No idea medically, but "wait and see" really is the right answer a lot of the time.
Ok, so 1 was a really inconsiderate comment, given the post. However, I agree with 2, so I don't have much to add except to agree with it. I'd give it a few more weeks; two weeks isn't that long.
Wait, comments are supposed to be considerate now?
I don't have any advice either, but you do have my sympathies, Stanley. Situations like that suck.
My sympathies. Feeling anxious is totally awful and I'd have trouble just waiting it out, too. Have you tried drinking or chocolate, and staying in bed?
Have you tried drinking or chocolate, and staying in bed?
I haven't tried chocolate, no.
It will pass, but there's no way of knowing when. It could go on for just a couple of weeks, but it could be longer.
So, I think, if the way you're feeling has passed the threshold of manageable discomfort, you should really be seeing a professional. Even if it is just a short-term thing, having someone to help you through it could prevent potential long-term consequences of feeling like this now.
How doesn't one drink a kitten?
Or kittens?
It's funny; one of my roommate's cats is my best buddy ever after I did, more or less, spend a day in bed just recovering.
"Oh, you do this too?! We're BFFs!!! Feed me now."
you should really be seeing a professional
Thanks, Melvin. By "a professional" you mean I should be seeing what kind of professional exactly?
I'm pretty sure there's actually research on this, recovering from trauma. I'd suggest going to an EMDR practitioner and getting treated for a mild case of PTSD. (It may be late to do the other thing they suggest, which is immediate re-visualizing the incident, before scary images have a chance to implant. Heads off flashbacks, apparently.)
When I was in a scary accident my freshman year of college, I didn't sleep for two days and was shaky for about a month after. It went away, but why experience the long recovery when you can fix it faster with EMDR?
(Eye Movement Desensitization Routine, which uses flashy lights to treat PTSD.)
A mental health professional. Clinical psychologist, psychiatrist or what have you. I have no idea what state you're in after the accident ("trouble sleeping" and "overly anxious" are quite vague), but PTSD really is something to watch out for.
But probably not a certain professional golfer.
My wife has done EMDR work -- it worked very well for her. I forget for what, exactly.
So sorry to hear about that, Stanley, and very glad you walked away.
I did that when I was 17. The State of Pennsylvania charged me for the guardrail.
16-7: PTSD was specifically brought up by a med-school friend the day of the accident (she dropped by to check on me). She said, basically, take stock a month later, because it's a real concern. So it's on my radar, but I don't want to be in freakout mode, either.
I also knew someone with PTSD (from a scary incicdent where she was shot in the chest, face to face with her attacker, and then hid from him in a closet for four hours afterwards). EMDR really worked well for her.
18-20: Thanks. I'm appreciating humor and sympathy at this point, including my grandpa who advised me that I didn't really need to crash my old car to get a new one. "No, seriously, Stan, next time, just drive to the lot and trade it in. Much less hassle."
My family's a buncha jerks, like you guys, and I love 'em for it.
I don't think EMDR would be less effective a month later, but why have the experience of a yuckier-than-it-needs-to-be month?
Sounds like the right attitude to me. But if it's not too much trouble to go in and talk to someone, why not do that now?
go to a performance driving school like skip barber or jim russell. it will change your attitude. there's nothing in the world like hearing Bruce MacInnes (former Skip Barber chief instructor) sharing wisdom like "Don't close your eyes for the crash, you'll miss the best part."
My uninformed opinion is things like that will go away by themselves if you don't dwell on them and that going to therapy is a good way to dwell on them.
Lots of humor and sympathy for you, Stanley, not necessarily in that order.
Just curious, but was it a VW Beatle you were driving at the time of the crash?
29:The Beatles broke up or died, M/tch. It's time to move on. I'm sorry.
Time was, a commenter would have jumped in right away to tell Stanley not to be a big girl's blouse. Now people have crazy notions about "mental health" and "confronting your problems" and such. Wevs.
Stiff upper lip, old chap!
I've never had a significant accident while I was driving, but when I've had other sorts of scary experiences the anxiety-related stuff has passed pretty quickly. YMMV (especially if there's a guardrail in the way).
16 ad 17 should be heeded. In the larger scheme of things this isn't a huge incident, but the fact that you're having trouble sleeping means that you're in danger of picking up some learned physiological responses to stress and trauma, and you want to nip that in the bud before those patterns have a chance to set in. See a mental health professional; be open to suggestions like a short course of ativan or something similar.
32: My subsequent CT scan frees you to call me a big girl's blouse, you heartless, lazy-recording-project jerkstore.
36: Thanks. I owe my MD a call tomorrow about the whole mess. Apparently, my sodium levels have been low ever since. Whatever that means.
If it makes you feel any better, Stanley, I fell down the stairs last night and sprained my wrist. We're brothers in trauma, dude.
A question and an answer:
"unchartered" s/b "uncharted"
Does "big" modify "girl" or "blouse"?
"unchartered" s/b "uncharted"
Huh. Neither is in my OED, but I've probably heard both. Regionalisms, I'm guessing? Where's teo when we need him?
Just referred this question to a real-live mental health professional! She said something very, very like 36, with added emphasis on the "why wouldn't your friend* deal with something like this, that's clearly bugging him, rather than risk having it become a long-term problem." She'd like to offer you her card. And if you see her, I guess I get a gift certificate to the Gap.
* I tried to disabuse her. But you know how those people are.
Nope, it turns out the gift certificate is to Applebees, so you should feel no obligation to see her. But you should see someone -- probably sooner rather than later.
I've heard "uncharted". "Unchartered" sounds like something lacking a formal filed charter.
Nope, it turns out the gift certificate is to Applebees, so you should feel no obligation to see her.
Yeah, you wouldn't fit in at the salad bars there, so don't bother.
What's the deal with Applebees, anyway? I hear lots of disparaging - only disparaging - things about them, but I've never been to one. They don't look worse than the typical chain restaurant in their category, at least from the ads.
49: I've only been once, in Norman, Oklahoma, because that was what was open. So I can't really say for sure. Sorry if you're a stockholder and I offended you, Mr. Corporate Feedlot.
Applebees is a step above Ruby Tuesday, Chili's, and TGIF, I can tell you that.
Stanley, you already reported a serious anxiety episode with the long bridge. Then you had the accident. Sounds like something going on there.
PTSD usually disappears after a time, but it's not a good time before then. Drinking is about the worst thing you can do for PTSD; it's the classic means of self-medication. (And by 'classic' I mean 'basically only'. No one uses anything else for it because it's the best and cheapest central nervous system depressant. Unfortunately, it isn't a cure, and then you have a drinking problem.)
So if you want to wait a month, fine. If you're having problems doing anything, or having incessant shitty dreams, or the shakes show up, or you get real jumpy (at long noises - at quiet noises - exaggerated startle response) go to a psych person of some sort. MD's tend to hand out medication like candy these days, or so I hear, and unfortunately, those are not cures either. (By which I mean, there are no psychotropic medications that causes PTSD to permanantly go away, since an organic brain problem is not the cause. If you stop taking the med, it comes back, but now you may have full-tilt PTSD and/or anxiety disorder. Without anything else, you're just replacing alcohol.) Although they can try different things for it on a temporary basis if you can't leave the house.
So call a psych person of some sort or an EMDR (the first might recommend the second - it all depends on your insurance I suppose). It isn't going to hurt.
max
['Yes, I would know something about this, why do you ask?']
Hmm. Applebee's is actually just fine by me. I guess the sheer density of knick knacks on the walls of the restaurants always feels sort of oppressive to me; the message of the decor seems to be: THIS IS A REGULAR OLD NEIGHBORHOOD RESTAURANT, DAMMIT. JUST LOOK AT ALL THIS FUCKING AUTHENTIC AMERICANA. They try so hard to manufacture a sense that you are eating at a place that has been in the neighborhood forever, and has just organically accumulated all this crap over the years, but really it's all so obviously artificial and forced that it gives me the creeps.
But the food is adequate for the price, and the service is generally efficient. Not particularly healthy--it tastes good because they aren't afraid of fat and carbs--but to their credit, they have been ahead of the curve on on-menu calorie labeling and at least offering smaller portion sizes.
Their desserts are generally good. Simple stuff, like a brownie with ice cream and nuts and hot fudge. The kind of thing I crave from time to time.
Have you driven since? If not, get into a car and go for a spin. Uh, maybe not a spin. A drive. Go for a drive. Go around an empty parking lot if you have to. Just do something to show yourself it ain't that scary.
Applebee's drives me a little nuts because I have coworkers and acquaintances who would vastly prefer Applebee's to a local restaurant, and who say so, frankly. They like the identicalness of every Applebee's everywhere. With a local restaurant, who knows, you'll probably get unpredictably fabulous Mexican food. How chaotic.
It's no Applebees, but this looks like an excuse for a Boston meetup, and I can walk there from work.
I'm not sure anyone has been more specific about who you should be seeing so I'll chip in thuswise. #1 probably not a psychiatrist, because they tend to do ten-minute medication management sessions and are generally not oriented toward doing anything very substantive, which you're going to need. They might give you a benzo (i.e. tranquilizer) for the accute anxiety.
A couple of people recommended EMDR, which you can get from people with various credentials. Your insurance, if you're so lucky, will have listings for LCSWs and possibly clinical psychologists, either of whom might be trained in EMDR.
What I actually find a little more likely to be helpful is a little talk therapy with someone versed in cognitive and behavioral stuff (sometimes lumped together as "CBT" which is funny if you ever read gay personals. Don't ask, probably.) This is also very likely to be an LCSW. Remember in shopping for a mental health professional that it's like shopping for anything else: you can ask questions and make sure you're getting what you want. Like "do you do CBT/EMDR?" "Do you have experience with PTSD?" etc.
Or you could assume the accident has tapped into pre-oedipal trauma and go for three years of 3-5X weekly psychoanalysis. But it seems like jumping the gun.
New here but I stumbled upon this and felt like it was something I had a little useful info on.
I can't think of Applebee's without feeling sorry for Tonya Harding.
Welcome, Maury!
It's traditional around here to bestow a fruit basket upon new commenters. So, here ya go. Enjoy!
(sometimes lumped together as "CBT" which is funny if you ever read gay personals. Don't ask, probably.)
You really are new here.
56: Yes, Sifu has been praising this joint on Facebook, and in particular some magically good beer they have whose name I forget. I just want to know if they have whiskey-flavored beer.
59: Hey, you found the fruit basket! I looked for it a couple of times but it was lost in the googleyahoohole.
Applebee's is actually just fine by me.
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo!
whiskey-flavored beer
I don't understand.
57: Cock/Ball Torture?
Inquiring minds...
64: Why not just get a boilermaker?
Oh hey thanks for the fruit basket.
@65 yep, that's the one.
It's a great place, and I know the owner from several bars back, though it's kind of expensive. We should totally go there as a group. I haven't figured out when their less-crazy-busy days are yet.
To the original subject: When I had my first (and only, so far) major car accident - slid off a curve and flipped the car down a hill - I was pretty freaked out for a while. What helped me was figuring out exactly why it happened and being able to lay a serious amount of the blame on my father's cheapskate habit of buying used tires. This probably doesn't help you at all, though.
EMDR is worth a shot - as therapies go, it's pretty easy and riskless. It didn't help the situation I tried it for, but it's something that was a major stretch to call "trauma".
It's a great place, and I know the owner from several bars back, though it's kind of expensive. We should totally go there as a group. I haven't figured out when their less-crazy-busy days are yet.
Sheesh, it's just Applebee's.
71: Sorry. I forgot about your delicate sensibilities.
57: Thank you, MauryD. That's helpful advice. And I hope you enjoyed the fruit basket.
Wold it be too indelicate to ask whether Maury is into FBT?
It would be too indelicate not to.
Good comments thus far. I take it that there are two aspects to this. The first is what to do, the second is what to expect. On the first question, I'm in the "see somebody" camp, but I really couldn't say who is best. What's more important is that you get the ball rolling, just in case it becomes a bigger deal / doesn't abate.
On the second question, I'll share an anecdote. Over ten years ago I was in a work-related accident. Long story, but in the course of trying to save somebody from an accident things went tits-up and there were several long moments where I was pretty sure I would drown. Fortunately, the back-up measures we'd put in place saved my life. The whole thing was handled well, with a post-incident stress debriefing for all involved, a follow-up, re-tooling some methods and training, and general support.
I of course lost sleep and whatnot, but it did get less and less and things normalized. It takes some time. A year later, essentially the same team handled an almost identical rescue scenario flawlessly, with me running it.
That said, there are still times when I have very intense memories of the incident, physically cringe/feel nauseous, and have serious pangs of guilt imagining my supervisor calling my family. Like now, though I know it will subside pretty quick.
What's more important is that you get the ball rolling
79: Too late already.
66,67,68: What I'd really like would be non-alcoholic whiskey, but that doesn't exist and whiskey-flavored beer does. I just like the taste of whiskey, all right? And I have a low threshold of getting smashed, falling asleep and waking up with a horrible hangover.
And I have a low threshold of getting smashed, falling asleep and waking up with a horrible hangover
and a prostitute with no pulse.
Have you driven since?
Yes, but you're right that this was a Thing to Get Over. A friend who was raised on a horse farm advised me, "Hey, man. You gotta get back on the horse, the sooner the better."
82: And my fingerprints on the icepick, and sirens getting closer.
56 gets it right. Let's do this meetup! No icepicks, mcmc.
try doing some yoga. find a few beginner classes if you've never done it before. i find it tremendously calming with really great mental health benefits.
86: I've never done yoga, but I do find that watching the fit TV yoga ladies is very relaxing.
My advice is, don't waste your money on a doctor. I've been in five wrecks in my life (once it was my fault) and each time it has taken between a couple weeks and two months afterwards before I stopped being a bit shaky. I was especially nervous when I rolling down a through street and I'd see a car on a side street coming up to a stop sign. Will they really stop? Well, yes, in fact they will, almost for sure.
Anyway, two-three months max after each wreck I stopped being nervous driving, or even riding as a passenger, which is worse. Good luck!
I'll suggest staying off the benzos (Ativan or the other "pams") unless you're totally freaking out and needing to get home from somewhere at 3am.
Weaning myself off those was very unpleasant. I'd give it a little time and note the trend. If the symptoms aren't fading away in a month then see someone.
I'll suggest staying off the benzos (Ativan or the other "pams") unless you're totally freaking out and needing to get home from somewhere at 3am.
But, uh, don't drive on them, Tiger.
90: I didn't notice Ativan (at the dose I was taking) doing anything to my reflexes or alertness. The free-floating anxiety and high muscle tension as each dose wore off was very noticable though. I was tempted to take them earlier and earlier to avoid that.
I can see how some people could get hooked on the stuff for decades if they didn't have my steely determination, fortitude, and freezer full of Klondike bars.
38: Apparently, my sodium levels have been low ever since. Whatever that means.
Stanley, it most likely means that your adrenal glands went nuts there during the accident. Low sodium is hyponatremia. (I'm not a doctor, obviously, and know this just because I've shown low sodium for a while myself, hence research!)
That wikipedia entry sounds a little scary, but basically sodium is one of the electrolytes, which are controlled by hormones secreted by the adrenal glands. If you had a huge shot of adrenalin, your adrenal glands are presumably off-kilter. If low sodium persists, like for months and months, it can usher in neurological problems and heart problems.
Your doc is probably going to want to be checking your sodium (and potassium, another central electrolyte) levels somewhat regularly, and probably will keep an eye on your blood pressure and pulse.
You can basically flush sodium out of your system by drinking too much water, or by taking in diuretics; alcohol dehydrates, and you might wind up drinking more water than usual for that reason, so alcohol doesn't help the situation. You might want to ask your doc if she thinks you should increase your salt intake for a little while; though that might artificially raise your sodium level for testing, so it might not be the right idea. I'd ask her what she thinks. You might want to mention that you're a vegetarian, if she doesn't know that, and therefore maybe don't take in as many processed foods as a lot of people do. Just to cover the bases, y'know, in discussion with her.
So just from a medical, rather than a psychological, standpoint, I'd say limit the alcohol, keep an eye out for whether you're peeing a lot (or have diarrhea), as you don't want to become dehydrated, then chug water, then dehydrate again .... Make sense?
For what it's worth, adrenal gland issues, with low (or high, actually) sodium as one possible symptom, can also go hand in hand with generalized anxiety and what's called plain old "burn-out." Max noted that you also had an anxiety attack a while back on the bridge; and it took you longer than you thought it should to recover from the dentist visit a little while ago. Maybe you're just running on empty, a bit.
Heh. I should probably add: it's probably just the aftermath of the car accident! Low sodium happens all the time when people have been having a bit of a hard time!
(Cripe, I really sounded like an invitation to hypochondria, for which I apologize.)
Thanks, parsimon. Most of what you said echoes my doctor's advice. Along with a stern reminder to Take It Easy for a bit.
To the voyeurs in the readership, I added a photo of the busted-up car to the flickr group.
Looking at the picture, Stan, don't read Crash anytime soonish.
I had a thought that if you're really desperate to part with money, instead of getting a shrink to tell you your mascara is running you might instead do an advanced driving course. It might calm the nerves to know what to do if you aquaplane again.
96: The term "aquaplane" makes me immediately think of this guy for some reason.
I thought hydroplane was the term of art? A dumb high school moment that I have never lived down involves being a passenger in a car that went swirling into an intersection on a rainy night, and as everyone yelled "We're skidding! We're spinning out!" I yelled, "We're hydroplaaaaaning!" which got hollered at me in hallways for months to come.
96 is extra special, isn't it? And oudemia, I meant to tell you earlier, yes, it was called cum gum by me and all my friends.
I'd like to clarify that 99 is not the baldfaced example of sexual harassment it appears to be. Unfortunately for my case, I can't find the comment/query to which I was responding.
99.last: Ha! Take that, Bridgeplate!
||I am watching Glee and wondering about laws governing the transport of students with disabilities in OH. My mother handled that for our school district in NJ and the district *had* to pay. They had to pay even if the disabled student went to private school, even. By which I mean, Rawk! NJ!|>
101: Of course the district has to pay. The only variable may be that Glee is a "club", right? As opposed to an officially sanctioned school activity? Or something? Which is to say, I'm not sure the district has to pay to get every disabled kid to every activity in which s/he's a participant. Hey! Look! Five sentences based on exactly no knowledge of the issue at hand! You don't see that every day!
Five sentences based on exactly no knowledge of the issue at hand! You don't see that every day!
Actually, I'm pretty sure I do.
The school district exists in dystopian fantasyland where laws don't apply. Like, don't they also say that the auditorium isn't ADA compliant and doesn't even have wheelchair ramps or something. This is also a district where the administration demands that its employees pay for the provision of services that the District is supposed to provide (e.g., like when Figgins makes Will reimburse him for the opportunity cost of having Glee Club use the practice room when it could be profitably rented out to Alcoholics Anonymous).
105: And I am pretty sure there would be union issues with having a teacher work at nights as a custodian.
Re: 101 -- I took a quick refresh through my research files and I am pretty sure that regardless of Ohio's laws, any public school district, as well as any private school that receives federal funding (which would explain your recollection about NJ private schools, not that NJ doesn't rawk for other reasons) is required under the Rehabilitation Act to provide accommodations for transportation of disabled students.
not that NJ doesn't rawk for other reasons
Damn straight.
101, 107: I'm fine with public provision of transportation services for disabled students, but have some reservations about doing it through the schools. Special education and related services are a large and randomly-distributed burden on public schools, to a degree that interferes with their ability to focus on other things they need to be doing. Shifting some of that burden to other agencies could help the schools without hurting the disabled kids.
109: So you're saying the airlines should pay, right?
max-- I thought that there were some studies on propranalol. They use it in vets, and they hoped that if they gave it soon enough after that they might be able to stop the learning/encoding process which makes it permanent.
phred,
I've heard that these debriefing things can actually harm people, and that for people who don't seem at high risk of trauma you actually need to worry about iatrogenic harm.
Re Benzos:
Huh, Biohazard, I've heard that a lot of people naturally taper (this may be in polypharmacy situations.) I used to take klonopin regularly, but then I added propranalol to the mix, and so I only took it to ward off acute anxiety. I still have some, but I rarely take it. Going off sertraline was much harder.
BG--
That may be the case; I have no idea, and it's of course impossible for me to evaluate on the basis of my subjective experience. I was going along with the protocol in place that was geared toward helping employees; it could have been based on bad evidence, though.
That said, I was really glad they did it. When something like happens, you feel incompetent/guilty/etc. The debriefing helped forestall that: I learned about a lot of other accidents/near misses by people who were clearly very good. It also made it clear that many of these things are organizational problems: enough of the workweek spent practicing skills, not having to improvise gear, etc. And frankly, it's a way for the institution to use the incident to encourage you/call you a trooper/build confidence rather than let you stew. Hard to say what the long-term effects are.
Regardless, even if the way it occasionally haunts is a result of the debriefing, it helped make that whole section of my life better. That pretty much undermines the analogy with Stanley's situation, though. Huh.