I could have also titled this, "The car accident that keeps on giving."
My neck and shoulders are tight. My jaws are tight and clicking. My hip aches and is spasming. My lower back is spasming. This, after three months of aggressive physical therapy.
The two main people I'm seeing feel that because I tensed before I was hit, the trauma is worse and worsening before it'll get better. I'm pondering hiring an attorney as my out-of-pocket costs soar and the insurance company can only promise they'll pay me back but nothing in writing to confirm that.
I can feel the panic and depression lingering on the edges of my mind, just sitting there, benched as it were, wondering if they're going to get called into the game. These are the games that they always win and always control. I can feel the routine of those thoughts, the patterns of despair, of depression, of helplessness in the face of true adversity.
The last eighteen months of therapy seem to be freeing me from the immediate despair that would come with adversity. That, and being absent largely from work, I feel a different response to the widening scope of the pain and inconvenience of this injury.
Today I have been down some, but I'm also determined. I'm hopeful. I am not going to give up.
I'm heading to the gym again to swim and do my exercises. I'm getting things done. I'm not heading in for a massage and would rather be with people than get a quick fix.
I believe I'm trying on resilience in a new way. I have always felt like a survivor but my mental space in the duration has always been bleak. I have not felt empowered in any way through the challenges I've had thus far. I've very much felt like a victim, like someone that bad things always happen to and I may or may not get through this in one piece.
I'm tired of thinking that way. There seems to be no perfect culture, government, organization, health system, economic system, family, friend group, religion, club, etc., anywhere in the world. My mind often moves in that direction for some shitty self-soothing/berating: "If you were a better person, you wouldn't even live here or have been driving this car. You would be living a much more woke existence in an urban location where you'd never be in car accidents because you'd be in subways all the time."
Yes, this is why I still consider creative writing as a full-time vocation because I'm so damn good at making things up.
Now, I realize I have to/get to manage this accident. It's not anything I want to do, but at least I'm good at bookkeeping, finding the best providers, intimidating insurance agents, paying bills, and in general, project management. I even managed to get my health insurance switched at the last minute to have a new provider covered (thanks to our amazing insurance broker... last minute switcheroo... woohoo! She's the rockstar). I am getting better at body care which will ultimately be the biggest determiner of my return to health.
But what I'm getting at is, this happens to everyone. No one escapes life on the planet. It truly seems some people do. They don't.
I mentioned a while ago that I've realized how bad ass a lot of my friends are. One friend just had major spinal surgery that required a three month recuperation period. She was out walking within the first week, walking for miles, staying in shape, not letting it get her down. Another friend was hit by a truck, thrown 25-feet and now is running and winning trail races. These are bad ass people. They are resillient. They face down challenges and don't feel victimized by their lot in life.
I have much to learn in this area. Being truly victimized at a young age sets you up to feel that hard things in life are your fault, that you have no control of them happening or the resolution of their outcome. You feel powerless to stop the flood of shit that comes your way. In fact, that posture and energy tends to bring it in stronger.
No more. No more. No more. No more.
So the despair and hopelessness are still benched. Instead, I have brought in some happiness, peace, some tears of anger, some yoga classes, some stretching and some massage. I'm bringing in some personal agency to believe my providers who ALL say I will recover fully, but that it'll take some time. I am choosing to believe that, to listen, to not let other, more established thought patterns of despair override what I can believe will be true.
Signing off from someone sitting here in pain and ready to brush it off, move ahead and kick some ass.