Confidence building

Confidence building

I don’t know if you are aware but I was in a horrible car accident back in June this year, I was in hospital for ten days following my accident, I had suffered nerve damage and lost the use of my left arm and leg for a while, I was in a wheelchair for 3 months, I have had intense physio every week since the accident and with a lot of determination and support from my family I am now getting ready to go back to work.

I can’t begin to explain how excited I am about going back to work, I am not one for sitting around at home and I absolutely love my job as a support worker. I have one HUGE hurdle left to confront before I am free to return to work and that is to get back behind the wheel of the my car, I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of even just sitting in the driver’s seat again. My car accident happened on the motorway, my back tyre had a blowout causing my car to spin across two lanes of the motorway and then send me skidding facing the wrong way up the motorway and all I remember seeing was a lorry coming towards me, I ended up crashing into the barrier and needed to be cut free from the car by the firemen.

Since my accident back in June I have worked so hard along with my physio therapist Ann to get me back up and walking un-aided again (this has only just happened this week) that I have not even had time to think about my feelings of driving again as I have been concentrating on not getting my self down about my current situation, I was suffering nightmares at the time and flashbacks, my health was my main priority at the time.

I was at the hospital yesterday chatting with my neurologist along with Ian about me returning to work and she asked me how would I feel about driving home from the hospital and at that moment in time it hit me, everything came flooding back about the accident, I couldn’t breath, I started sweating and I just broke down, it hit me, the accident has made me absolutely petrified of getting back behind the wheel.

I am determined to not let the accident beat me, I am going to try so hard to get back behind that wheel but it is going to take a lot of determination, I am aware that it is going to bring back all the horrid memories of my accident but if I don’t face this fear then I will not be able to return to the job I love and it will put strain on us as a family. I am now confidence building and will hopefully be back behind the wheel very soon.

Have you had any horrid fears that you have had to face? do you have any hints or tips that will help me?

Disclaimer: I have not been compensated in ay way to write this post.