Dealing With Anxiety After a Car Accident

Six days ago I was in a car accident. An elderly man ran the red and slammed into the passenger side bumper where I was sitting, causing us to spin out. Thankfully everybody walked away in one piece. Needless to say I was a little rattled. During the accident I was surprised at how calm I was, but my guess is that was the adrenaline. That night when it wore off is when the anxiety hit.

I tried to go to bed, but there was no sleeping. The accident would come into my head like an intrusive thought, and every time it did I would get red hot waves of panic through my chest and down my left arm. I also had nausea and a bad headache. I ended up going to the emergency room the next morning and was diagnosed with a mild concussion. No screens for the next two or three days, no studying — basically get some rest for the brain.

I attended a wedding in NYC that weekend, something the ER doctor said would be okay. I didn’t realize how rough driving would be though — on the drive to the airport I wanted to try and sleep but I couldn’t close my eyes because it was too stressful not seeing the road. The Uber drivers in NYC were nuts too. They got us where we needed to be (the wedding was gorgeous) but they definitely did not help with feeling more comfortable in a car. Each night we were there I could barely sleep. The thoughts of the accident would come rushing in, or I would get paranoid that my concussion was going to kill me. Specifically, I was worried about my tingling arm and I was convinced my pupils were different sizes. My fiancée assured me my eyes were fine, which helped, and when we got back to Canada we went to my GP who checked me out and gave me a week off work to rest.

Driving

I’ve been slowly getting back into the groove of things, bringing back screens, typing, and even driving. With driving I still get extremely anxious at intersections where we need to turn left, or where someone has a blinker on in the oncoming lane, but I’ve been managing. It’s hard, but I think the trick with the driving is just exposing yourself to it more and more. I’ve been driven around by my fiancée most of the time. I drove once to bring the rental car to her parent’s house while she drove her father’s Nissan back — we had been borrowing it. Other than taking a really long time to turn left out of the lot, the driving went much better than I expected. Intersections still really freak me out, but again, exposing yourself to it and getting out there seems to be the way to do it. That’s also what our therapist advised us — it’s normal to feel anxious in a car after an accident, but it will get better over time.

Cognitive-Behavioural Techniques

As mentioned, we saw a therapist shortly after the accident. He provided CBT (cognitive-behavioural therapy) based techniques that have worked for me to reduce my anxiety when trying to sleep. The first was grounding yourself in the present. Intrusive thoughts and flashbacks from the accident are one of the ways your body is reacting because it doesn’t know if it’s safe. The goal of the grounding technique is to anchor yourself in the present and show yourself that it is safe. He advised to speak out loud five things you can see, five things you can hear, and five things you can feel. Then do four things you can see, four things you can hear, and four things you can feel. Keep doing that until you hit zero, run out of things, or are at an appropriate level of calmness. Some of the things I saw were my therapist’s shirt, my grey shorts, my glass of water, my flip flops, and the brown floor. Things I heard were the rubbing of fingers, putting down a water glass, traffic outside, my therapists foot, and a door. Things I felt were my shorts on my skin, my hand resting on my other hand, an itch on my leg, the couch on the back of my legs, and my shirt on my skin. As you can see they don’t need to be complicated or incredible observations. They just need to be enough to ground you and convince your body that you are here, in the present, and safe. This has worked for me most noticeably if I feel the anxiety is coming on strong or if I notice the intrusive thoughts are starting to come in.

The second technique is one you’ve probably heard of, and it’s just creating a happy place in your head. Really visualize a place in your mind that’s calming, safe, and comforting, verbally speak what it smells like, tastes like, feels like, sounds like, and looks like. This can take anywhere from two to ten minutes. Then, find a word that comes to mind when you are in that place. Focus on that word and pinch your thumb and middle finger together, to strongly associate the thought with that action and that word. For me, the location is floating in a tropical bay, and my word is relax. When I feel the the anxiety coming on, I push my thumb and middle finger together, think relax, and focus on that happy place. It’s one of those things where you think it’s just a movie thing, but it does help. We did have to do this exercise twice though — the first time I visualized a forest and the Dodge Caravan that hit us ended up driving through my calm forest. I chose the water for my happy place because a van can’t get me there.

CBD Oil

Another thing I feel like has helped me a lot has been CBD oil. I take 1mL before bed, and if I feel anxiety coming on an hour or more later, I’ll take an extra mL. It doesn’t make the anxiety disappear, but it heavily dampens it. Enough where it won’t bother me enough to stop me from trying to sleep, or if it does, enough so the CBT techniques can calm me down. I had been using it before the accident as a sleep aid to help with anxiety so I thankfully had it on hand. I use Solei’s Free oil, available on the Ontario Cannabis Store’s website if you are located in Ontario.

Talking About It

The last thing I can recommend is just to talk about it with someone. Your significant other, friend, or a therapist. Being able to get your feelings out there and be heard can be really helpful. Especially if the other person has been in an accident before and knows what you’re going through. My dad made me feel a little better when I talked to him about it. He talked about the crashes he had been in, and how it made him nervous driving for a long time after. His worst crash was on black ice in a soft top jeep. The vehicle flipped and he thought he was going to die. Thankfully he was okay, but he said ice scared him for two years after that.

Time

Now, I’m not completely anxiety free and don’t expect to be for a while, but these techniques have helped and made it possible to sleep and relax more than I was before. They may not work for you, or there may be other techniques that do help you. This is not an exhaustive list. It’s just my experience and what worked for me. Oh, there is one final thing the therapist said helps — time. It will get better. It’s completely normal to feel the way you are feeling, and it will get better. It might take a few days, weeks, or months, but it will get better.

Originally published at https://brainsandthangs.blogspot.com on September 12, 2019.