The Flashback

It happened just a year after the car accident. I had started my wonderful new job in Clearwater and it was a super normal day. We worked in a commercial business office building downtown and that particular warm summer day there was a fire drill. Down some 8 flights of stairs myself and the one other female in the office that day, grabbed purses in case and vacated.

All the smokers huddled in one area, and everyone that worked in the building was down outside the office. That's when it happened. I saw him. I saw the guy that hit us with his red Ford F-150, totaled our car and put my kid in a wheelchair for a summer. I saw him for the first time since that day.

It actually happened like they portray in the movies. I saw him and was like "Where do I recognize him from," and saw a flash of passing him in the hall at a church we tried for a few months, but then saw him from that day and had a violent flashback. I could hear my heartbeat just like in a movie, but the rest of my hearing became faint as I went back to that day, me sitting bloody on an embankment, a security guard that stopped holding my daughter as she wined and her legs started to get purple, my husband's head bleeding and completely disoriented sitting beside me and then I saw him crouched down near me apologizing and swearing and freaking out.

Now when I replay it I feel like I was missing that music from Kill Bill when she remembers everyone standing over her and you hear the sirens and old music indicating the enemy she revisits. That was me.

It honestly took my breath away and I could feel my face change in the horror of realization. I gathered myself a bit and had an impulse to go talk to him but something stopped me. I text and messaged some friends about the incident and everyone responded the same, "OMG ARE YOU OKAY?" It hadn't dawned on me how traumatic it was until later.

Later I realized I hadn't gone up to him because I was afraid he wouldn't remember us, which would piss me off, no infuriate me more likely. Part of me wanted to go up and tell him that although he knocked us down a few pegs, that he should know we're okay and that especially my daughter had recovered. But if he somehow didn't remember, it would bring out the kind of mama bear that might actually harm him, or try. I wanted to scream at him how he better have learned to be a better driver, and that I hope he had nightmares about that day, but it would have served no purpose.

It was a surreal moment. Sometimes it still haunts me. Just the way I flashed back was so intense and real. When you watch movies like that, you think it's an over-dramatization but for me it was anything but. I felt such a weird rush too, like I was back in that moment on that day I had to breathe deeply and reboot. 

It's rare that I have those kind of flashbacks but my PTSD is still incredibly real. It's not something that just goes away. Sometimes it sucks having to be the memory of that accident for everyone. Although the people who visited the hospital have their own memories of seeing us too, but for my husband and daughter I remember it all.

I remember there were no screeching brakes or warning signals. I remember the broken glass, the shatter sound and the airbags. I remember that faint humming from right after the impact and my immediately coming to, hulk-mama style ready to check on my baby. She was unconscious from the impact a minute and so was my husband. 

I remember not being able to open my car door being the scariest. I remember screaming for help and wanting my baby out of that car and yelling at Eben to get it together. My most recent flashback to the day was last year. My husband and I were in a rental car driving in California and ended up behind a Volkswagen, the very same model of the one we were behind when we got hit and for whatever reason he said the exact same thing he said to me a mere two minutes before impact. He said "What kind of Volvo is that even? That thing looks ridiculous."

When we were driving in California and he said that, with me in the passenger seat and him driving, even though my daughter wasn't there I looked at him annoyed like he was playing a joke and referencing the day. Then the flashback wave came over me and full panic attack began. I said, "Oh my God get away from that car!" I bent myself over in the car trying to catch a breath. I yelled at him, "You don't remember? How do you not remember? That was the fucking car! THAT WAS THE SAME KIND OF CAR AND WE SAID THE SAME THING!" 

My husband helped calm me and reminded me he had no idea. I told him that right before we got hit we had some disagreement, some stupid disagreement and he broke the tension with a joke about the Volvo in front of us, the same one we just passed two years later, in California of all places. Also, I swear when I'm stressed, sorry not sorry.

It's rare I talk about this stuff because people act as though I'm making it worse than it was. Few people have a gauge for what trauma like that does to a person so I keep a lot of the residual effects to myself and try to use everything in my coping tool box to keep me going.

I try my best not to impose excess anxiety upon these days but be aware and grateful. Whenever my daughter wants to talk about it, we talk about it as long as she wants because I want her to feel safe with telling me things about anything always. When asked about it I don't shy away, but in general you won't find me open up the discussion.

This is the first year I don't feel the full weight of it. I don't feel like we're still submersed in the wreckage, which makes me happier about it. For that, among everything else I'm grateful. I hope I never run into that bad driver again, but I leave most things up to the universe in retrospect. With that, I'm ready to see what this Tuesday has to offer!