Thank you

I just wanted to say a huge thank you for everybody’s support on Wednesday when I reached out for help. I was overwhelmed by how much kindness and encouragement I received and I can’t tell you how much it helped me on a day when I really needed it.

I’ve sunk into a bit of a pit of anxiety and depression this week. I’m not a total stranger to either of these but I’m fortunate that they don’t blight my life too often these days. I’ve had some distressing repetitive thoughts rattling round in the last few days. I ended up being awake for over 28 hours on the day of the crash. I got into an unpleasant limbo state where I was too exhausted to function in any way but too unsettled to fall asleep. The crash kept replaying in my mind, over and over.

Although I know I couldn’t have prevented it as I didn’t do anything wrong I have been berating myself for not handling it better at the time. A pointing out of road markings and a couple of simple yes or no questions aimed at the other driver could have completely deconstructed her argument about why she thought I was in the wrong. I’m not great at handling nasty aggression at the best of times but straight after a shocking experience I was hopeless. I’m now getting to the point where I realise this thinking is futile – I was in shock. I need to let it go and move on. There’s no point in me visualising the possible arguments or drinking the poison of anger and frustration and hoping it will hurt the other.

I hit 90 days yesterday. A fitting day to go to my first SMART meeting. I thought about using my low mood as an excuse not to go but I pressed ahead and got myself ready. I arrived at the advertised location, at the advertised time. I first found a back door which was locked so I scouted round for another entrance. Upon finding the main front doors I took a deep breath, tried to get in and found those also shut and locked tight. There was a phone number advertised with the listing on the SMART website so I guess I should have phoned ahead. I’d used up what little ‘dealing with stuff’ energy I had so I just walked away and went home, feeling defeated 😦 Fail!

When we injure ourselves or get an infection our body makes it clear that it’s time to stop and rest. When we go through a traumatic experience I’m starting to think our mind does something similar. I’m like a zombie, in a daze, unable to think or focus. I’m watching lots of netflix and playing mindless games on my phone when I’m not vacantly staring into space. I’m giving myself some psychological down time. I do feel as if I’m slowly coming around. Each day does feel slightly better than the previous one. I’ll be ok. It’ll just take time.

On a more positive note, I just remembered I bought some coconut milk based ice cream alternative that I completely forgot about in this week’s chaos. I’m going to try some now and nerd out on some old scifi 😀

Have a good weekend everybody and thanks again for having my back when I really needed it – I appreciate it so much. Hugs x