How a near death experience can haunt you for the rest of you life
Reliving past trauma can lead to anxiety and sometimes, depression
I haven’t looked at this picture in seven years. I didn’t need to. All I had to do was close my eyes and there it was. I could see me standing by my car on the side of the road crying, the police car with the sirens on, and a bunch of strangers around me. With time, I got some closure. It only came to me when I found myself in a stressful situation and compounded my stress. It has taken a lot of time and effort but I discovered recently that when I close my eyes trying to relive this night, it doesn’t trigger me. So, I want to share my experience.
The Incident
I was driving on I-45 trying to get from Dallas to Houston on a Friday evening. I was a new driver who had gotten her license two months back and a new car about a month back. Blame it on my lack of intuition but when this car tried to forcefully get in between me and the car in front of me, I panicked. I thought to myself, “There isn’t enough space in between these cars, fuck, I’m going to hit him!” Before I could assess the situation for what it was, I swerved at 80 mph and went off road.
I hit the guardrail on the driver side and sparks started flying from the friction. In my panic stricken state, I couldn’t hit the brake or turn. For about five or more seconds, the car kept on grazing against the guardrail without coming to a stop or surprisingly, doing anything worse. I somehow managed to snap out my paralysis and hit the brake. The car finally came to a halt and shut down. The airbags didn’t deploy.
All I remember afterwards was that there were people gathered outside my car. The door on the driver side was rammed into the guardrail with no way to open it. Regardless, I couldn’t get any door to open. I had to get out of the passenger side window that the people, who had stopped over to help, had broken. Presumably, with a stone. I don’t remember this part.
I didn’t make the call but the highway state patrol had arrived at the scene anyways. They had the car towed to a nearby town. I followed in the patrol car and they dropped me at McDonald’s. I remember the officer informed the workers to take care of me as I was just in an accident. A glass of water showed up in front of me and I remember ordering a burger.
After the hysteria had died down, I analyzed what had happened. I had been in an accident. My car was possibly totaled and had been towed. I had no injuries except that my left knee hurt a bit. I was sitting in McDonald’s, which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, waiting for my friends from Houston and Austin to come get me. AND, I was alive.
My Mental State
This was the second time in four months that I had faced death up close. The first time I was too unconscious to remember anything and the second time, this time, I had come to accept it. You see, in those five seconds, I had managed to convince myself that this is how it ends. Instead of fighting to reverse my fate, I had closed my eyes and accepted it. This led to the inaction on my part.
Seven years later, I still ask myself, “Nothing really happened to you, so why do you dramatize the incident by calling it a ‘near death experience’?” The answer, for me at least, lies in the fact that in that moment, the experience was so real that I had accepted it at face value and carried that trauma for years. Maybe I still do.
Funnily enough, on an interstate highway with sirens blazing around me, I have no recollection of any sounds from that night. I could see every object vividly and feel my memory but there are no sounds. So what were the trauma triggers that I carried from that night?
- Extreme stress
- High stakes
- Uncertainty
- Feeling of helplessness
Whenever any combination of these triggers show up in my life, I find myself reliving that moment. Not only that, I also find myself in the same state of paralysis, unable to act. I have let inaction multiply the complexities in my life, thereby increasing my stress further.
What has kinda helped
I can talk about a few techniques that have helped me manage my anxiety. These help a lot but not always and can never heal the underlying causes of your anxiety. They also only help in cases where you have identified your own triggers. What puts your mind in a state of anxiety? Recognizing and acknowledging it makes your conscious mind resolve that conflict and provides you with the ability to look forward.
Picking a single task to focus on
I tend to get overwhelmed by the perceived enormity of my life problems from time to time. This tendency of mine, as you can imagine, adds to my stress. Years of business analysis have taught me that the only way to achieve a successful launch is by incremental development. Things that we learn in our professional lives are often dismissed when it comes to personal issues. But there’s merit to this approach.
There may be MANY things that need my attention but I, being a human, cannot devote the same attention to all the problems simultaneously. My mother used to say “My brain is only this small, it’ll start shaking with all these thoughts.” This is a poor translation and sounds better in Marathi. I can acknowledge that my capacity to deal with issues is limited and need to choose one task to focus on. It needs to be small enough to be achieved in a finite amount of time. I log it on a piece of paper or digitally (it can’t be in my mind) and check it after it’s completion.
This technique helps me manage my two triggers — stress and uncertainty. If I do this, that will happen. There is something for my mind to focus on which manages my stress and I can, within reason, predict what the outcome is going to be which provides certainty.
Congratulating yourself on accomplishing that task
Now that I have completed this one task, I take a moment to record it’s successful completion. This form of positive reinforcement provides me with momentum to get the next thing on my list done. This is also why it’s important to log what I need to get done and keep checking things off my list. It may be tedious at first but, with time, I have noticed the amount of work I have accomplished and makes me feel I am capable and in charge.
This technique help me manage my trigger — feeling of helplessness. I can see how much I have gotten done and I feel empowered. I have been here before. There are things I can do and am doing.
What’s the worse that could happen
Regardless of how dire I may think a certain situation is, it’s never a matter of life or death. Having experienced even that, I know no other situation compares. So I take some time to figure out the worst possible outcome(s) of my predicament. If it’s something I cannot change, I have ample time to come to terms when it actually does happen. If it’s something I can change, I can plan for the things I’ll need in order to get there. At the very least, I come out of it knowing I did all that I could.
This technique helps me manage my trigger — high stakes. As I said, it’s never as bad as I think it is. I have come out of impossible situations and lived. I am going to be fine.
Epilogue
All being said, there are times when I am not in control of my emotions. I have practiced these or some variations of these techniques for years but sometimes, nothing helps. Be kind to yourself. I am my harshest critic and it’s never been fruitful.
If everything else fails, I need to remember I have a community of people who will come to my aid. This is the one I always overlook. I have shut myself out from friends and family. All it did was convince me I was fighting alone. That’s never the reality. We all carry our personal hell and need help clawing out of our perceived hellhole. I need to learn when to ask for help and reach out to anyone. ‘You are never as alone as you think you are’. I can do this.
I am a mental health advocate and a big proponent of doing whatever it takes to make yourself happy.
