“I don’t know, what has been going on lately. I started to wake up a few nights per week around 3-4 am and then couldn’t fall asleep”
“After that car accident life was no longer the same”.
“Sometimes I am afraid to go on the freeway and I take side roads, I just can’t make myself go back on the freeway, I am afraid something is going to happen again”.
“I just can’t get rid of those intrusive thoughts, I didn’t should have looked through my shoulder, I could have avoided that accident.”
It has been 2 months since Tean* got into his car accident, where it was confirmed that he was responsible for the accident. Nobody died or got injured, but both cars were totaled. Tean* just didn’t feel the same since the accident.
Physical body is part of this process also
Tean* went to the hospital and was checked, fortunately, no significant damage was found. Tean* couldn’t get rid of physical symptoms of pain, sweating and nausea when he was thinking about the accident. It was like his shadow now. Periodically, trembling would also join Tean*‘s other symptoms as well.
Numbing helps in a short run, but draining in a long
Tean started to drink more than usual, just “to relax”, but it added up and led him to the draining cycle of sleeplessness in combination with alcohol abuse. After a while it started to affect his productivity at work and the relationship with his girlfriend.
When you question your behavior, but can’t find logical answers
Traumatic events tend to leave a trace not just in our level of functioning, but also in our behavior and the way we perceive things. Tean* would find himself crying and feeling really helpless, which would later be replaced with distancing himself from others with a, untypical for him, cold attitude. He couldn’t figure out why he just sometimes behaves like a different person, that was not him before.
Slowly but surely
Tean* and I worked together on bringing back to him his sense of his familiar self. We addressed the congruence in his feelings and behavior and processed his traumatic event, utilizing EMDR . After several months of work in therapy, Tean* was using the freeway when needed, minimized his drinking consumption and started to recognize his “old” pre-accident self.
Time to reclaim your true self
If you resonate with this story and are carrying some experience which is affecting you daily in many ways, contact me by texting 702-899-0013 to explore what we can do to help you to reclaim your life back.