You survived. You made it through. Scars, broken legs, damaged internal organs. Now what?
You may feel like a refugee, a displaced person who has been forced by a car accident to cross your own identity and self-boundaries, and who cannot return back, to the “you” – due to injuries, safely. It is not only the car accident, but facing your own mortality was the kicker. That forced you to become a refugee. There is no turning back, because there is no “home identity” to return. It is as your home identity was destroyed by the encounter with your own mortality. You now walk a road of grieving, a road to healing and rediscovering yourself inside and out. You are looking for a safe place to land and to establish the new “you”. Your track will take you from denial, to anger, depression, before you’ll finally reach acceptance; and your track will not stop there.
You could be deported anytime, deported by your own emotions. This will take you through difference places. You may feel happy, angry, betrayed. You will continue searching the emotional debris to find yourself.
There will be moments when you will feel great, worry free. As the great runs out, you may feel depressed. You will have to take your sister, your friend with you, carry own your family with you; do not be alone. They will help you on your emotional journey. You are lucky, because of your family, friends, and family connections.
You will share a room with your own self for months to come. With yourself, to encounter yourself. You may feel ashamed, guilty, or angry: Life, you didn’t have to go nuclear on me…and in those moments, remember these words: I can’t go on. I’ll go on.
When wake up in pain, facing another day – and no project beyond few steps seemed tenable, take a step forward repeating the phrase over and over: I can’t go on. I’ll go on.
Shit happens, experience happens. It is a fact about the world. It does not matter how bad and mad you fell about the world and the people, always, always put space and time between your thoughts and your actions. Between your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions.
Day to day, week after week, you will blossom. Don’t forget to smile, to laugh.
You will have moments when your awareness will by surrounded by crazy thoughts. You will get angry, and scream at people around you. You will feel separated, as if nobody understands you. You will not see your family and your friends, as being on your side; you will feel like they cannot understand you. Yes, nobody can understand you. However, they understand various aspects, different perspectives of the situation. Each of one of them can see only a part of your picture. The father sees one, the mother a second, the sister a third, and the friend a fourth, and so on. It is the relationship between those parts that create the entire picture. This connectivity will always support you.
You have to figure out your questions. What are your questions? What are the questions that matter to you? The questions after the accident and the questions after the questions.
Do I live? Do I love? Do I matter? What is the plan?
Girlfriend? Wife? Mother? Hairstylist? Or if no idea, your answer should be I don’t know. Be honest with yourself. Find and live your calling.
The prospect of facing your own mortality can be so disorienting, so dislocating. But look from the other perspective: you got the highest motivation in life, the mortality motivation. Most people do not get that until they are old.
Life gave you a golden ticket. You know viscerally, in your body, in your scars, in your broken legs, in your damaged organs, you know that time is limited. And that the time is ticking.
Now you need to decide what to do with that motivation.
You can go two ways. You got hurt; your first reaction is to build walls, to keep the bad thing outside, to be safe. Fear of driving, fear of anything that can hurt you. But you block the connection.
On the other hand, you can go: I am on fire. I will not fail to live and love. I am on fire.
Life gave you another breath. Yes, that breath that you just took it. That felling.
When life and mortality intersected, life has chosen you. Now it is your turn to live life to the fullest every day.
You may want to take your direct experience and translate back to language, write your own experience. Keep a journal. Accommodate everything in words. Grasp the emotion and experience of such experience and redirect towards something that is powerful: words, and language.
Think about your family. Think about your father; the moment he got the call, the reality of the terrible accident, and the possibility of burying his daughter. Think about the people who love you. You are not alone. You are loved by all.
After the accident – searching the debris to find yourself
After the accident – searching the debris to find yourself
After the accident – searching the debris to find yourself
After the accident – searching the debris to find yourself
After the accident – searching the debris to find yourself
