Having memories....

I love making great memories with my family. I have some really good memories of my childhood. I also have some really bad ones. I also have blocks of time that I don't remember at all.  My short term memory is horrible but once I can get the info down deep it's in there forever.

I was involved in a car accident when I was 13 years old. A drunk driver hit us head on at a very high rate of speed and out the windshield I flew. I bounced off his car...came back onto our car than rolled down a 50ft. embankment into a drainage ditch. I actually don't remember the accident at all...I actually don't remember much from that summer at all. I do remember facts of that summer...it was the summer before my freshman year of high school...I had long beautiful blond hair... and I had never heard of manic-depressive disorder or Post traumatic stress disorder before. But with the decision of one very drunk man my world changed. I no longer had long beautiful blond hair (shaved off)... they weren't sure I would start high school...and now I was manic-depressive with PTSD (which was called something else back than and I can't remember what). Let's just say I was a mess in many different ways.

When I woke up I was never so scared in my life. Tubes were down my throat, my limbs were strapped down, my head hurt like nothing I had every experienced before and I was alone. It was dark in the room and my eyes had a very hard time focusing. One eye wouldn't open the whole way (later to find out that I suffered from  Bells Palsy, 1/2 of face looked like it had fallen). After coming around and finally getting all tubes removed and promising with all my heart that I would be a good girl so they would remove the restraints I finally got  to look in the mirror and what I saw is something I'll never forget. The easiest way I have ever been able to describe what I saw was to say imagine someone went face first into a brick wall at a very high rate of speed...that was me. Right side of my face was frozen in a scary 1/2 grimace, bald, 2 black eyes, stitches on my forehead...even more where they did brain surgery...my nose was swollen and lots of bruises and scratches. And I had 2 weeks to heal before I saw myself. Every move had to be thought about thoroughly. I had to learn to walk again, talk without drooling, and all other mundane yet now very exciting daily movements!!

I was lucky...I was young and pretty healthy besides the accident. Walking was down in a few days, talking came back the quickest (SURPRISED??LOL) Physically I was going to heal...it was what was going on inside my brain that was the scariest. Once released I still had to be driven back home...getting in a car was torturous. I hid under my blanket clutching my bear crying the whole way. I could not and would not ever get in the front seat for 3 years...not even to get a ride in a very fancy sports car that was a 2 seater my uncle bought!! Add in that I now had brain damage and had to wear a wig. Emotionally I was all over the place. I went on long horse rides for hours at a time. My mother got so concerned on one such trip, because I took my pellet gun, she sent the sheriffs after me. After that she sent me to see my first shrink. That's when I was diagnosed as manic-depressive with what is now know as PTSD. They tried to medicate me but that never seemed to help. In fact some made the dreams worse others turned me into a zombie of my former self.

I started my freshman year on time which was scary yet very exciting. School had always been very easy for me. I was reading, writing and doing basic math by the time I was 4. So once I started to struggle with my school work I was more scared than ever. My brain wasn't what I knew it was. My advance placement was being threatened. My parents just kept telling me I was boy crazy and needed to settle down and try harder. What they didn't understand I was trying my hardest. My older brothers all had learning disabilities, I was the only one that was typical in our family, yet now I struggled. Feeling as though I had had a brain transplant. My thought process was different, my emotions were different, I was erratic and thrill seeking. I found alcohol  to be a very good sedative...it stopped the dreams. Dreams where I awoke pieced back together that some version of Frankenstein.

So why do I write about all this now? Well in the past 4 months I've been involved in 2 car accidents.  The first one I rear ended someone and that one I handled pretty well emotionally. I was by myself in the car and truly it was an accident. I've been much better about making sure I'm not sleepy when driving ever since than. I feel asleep at the wheel!! Yesterday was the second accident. My boys were with me safely in the back seat. The other driver turned left, right into the front left corner of my car. Her car had much more damage than my SUV and physically everyone was fine!! It was when my boys were taken home by my hubby that I lost it and went into full on panic mode. I needed them close, I needed to touch them again make sure that they we're OK. Racing through my mind was all the what ifs and what could of happened and I couldn't shut down my mind quick enough. Panic in all it's terror set in and I proceeded to breakdown. Hubby came back to me to wait out for the tow truck and police found me in the back seat of the car...clutching a blanket crying. Last night horrible vivid dreams of my boy lying in a hospital bed banged up and in a coma. It was like I should of been looking at me at 13 but instead it was my boy. I awoke sweat soaked shaking uncontrollably and sobbing. PTSD sucks but at least I understand it and with time this too shall pass...my boys are fine, I'm fine, that car will get fixed. It all could of been worse. Writing it out helps... now to continue with my life...