Wedding rags to crash survivor
I’m really not sure where to start or how this site even works, it’s been nearly 3 years and I’m now finally getting the help I need to ensure a recovery. My whole life changed on the 26/08/2018, for a few days I had this bad gut feeling but I still went ahead with my day as usual. That morning I got dressed up for a wedding I had to attend, throughout the day I felt uneasy and sick and just wanted to get home. My brother had come to pick me up, and instead of taking the motorway we took the country roads instead. I don’t remember a lot but at around 6:30pm my whole life changed. The car went into a wall, spun around and back into it again. Both my brother and cousin were ok, I however was not, I remember my body being all twisted, crying in pain thinking that was it, i’m going to die my parents are going to come here and see my dead body. From what I’m told the ambulance service took forever to get there they thought due to the weather sending a helicopter would be too dangerous and potentially kill me and so we waited around 2 hours for an ambulance to be sent out and arrive. I remember being boarded up and hands at the side while body strapped down, NHS staff weren’t helpful at all they said the hospital was too crowded and could not keep me in, they said I would be fine and sent me home with no aftercare or medication. I had to sleep downstairs at my grans house due to her having a bed there, no feeling in my right leg but complete numbness. The next morning I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t move my legs, or even sit up, I needed assistance for every little thing. Unless you’ve been trough it yourself you have no idea how horrible it feels to think you’re a burden on someone because you can’t even do one simple task like get changed on your own, go to the bathroom or even get a glass of water. I apologise my story might be all over the place, I had a lot of injuries from the accident, head, skull and brain contusions, CNS contusion, buttocks contusions, whiplash, spinal contusions and mental health Impact. I am still under treatment and medication. My relationships, my life suffered all because of this accident. I wasn’t able to carry on with my studies and had to drop out of university. I lost my identity, labelled as the girl who couldn’t walk, I became a circus freak show for people. Till this day I’m going through therapy for PTSD m both EMDR & CBT but I still feel alone, I’m happily engaged soon to be married, a great family and yet I feel alone. Nobody truly understands what it’s like to struggle to walk or be in pain when you’re walking. When I’m crossing a road and my leg goes numb and I can’t move, or his seeing greenery triggers panic attacks and flashbacks even more. My sleep now that’s another story, in nearly 3 years my sleep has suffered I got insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks, sleep paralysis, breathing issues. My parents were told if I didn’t have my seatbelt on I would have been flung out of the window and killed on impact, till this day the outfit the hospital staff cut open is packed in a bag at the back of my cupboard I can’t bring myself to open or touch it. My therapist tells me it’s normal and eventually I will get there. My doctors surgery at the time put me on tramadol for a year and a bit I was taking up to 8 tramadols a day with other medication to the point it stopped working for me. I went through rehabilitation, physio therapy and was provided aids to help me move around the house, imagine at 21 you’re given a commode to use when you’re alone because you can’t get into the bathroom. I spent my 22nd birthday in a bed crying to myself every night wishing I was dead. I am in a better place now but to think I nearly didn’t make it there, every day is a new challenge. Even when it came to work, I was discriminated against, due to my spine being damaged I had to go through a procedure in April 2019 which resulted in complications my employers pestered me to go back to work. Refused to give me a different shift time due to it mentally ruining me. OHT advised them in a letter they needed to and would have to comply and so they did but then my manager at the time kept making snide remarks, I told her about being sexually harassed by a male coworker and she instead of holding a proper meeting in a confidential space spoke to me outside the men’s toilet and then proceeded to make excuses stating he was young. I gave in my notice within a few days and left immediately. Sorry I went off track there, back to my point my next job I got told my contract wasn’t being renewed due to me having time off. Now I’d understand if it was because I had a cold and took time off. No I got Bell’s palsy once on Christmas Day 2019 and once in January this year. For anyone who doesn’t know what that is, it’s paralysis on your face, kind of like stroke symptoms, your mouth is droopy, have you tape your eyes shut when you sleep, and you’re on steroid medication which is 12-15 tablets a day for 10-12 days. The first time this happened I went into work and was told i should not be in by the first aider and so went home and was off for 3 weeks till I was ok to talk. They made a deal out of it but left it there. The second time it happened again I also lost hearing in my right ear and couldn’t hear a thing. Due to the accident I’ve lost some hearing frequencies in my left ear due to banging my head a few times. Back to my point they offered me part time hours return and the funniest thing was I offered to work if it got busy when it happened. So the moment I had my return to work I was in trouble for taking time off. When I called them out on it for a few weeks work was hell, I was getting called out on little things like asking for someone’s name again because I didn’t catch it the first time, it was over the phone and I was working from home due to covid. I was waiting for my appointment with an ear specialist. Eventually they said we can’t keep you on you finish at the end of the month. On a separate occasion I went for an interview around a year and half ago when I was still recovering and whilst the interviewers had gone out of the room I could hear them in the corridor speaking to other members of staff slagging me off and laughing about the accident. When I told the recruiter she said you were hearing things. Did anyone else face discrimination or prejudice from employers? I just want to be able to talk to someone who might have been or is going through a similar thing and is able to understand how much life has changed. I do apologise it’s a long thread I’ve been working on trauma processing in the last few sessions and I just want to be able to notice a difference.
