignore it.

 

[sarafina]

I am doing a bit better with the police anxiety since I went to the protest last Thursday but instead of feeling anxious I feel more depressed. Why? Because before (in February) when I had such intense anxiety and hypervigilance and lack of sleep I started (by March) to get adrenal exhaustion symptoms (burn-out) and I had not recovered sufficiently before going on a 4-5 km march (about 3-4 miles in Amercan, I think) and it was too much for me. I had not planned to go, just to watch from a window safely, but it was the first slightly warmer day. We have had a brutally cold winter here and I had a really bad case of spring fever. Nobody celebrates spring as enthusiastically as people wholive in cold climates!!

The march started out noisy and festive and the police were tolerating us when we were a few thousand and they were a couple hundred. I left after an hour or so when I saw people disrupting traffic- I was tired and sore by then. I am glad I missed the police brutality that followed and arrests of some young people. Then did too much the 2 days after that as well - just socializing, nothing trauma-inducing, but I was over-tired and now I am depressed, not to the point of being tempted to do anything stupid, but enough to feel laid low and disinterested in everything. But I am less anxious about the police. I am not thinking that they are personally doing surveillance on me anymore and this is good. I never really believed it but it felt real. Maybe I did not have PTSD afterall, just some symptoms that are getting better. I think there are milder versions and this is what I have been dealing with. I can relate some to the more severe versions.