The Day I Almost Died

Thanks....I was having a good day...I know you know what I mean. Must take advantage of those!

And PROGRESS is a process that comes ONE STEP AT A TIME.

You sound like you have a very positive attitude closedin, and that will help get you far. Hugs :-)

It's been 2 1/2 years since my accident. I had a closed head injury and brain damage as a result not to mention the pain from injury to my spine. I have experienced everything you all have here. Also, I have been left with other disorders as a result, migrains, motor skills defencies, speech and cognative disablilites, complex seizure disorder. I also developed Type 2 diabeties because the brain is control center and can no longer tell my organs what to do.

I will say that I have recovered some cognative abilities. My neurologist and other specialties continued to tell me that the sooner I accepted my limitations my anxiety would decrease! Well they were right! I just was not willing to accept that my life would not be the same as I Knew it. This took along time for me. It made me feel like saying you don't know me I don't give up that easily, I'm going back to work. I'm going to heal! Some things will not heal! The pain will remain but with acceptance, the right medication and treatment I will live! I just have to remember to take my time and breath! To be honest this site came to me by accident just as the car reck happened but I can truly say that sometimes this site has saved me. So what if I have to write down the steps to get on it. So what if I no longer spell correctly, so what if get off subject. So what if I have to look up meaning of words and spelling.I'm a work in progress! Progress is a beautiful word to me.

You went through so much you have already proven to be strong.The short term memory loss must be fustrating.This is not your fault what kind of cognitive therapy are you going through to get over this what medical professional is helping i would like to think you have a neuroligist in your pocket helping you recover!!!

Please pretending not to be depressed is acutlly one way to recover by tricking your brain into changing its activity to positive ...but hiding is another it gives you a bad reinforcment that you have something to be ashamed of and you dont you are a survivor! you may be experiencing some post partim as well mothers can suffer for years after a baby so please talk to family and friends bless you and you are in my prayers

I am very sorry to hear about your accident, however I am extremely bothered by the fact that your accident involved no trucks yet the picture for this story is of a truck. I am a truck driver and we get enough bad press as it is. I have driven for 23 years and I have seen some crazy things happen on the road. Again, I feel for you and the situation you are in but i am very disheartened to think that a picture of a truck would be used to illistrate your story when there are no trucks involved.

14 1/2 years ago I was hit head on by a driver who fell asleep at the wheel. Both my legs were broken, my left arm was shattered, and I had slight brain trama since I went from going 55 mph to zero. I spent 3 mths. in the hospital, almost 7 years in a wheel chair, walked with a cane, and felt most of the feelings that have been mentioned.



Some suggestions are to work on letting the anger go. It's ok to have it. I still hate the guy who hit me and always will. He was a low life and went so far as to blame ME for the crash and then flee the state to avoid prosecution. He's a jerk, he always will be a jerk, but my anger doesn't rule my life.



Realize it's perfectly fine to be frustrated with how things are now. You went from normal to not normal in a blink of an eye. There are things you want to do, but your body won't cooperate. That sucks and it's hard for others to understand.



It's hard when people say "be thankful ..." when you are thinking "for what? some jerk screwing my life up?" but you do have to face things with a postitive attitude. I forever hear "oh, I couldn't have done what you've done" and I usually respond "how do you know?"



What are your choices? Mine were "give up and die" then moved to "give up and stay in a wheel chair" .... now I am chair free, cane free, and have as normal of a life as I can. Yeah, it sucks so hard that I don't have the abilities that I used to. Big time. But I have chosen to focus on what I can do, what I got back, and the life I have made now.



You can do it too! You've made it this far, time will help you cope and adapt. Stay strong!

I also sufferred a head injury, they call it the invisible disability, because on the surface you look like the person you've always been. The differences can be very subtle, but very significant, to the person sufferring through them and their loved ones.

I hid my depression not just from my family and my doctors, but from myself, for over a year. I finally got to a point I couldn't keep it all in, I couldn't keep telling myself a was just a little blue. I had a baby less than 2 years after my accident too, between the crazy hormones and everything I'm surprised I made it. The best thing I did was to tell my doctor all I had been hiding, how I had been isolating myself, how miserable I was. Zoloft saved my live.

Don't hold it in any longer, tell your doctor, let them help!

Oh no! I hope his new car was okay. Some people...

I was also in a serious automobile accident last August. I was only in hospital for a couple of weeks for surgery but spent the following two months in bed, then crutches. 10 months later I can limp without a stick. Like you, it has completely changed my life. The vehicle I was traveling in was driven by the CEO of the company I worked for as their IT Director. Two months after the accident I was laid off by the same company. I had built up a staff of 18, working long hours and suddenly was by myself all the time and unable to work. I've been trying to go back to work with mixed results as my concentration lapses and I sometimes have problems focusing on a specific sequence of actions needed to complete a task. The feelings of helplessness can be overwhelming. It feels as if one had woken up with brain damage. But just as I left the crutches behind once my legs were strong enough, I know my powers of concentration will return, with training and exercise.



What else is there?

Complete despair? Yes, that's always waiting around the corner---but I can embrace that anytime. Nothing changes in despair. Only actively trying to engage and change circumstance will get me through this statis. And if I'm too tired, I lie down and rest and when I'm hungry, I eat. We are not superhumans. There is no better, flawless version of you: there's just this, the materials you work with.



I still have deep lasting dark moods and I let them pass without resistance. I also have brighter moments as the seasons change. But getting better is now my main work, everything else will have to wait until I am strong enough to deal with it.