Revisiting
the scene of my undoing
You already know I’ve been spending my weekdays in Northern Virginia with my parents. Two of my brothers also live here, the oldest and the youngest. What you might not know (unless we’ve been friends for a long time) is that my oldest brother’s wife was once my college roommate. It’s fun when friends become family.
This is the brother and sister-in-law whose house I was on my way to when I was hit five years ago. I’d been in New Jersey and Pennsylvania visiting friends and was staying overnight with them before driving back to my home in Asheville the next day.
I’ve shared photos of that fateful day before. Every time I look at them I am amazed at how it looks like there isn’t much damage to my car.
I remember watching the wrecker pull it sideways out of the ditch, scraping all four tires right off the rims, and thinking, “Don’t make it any worse and maybe they won’t total it.” I am a master of denial.
At the time, standing there on the side of the road with my brother, who heard the wreck from his back porch a half mile away, I thought I was fine. No bones were broken. I had just a few bruises and a tiny burn from the airbag. I was very thankful for a great car that withstood such a hard hit so well.
Maybe you’ve heard my story of all that followed—the years of thinking I was crazy, losing my mind, constantly asking, “What is wrong with me?” The panic attacks, the sudden fear of spiders, being scared by every car on the road. Suddenly I was familiar with the term mental health, and not in a good way.
I’ve talked about the therapy that has helped me understand that while my body was not damaged, I suffered trauma that profoundly affected every aspect of my life. There is still a lot I don’t understand about it all, but I keep working at it, keep reading and learning, and keep practicing compassion for the me who has had to walk this difficult road.
I’ve been back to my brother’s house a few times since the accident. I drive by the spot where I was hit and it doesn’t really bother me like I thought it might. There is no trigger, no reaction there, which has surprised me.
The other day I was going to let his dogs out and, on a whim, I pulled into the driveway where my brother parked the day I was hit. I got out of my car and walked to the spot where my car came to rest. There is a speed limit sign there that I don’t remember seeing before and I’m not sure how I didn’t hit it. I thought to myself, “Forty-five? That’s way too fast.”
I stood there looking at the ditch. I remember it being longer, but just as deep. The overgrowth makes it look shallower. I thought the tree was bigger. My car came to rest at an angle, half in and half out of the ditch.
Between the quarter panel being pushed back into the door and the steep hill, I don’t know how I got my door open to get out. Adrenaline, I guess. You move a little faster when your car is full of smoke. I learned later it was from the airbag exploding.
I remember getting out of the car and running away from it, to the other end of the yard, stumbling through the ditch and falling up the other side, then sitting down on the front lawn with my arms across my knees, face in my hands. That’s when I realized I didn’t have my glasses on; they’d been thrown off by the impact.
People kept asking me if I was okay and I didn’t know how to answer, so I said I was. I just got hit head-on. How would you be?
When I was there the other day, I didn’t want to hang around these people’s front yard too long. I didn’t want them to think I was a stalker or something. But in the short time I was there, I did not feel what I thought I would feel. I thought it would cause me anxiety, or fear.
Instead I was filled with sadness for all that was lost in that little stretch of road, but also a glimmer of thankfulness. It was a life-changing event, for sure. The aftermath has been so hard, full of tears and frustrations and pain. But not all of it has been bad.
As an enneagram 9, I used to walk through life convincing myself that everything was okay. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine.” And all the while I was stuffing my true self down deep to keep from feeling the hard things. Life was easier if I didn’t allow anything to upset my peace. Except I was buying a false peace with the denial of who and what I was.
Ben and I had a conversation recently that was eye-opening. We were talking about our life in terms of BT (before therapy) and AT (after therapy). BT, I was a walking disaster. It was hard to function with any kind of normalcy.
When I went for my first visit with the therapist, I was not in a good mental/emotional space. I did not trust myself to make any kind of decent decision, so I asked Ben to go with me and meet her. In that first session, she asked what I hoped to get out of it, and I answered, “I want to be normal again. I want to be like I used to be. I want to not have all these stupid issues to deal with—anxiety, fears, panic attacks.” She nodded.
She asked Ben the same question and he said, “I just want my wife back. I want her the way she was.”
Ellie paused, then wisely asked, “What if she could be better?”
Neither of us had any idea what she was talking about, but now we get it. I am a mentally and emotionally healthier person than I was before all this. I have a much greater understanding and appreciation for who I am as a person—Ben does too—and we are learning to embrace it. Every day I work at not falling back into the trap of people-pleasing, of making myself into whatever someone else wants. I lived for years as a chameleon. No more.
Ben made the comment the other day that even though he wasn’t the one who went to therapy, he learned a lot from me going. At that first visit, we both thought we wanted the old me back. What we’ve learned is that the old me wasn’t the true me. It was the me we both had made—him by his expectations and me by my wanting to be whatever I thought he wanted. Does that make sense? What a mess we were.
Ben said, “What I’ve learned I want is who you really are, not the you I made,” and I agree with that 100%. I don’t want the me I made because I was a people-pleaser. I want the me who God created, and it is taking some time to figure out who she is.
Did all this have anything to do with a car accident? No, but that was the gift God gave to lead us there. Our brains are not separated into discrete events, like a filing cabinet. All of life just gets jumbled together in a big tangle like when one person lets go of his end of the slinky.
I spent a year untangling my own personal mess with professional help. It was the smartest but also the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’m not finished. I may go back someday, maybe. Therapy has helped me with a lot more than fear of spiders and stupid drivers. It has helped me begin to uncover how I was actually made, who I was created to be. And I have a car accident to thank for it.
If you are a Christian, I strongly encourage you to find an LMFT (licensed marriage and family therapist) who is also a Christian. It is important that your therapist share your worldview. I also want you to know that an LMFT is very different from a biblical counselor, who speaks only from the viewpoint of what the Bible says. That’s a good thing, but it may not be enough, depending on what your issues are. LMFTs are trained in how the brain works, and specifically how to deal with trauma. Having an LMFT who will continually point you back to Jesus is key.
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