Trauma Survivors Network - provided by ATS

Looking for support

by abby79 on Jun 14, 2016, 02:31AM

Hi all,

My name is Abby and I live in Columbia, PA. I am now 37 years old, but back on 7/4/95 I was in a horrible vehicle accident where my best friend Eleni was driving and was killed. I was in the passenger seat and had also fallen asleep and was stuffed up underneath the glove compartment in a ball. I praise God that two Army medics just happened to witness us crash into the cable wires through the guard rails, through the grassy median, then over to the other side of the Ohio turnpike to be hit by a Ford ranger going 80 MPH. The medics pulled me out of the car properly and although I broke 6 vertebrates in my neck and back, I made a full recovery and can walk with out having had any surgery. Finding Jesus has been the best thing that has come from the car accident. I am just really struggling with isolation right now and have angry outbursts sometimes that seem to come out of nowhere. I was also abused as a child by being punched in the head a lot and my most recent car accident was 2012. I feel lonely and would like to hear from you if you can relate to my story or have suggestions on how you healed. Thank you for your willingness to read my post.

Reply: Looking for support

by Azsam on Jun 14, 2016, 03:18PM

Hi Abby. I am Sam from Phoenix, AZ and I am a 50 year old Mom. First, let me say I am so sorry you are going through this.

Two years ago I suffered medical malpractice that has turned everything about my life upside down. I was misdiagnosed with a thyroid condition, prescribed thyroid medication, and 5 days if medication put me into a medically induced overactive thyroid state. I experienced severe weight loss, muscle loss, appetite loss, severe GI distress, heart palpitations, insomnia for more than 40 days, panic attacks, anxiety, all-over body and nerve pain, black-hole depression, and was very suicidal. If it were not for my husband and parents, I would not be here. I could feel my body running and wasting away and there was nothing we could do to stop it. It was just like I was taking street drugs, but I would never do that! Thyroid medication is a stimulant and it amped me up to the extreme.

God sent me to a new doctor who has nursed me back to health slowly with my husband’s help. She told me that my first doctor “did not do my any favors, you don’t have a thyroid issue” and she has helped me build myself back up over the past 2 years. She wanted to put me on an anti depressant, but I am afraid that I will have severe reactions to everything and asked her if we could go slow and do something else. I read a book by nutritionist Trudy Scott who discusses uses amino acids to help give your body the materials it needs to make the neurotransmitters. We started doing this and it is slow going. But I was afraid of feeling suicidal again so we have managed to stay away from antidepressants, but I have a LOT of people support – husband, 20 year old daughter, parents, I have a brother and sister too in town.

But my nice doc noticed how angry I was, and I told her, too. I am extremely angry that this happened, and it’s worse because I called the first doc who prescribed the medication after taking just one dose because I was having a bad reaction then, and he told me I could not be having a bad reaction, the medication takes 6 weeks to take affect. Well, I believed him and continued taking it for a total of 5 days. My body was in a tailspin and he did not recognize that it was from the medication, he started suggesting that I had rumors, cancer, you name it! That’s when my husband told me we are going to a different doctor! Praise The Lord!

Back to when my good doctor talked to me about being angry. She told me I showed signs of medical trauma and PTSD. I was really freaked out now. She said I needed to go for EMDR therapy. EMDR therapy has been very helpful in several ways. EMDR stands for eye movement desentitization and reprocessing therapy which includes bilateral stimulation which helps your body think it’s in REM sleep, but you are not sleeping. The bilateral stimulation I use at the doctor’s office is a set of little buzzers what you hold in each hand and a pair of headphones that make little tones in your ears and this goes from side to side. The EMDR therapist helps guide your thinking to what has happened to you, helping you look at it from a distance, and notice other things that your mind relates to this. It is non-invasive, and very helpful, but it’s a lot of heavy-lifting! I have been going to EMDR since September, but it is helping put the pieces back together. When you experience a traumatic event, sometimes your brain does not store the information sequentially and EMDR helps reprocess the fragmented information. You can read about EMDR online, or get the books from Dr Peter Levine who was hit by a car on foot so he gets the whole trauma thing, and the books by Dr Bessel Van de Kolk. Their books and websites talk about trauma and what we can do to proactively help ourselves after. If you can, I highly recommend EMDR therapy to help talk and process the trauma and the anger, sadness and jumbled emotions we have as a result.

My good doc also sent me to physical therapy for the all over body pains. Basically, my muscles became atrophied, which really sucks over 50 you just don’t recover from this type of stuff. I have been going twice a week for a year and it’s really helping, although my PT guy is wonderful. He understands my ln panic, crying, inability to lay on my stomach and my general weirdness. He said a lot of my exercises are yoga stretches, even though he specializes in sports rehab.

So perhaps EMDR and PT or even just one of them can be helpful for you. Do not immediately jump to the oh, I can’t afford this. If insurance won’t cover, which we all know insurance is a joke at times, ask for a cash payment discount, tell them you are self pay and most health providers amounts really go down.

I hope this gives you some ideas. When my anger comes up, I am supposed to act on it in a safe way. I think “sofa pillows” and go over to the sofa, pick up a pillow and start swinging the pillow at the sofa. Sounds silly but it has helped process the anger. Another anger outlet is to think “rocks” and go outside and throw rocks in the yard as far as you can. The important thing EMDR did for me so far is help me recognize when I am angry and that I can deal with it when it comes up by beating up the sofa or throwing rocks and crying while I do this. Its important to deal with our anger so we can move through the grief process over what has happened to us and move forward.

Jesus helped me fight off the devil who definitely pounces on us when we are sick and down. Jesus has kept me around and pulled me through this so I am trying the share what is helpful with you so that you can continue to share the Love of Jesus with others.