Thank you all for the support. I feel better after deep breathing and prayers for the victims of the horrible accident. I felt selfish feeling how I felt but I couldn't help the physical response I had. I had flashbacks and fear. I HATE adreniline. I wanted to scream "Let me off this truck!" It wasn't until we stopped for the night that I started to relax.
It's ironic how after being in a car crash that invoved a semi that took the life of my then boyfriend and changed mine forever, that I now find myself in a semi. My grandmother says that God is using this truck to heal me. She may be right. When I first went on the road I had back to back panic attacks. after a few months of praying fervantly I just realized that I had to put my life in Gods hands and that he had not brought me this far to leave me.
My panic attacks are few and far between now. I haven't taken medicine for almost two years now and that's a good thing because I am finding better coping mechanisms. Tonight it happens to be brandy.
![Wink ;) ;)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Not ideal but better then prescription drugs. Humor, deep breathing, faith and now compassionate people who understand and genuinely seem to care is what keeps me sane. Thank you again and my prayers for everyone here that has suffered.
Oh I have just read that you are feeling better, kudos to you! Yay!
It's funny that you should mention the truck as a healing mechanism, because I now work with the homeless, and they are a mixture of people who have been in care as children, and abusers of children and women. Very strange I know, but they are incredibly caring of me. So some of them are very likely similar to the people who cause my injury, drug users, bullies, abusers, even the occasional murderer, and every spectrum of mental illness. I have also found it very healing...
Go figure.
Life takes us in funny directions doesn't it?
But for me, I see it as a completion of a circle, what went around came around. and I could have been any one of them, so consider myself lucky that I had developed such strong resilience, and survival instinct which we all have by the bucketload. The survival instinct is strong in all of us or we wouldn't be here. We might need some help for some of it, particularly if depression is around, but we keep going like little chugging trains, lol.
This bit you guys might find interesting, because I have just spent 4 days doing Equine Therapy with two trauma specialists from Arizona of all places!
It was brilliant! They have been to Oz 4 times, and tour around the country, and work with trauma etc. One of them has written a book, Shelly Rosenberg, (based on her own life history of trauma) and the other is Professor Nancy ? They work together with the horses to teach people about boundary setting etc. I have never been near horse in my life, but I can do stuff like teaching them to follow me, do what I tell them, and block them if I want to by just reading horse language.
I'm sure you are all laughing your heads off! But it was a huge learning curve for me considering I was terrified! But I did it, and it was fabulous, so a big thank-you from me to Arizona for creating those lovely creative and intelligent women!
Ps. no riding was involved, it was pure emotional connection with horses, quite fascinating, because I felt like I breathed air with two of those horses,
and they nuzzled with me and licked me, almost like they
knew because they were rescued horses. How funny is that?
It was so lovely, we were in the hills with kangaroos and other creatures everywhere, sunsets - clear starry nights, campfires, and the quietness of nature was just delicious. :seeya: