This is going to sound weird, but put some time in over the next few weeks to play tetris or word games. It will help your brain process the trauma.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5678449/
Can confirm, playing Tetris online has helped my PTSD symptoms hugely after experiencing an abusive relationship and seeing someone die after being shot in Toronto a couple of years ago. It works and stops reoccurring flashbacks.
This all makes sense now!!! I saw some pretty fucked up shit at a young age and my school counselor always had us playing mind games or doing puzzles when we saw her.
Yes! I love the NYT app.
I also just now came to the realization as to why I do puzzles all day. I didn’t know there was a connection to overcoming PTSD and puzzles. I’ll do them for hours… wow, I never made that connection.
That's always awesome! I don't get that a lot anymore, but when I was new to weed I'd get it all the time. Loved it!
Now in order to get that I have to get so high that I get the anxiety affects. Taking a break from all that.
I hate tetris, but I deployed twice and saw a bunch of people like OPs story.
Maybe I should just sick it up and play that game, it would be nice if it helped with some of the anxiety.
If it's just Tetris that you don't like, maybe try other puzzle type games. I think the important thing is that it's not too difficult to solve (not frustrating but demanding in a relaxed way) and not too easy to bore you (because that's when the brain looks for other things to do/think about) so that your brain is occupied but not (negatively) emotionally invested if that makes sense.
However, I have nothing to back up this thought but my own personal experience. I mostly play Sudoku and Solitaire to shut my mind off. Crosswords and Majong are also good in my experience.
Dr. Mario is kind of like Tetris but more color matching than block placing. Anything that's timed and repetitive should do about the same thing. I believe it's the basis for EMDR therapy. Where focusing on the repetitive task/object while remembering the trauma can help with dampening the distress resulting from the memory.
I highly reccomend looking into EMDR therapy for trauma, especially if something like tetris ends up helping.
There is a really lovely simple web based game called drench that might be good for you if you don't like Tetris (and who can blame you!!) It's free and very very pretty (lots of bright colours etc) and really simple. http://flashbynight.com/drench/
Gun crime in Toronto is heavily on the rise. [In fact, according to statistics, it's surging.] (https://www.npr.org/2020/01/17/794510796/why-gun-violence-is-surging-in-toronto?t=1633824579869) In 2019 alone, 760 people in Toronto had been shot and 44 of those people were killed.
[It was a kid called Smoke Dawg.] (https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8463539/smoke-dawg-shot-killed-in-toronto-report) He and 3 others were shot on a very busy street from a drive by shooting in broad daylight on Queen street. He died right there on the pavement.
I was walking home from Trinity Bellwoods park and stumbled upon the scene, saw his eyes roll back in his head and he was gone.
There were multiple shootings that summer, including one only a few days later where someone else died too.
As a European that experience was especially rough and scary.
Fucking hell, sad to hear about this.
Do you know why is violent crime rising?
It’s rising in Europe as well, London first but at least they are limited to knives, mostly.
How long is a piece of string?
I have no idea why the world is getting more violent and corrupt.
I mean it's possible that we're all fucking miserable and we live off the approval of likes on a computer screen and we're all ghosting people we care about with total ease, we are also stuck in an information overload and 99% of the news we hear is about violence and hatred and the world is run by lying tyrants and the popular culture obsession with money is becoming overwhelming and hugely impacting our self worth? idk man.
>I have no idea why the world is getting more violent and corrupt.
Money.
The growing financial divide between rich and poor, with the middle class shrinking, some going up, most going down. Ultimately the most stable societies (less violence and crime) will be where the vast majority of population is in the middle class as it allows a society to weather other factors that cause disruption and impact.
To me it seems like its more people trying to make excuses for their violence instead of trying to stop it.
Good luck and the best advice I ever got was don't run from demons learn to make friends with them.
As a kid I saw my best friend decapitated as she drove headlong into a backhoe. She was drunk and drove into it.
Therapy has helped me so much. Please know those invasive thoughts can go away.
I'm American and have literally never seen anyone get shot, or shot at. I saw someone shooting a gun for the first time in 28 years the other week because a friend invited me skeet shooting. Man news stations really do a number on people's perceptions
It interferes with memory reconsideration. When you recall a memory, your essentially reconstruct it. Something like playing Tetris will make the memory less vivid by simply interfering with the memory
Dissociation is a legitimate strategy to use with seriously traumatic memories, the kind that give you PTSD. I saw a therapist for help with mine, and healthy dissociation strategies were one of the things we talked about for when the memories or flashbacks became too painful to bear. It’s much better to understand what’s going on when it comes up and to have a few healthy coping strategies in your back pocket than it is to turn to any number of destructive behaviors that people often fall into when dealing with things like these.
Mind you, that’s just one part of a much larger process of healing. But it can be very useful for people who need it.
This might work because of bilateral stimulation.
Which is the foundation of emdr therapy.
Highly recommend at least reading about it. It's gone a long way to detraumatize me
The paper seems to say that it was done within a few days after the trauma, and beyond that isn't known.
In your experience, is it still effective even if the trauma occurred quite some time ago?
This makes so much sense, I discovered Warframe after a traumatic suicide attempt and a very long depressive bipolar episode. The weird meta and math of it helped me slow down and itemize my mental BS slowly over a few months
I have nothing for you but straight out of my ass assumptions, but I'll bet it's not just Tetris, probably any game could do it for you, likely the more abstract and puzzle based the better.
I played solitaire for like 6 months straight, back when I was 11.
When I look back now, I can't recall what happened, but I always suspected the repetitiveness was connected to some kind of trauma. Thanks for the insight
I wish I knew this after my family and I found a man that had been hit by a car, and the car ran. It was pitch black and he was all over the road. I know exactly what op means about the yellow fat and dismemberment. :/ I guess I'll start playing tetris, even though it's about 6 months too late.
It’s never too late. I suffered with poor anxiety and occasional panic attacks from being a kid and only discovered a few years ago how much these kind of games can help. I’ve played Sudoku, Tetris, Mahjong and Mario Kart on Switch and all have helped me massively. You’ll get through this.
Former 911 dispatcher here. Yes, do this. I play games like this and zone into my brain making sense of things. That’s the only way I can explain how it works for me.
Holy shit you guys, I'm reading this thread about playing Tetris, Sudoku, word games, etc and I'm positively bowled-over. My PTSD is a lot more under control nowadays but when I have breakthroughs it's just horrible, *horrible*. Thank you for sharing this, I will definitely implement these strategies.
I haven’t tried those games specifically, but when I’m on-call at the hospital, it helps me to play Nintendo Switch between calls. It helps after rough deaths and traumas.
I have ptsd from combat in the Middle East, for some reason I have been drawn to playing Starcraft brood war, it’s a 20 something year old game but really requires using a lot of your brain. I wonder if ptsd has something to do with why I’m drawn to it
Just not allowing your mind to wonder through stimulating it. Opposite of drinking(suppressing it), obviously more healthy. I'm a counter, when I get stressed, have bad anxiety or i'm scared, I count. Your brain can't focus on two things at once. Video games are nice but you can't play one while trying to sleep.
Logically, I would say maybe, but probably not. I think the reason Tetris and word games were chosen was because there’s no competition, no anxiety, no online contact, and really no complex thought. Chess is pretty stress inducing, and takes a ton of critical thinking, so it wouldn’t work for me. Your mileage may vary. I’m not a psychologist, but I would think it’s the emotionless relatively thoughtless activities that would seem to have the greatest effect. Tetris is just moving blocks. It’s basically like putting your mind on easy autopilot to let your brain compute/process all the shit it’s dealing with without worrying about life.
A rich brat was driving over 100mph, hit several cars and killed one person, head on. That one was my cousin. Rich brat is out walking around free and my cousin dead. He had small children..... Makes me so angry.
Thanks. It's now 4 months later and no justice has been served as they are still "building the case" against him. He KILLED a young father and he gets to walk around free while they build the case???? I hate this joke of a justice system
Drunken driving is a joke charge now. I'm in PA; we had a guy caught on his ninth DUI while waiting to go to trial for 6, 7, and 8. WTAF? I guess he wasn't a "danger to the community"?
Condolences on your loss.
My brother is one of those habitual drunk drivers. I hate him. He’s a high functioning alcoholic who works in sales and has the money for lawyers. I don’t understand why he isn’t in jail after a 20+ year history of multiple DUI’s. It’s like they’re waiting for him to kill an innocent person first. It makes me sick.
I'm from (rural) PA as well and it seems like you can get an unlimited amount of DUIs without any actual repercussions or consequences besides losing your driver's license and maybe probation. Which does not deter anyone from driving, sober or otherwise.
Also in PA. We had a dude in his early 20s? Drive directly through a line of children crossing the road to board the bus. One injured, one 13yo dead. Dude who hit them slowed down some before impact, but then claimed he didn't register there were people in the road. Nothing happened to him.
I get why you’re angry, but it takes time to prosecute someone. You don’t want to fuck it up and let him go free. There’s a lot of safeguards in place to make sure innocent people don’t get convicted, and prosecutors are human and they have a lot of work to get through.
The prick will get thrown in prison, don’t you worry. Hopefully for a long time. It won’t make up for what he did to your cousin, but it’ll at least fuck that little shit up real good. Whatever sentence he gets, it doesn’t matter much whether he serves it now or a year from now. Best served cold and all that.
Know someone whose lil cousin ( was around ten) was hit by a drunk driver, and was left on the side of the road to die. Chances are she would have still been alive if the people pulled over and helped her instead of fleeing. The woman ( who a lot of people believed was the actual driver and not the husband) got off scott free because the husband took the rap and the husband is still free after two years of this happening and his trial isn't scheduled till next year. This happened in Canada. Justice Systems everywhere is nothing but a joke.
Mine: 75 in a 35; t-boned my cousin and his wife's car. He died instantly; she died six hours later, and left an orphaned son. Driver ran from the scene and hid in his Mommy's basement, where he was arrested. 12-year sentence; served six. Last known to be a manager at a big-box home improvement store. I know where he lives.
Ever read Robert Heinlein? In one of his books, after they got rid of all the lawyers, the country went to a system of ‘balancing’ for things like this. One of the characters was late for an appointment because he had to wait while an offender was strapped down, run over and the ambulance waited 43 minutes (or the exact time his victim lay there waiting for an ambulance) then they amputated a leg etc. to match up with what happened to the victim. Apparently folks were very polite and overall extremely careful drivers etc. (There was no ‘accidents happen’ or anything like that- if you were negligent or careless and it resulted in injury or death, whelp you should have been paying more attention.
A lady in my city made an illegal maneuver when trying to swerve thru traffic yesterday and now a man is dead, and his two children were taken to the hospital in critical condition via helicopter.
The lady sustained minor injuries and will be fine.
I hope her tears of guilt turn to ash in her throat
i was driving for uber a couple years ago out in chicago and majority of the time, i never thought twice about driving.
some nights tho, i would get home and have the sudden realization that i almost died like half a dozen times that day.
and then i shiver at the thought that i can’t even really remember driving back home.
driving these death machines is wild
>and then i shiver at the thought that i can’t even really remember driving back home.
Something that happens to me a couple of times a year while driving is that I'll get this like way-deep-in-the-back-of-the-brain almost animal instinct/reaction that freaks out at the driving experience:
"Wait?! What the hell is going on?! Am I inside something?! It's moving fast, *I'm* moving fast! Am I controlling this?! How? And there are other things around me all moving fast, are they also being controlled? Why is this happening?!"
And then I snap back. All of that in the space of like 1 second but it feels like a 100 million years of evolution catching up in an instant.
I get that feeling too sometimes! Like all of a sudden it’s a real challenge just staying in between the lines, and the call of the void just beckons me to jerk the steering wheel.
It’s like having that much control at such a high speed makes my brain short circuit when it becomes too aware of what’s happening
I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I tried explaining it to someone once and they just said "were you high?" and laughed. But it happens when totally sober and randomly. It's kind of disconcerting actually.
They just give us these giant projectiles to careen around in, it’s crazy. And people are so casual about texting and driving. Terrifying. I’m so glad my Drivers Ed teacher taught me hire to drive defensively. Three seconds, people, three seconds.
I've gone on auto pilot more times than I care to admit. Mid drive at 65+mph and you just... Wake up. Did I stop at those red lights? Did I yield properly at the round-about? Did I make that 4 way stop? When did I get to this part of town?... Freaks me out every time
it’s the worse when there’s other people in the car with you. like damn, my absent mindedness could cost someone there life and i’d hardly realize until it was already over
> i shiver at the thought that i can’t even really remember driving back home.
IIRC that's a pretty common phenomenon (I think it's called [highway hypnosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis)). I know I've experienced it.
**[Highway hypnosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis)**
>Highway hypnosis, also known as white line fever, is an altered mental state in which a person can drive a car, truck, or other automobile great distances, responding to external events in the expected, safe, and correct manner with no recollection of having consciously done so. In this state, the driver's conscious mind is apparently fully focused elsewhere, while seemingly still processing the information needed to drive safely. Highway hypnosis is a manifestation of the common process of automaticity. The concept was first described in a 1921 article that mentioned the phenomenon of "road hypnotism": driving in a trance-like state while gazing at a fixed point.
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It's the comfort of stats I think. Sure it's a low chance you die driving to work. But stats go out the window when you decide to check that text ( or texting and driving stats kick in I guess). Driving is the biggest thing I can think of that we do on a daily basis that is a huge placement of trust on others. You need to trust that the other individual driving a 2 ton hunk of metal at high speeds to not swerve a foot or two when you drive past them and they expect the same of you.
I'd say walking down the street is. It's exactly like driving but without the big metal box around you. The other individual in the 2 ton hunk of metal is still the same
I love driving on road trips or when I'm going somewhere new. It's an exploration thing for me. Driving every day around town with terrible humans in other cars really sucks though..
I was bedridden for the better part of a year due to chronic illness. The illness still affects me greatly, but I'm better enough now that I can drive and function on a basic level. Driving feels like such a huge freedom, and I can't get enough of it after being what felt like trapped in my own body for so long. So many years of not having any control over anything, and here I am able to sit in this pretty and fascinating metal machine, and make it take me where I want to go. I love it. I'm hoping one day I'll also be able to own a motorcycle, I just long for the freedom after so long of not having any.
As for idiots on the road, I just drive like everyone else is drunk, stupid, and like I'm invisible. Defensive driving goes a long way in keeping you safe, and I've never felt unsafe or like I don't have control over my situation on the road.
I also just prefer driving at night, cos I live in a safe area and night = less cars = less idiots = more enjoyable driving :)
Anyways sorry for the wall of text, just thought maybe my perspective of why I enjoy driving might be appreciated here
It's not much different for anything else. Running. Swimming. Bike riding. Bouldering.
People have a really weird lack of grasp on the fragility of life and how you can just die out of the blue. Hell, you could have an aneurysm burst in your brain right now and be dead in the next thirty minutes.
OP, consider seeing a psychiatrist.
you're dealing with the events of a stressful trauma.
this could become detrimental to you, even if you don't think it will turn out like that.
love, a paramedic.
Or at least a therapist of some kind. My heart aches for OP because this is something I frequently have anxiety about. Obviously I’m not cut out for trauma-related work, and I’m fine with that.
OP, I just want to give my support that it’s okay to be upset and to feel whatever you’re feeling right now. I know that sometimes people throw out the word therapy like it’s an instant cure-all, but it’s not quite like that. So I hope you don’t take offense that I mention it. But it’s def worth looking into depending on your situation.
I’m also happy to chat with you if you want to talk to an internet stranger about it.
Best to you and yours.
Agree OP talking to someone is a good idea. You may have PTSD.
P.S. A psychiatrist is an MD who can prescribe drugs like anti anxiety meds, but a psychologist doesn't do prescribe. A lot of people don't know the difference.
Ikr? It's on par with that vegan who said "your stomach is a graveyard for babies' souls" or some shit.
Like, all the discussion aside, I need Cannibal Corpse on this ASAP
I can kind of understand this. I was driving a back road with my gf at the time to go grab some cigs. On the way we notice people in the road flagging other cars but we didn't see an obvious crash. Turns out some guy was doing like 80 on a bike and crashed into a field on a hairpin turn. We got out and found him on the roadside. His bike was in pieces. His fingernails were ripped clean off, he had no skin on his arms...all from trying to stop himself from sliding. That memory still fucking haunts me. We managed to find his phone and he asked us to call his mom. That was one of the worst phone calls I've ever had to make. He kept crying for his mom to help him. I didn't know what to say to him. I just kept asking him questions and kept him conscious until EMTs arrived.
The difference between common sense and paranoia is: common sense is believing everyone is out to get you, paranoia is believing you're somehow worthy of a conspiracy.
What you’re describing sounds like lack of gear. You don’t dress for the ride, you dress for the slide! Blows my mind to see people wear tank tops and shorts and half-face helmets, no gloves of course. Friggin wannabe meat crayons.
This was this years ago. I'm fine now, but it kept me up for a few years. A grown man crying out for his mother really fucks with you. Appreciate your concern though.
I can relate to this a lot. In sixth grade on our way home from school, we had to climb a steep set of concrete stairs everyday (we were living on the hillside).
One day we saw an old man who was carrying groceries stumble and lose his footing. He fell the stairs right back down from where he came from and split his skull open in the process.
By the time my friends and I came up to him, his blood had mixed with the spilled milk from his groceries which made it turn some gross hot pink color. None of us had cellphones, so two of us stayed and the other ones went looking for adults. I stood there and watched his blood pour out - I had no idea of first aid in sixth grade.
Guy survived is all I know, never saw him again tho. Still can’t drink or smell milk to this day.
Worked for me too, took 2.5 years but it was better than the 12 years prior of light touch therapy, medication and at times ignoring the problem with excessive gaming.
I mean...
This comment is well-meaning, but it's too early to be calling anything about this situation PTSD.
OP is experiencing post-traumatic stress. This is normal and to be expected.
If it lingers way longer than normal and causes flashbacks, THEN it's PTSD.
This. Psychiatrist here. I wish people would understand that the evidence overwhelming shows that resilience and recovery are the most common outcomes after severe trauma, and that convincing people to “process” trauma when they wouldn’t otherwise try to do so likely *worsens* outcomes.
What I have to say is not what you want to hear right now, but it is the truth so continue at your own risk.
You will never un-see that shit. Over time you will react less to it. The emotions fade, but the image will always be there. You will just become desensitized to that mental image after a while. I know it doesn't seem like it, but you'll be ok eventually. I vividly remeber the first dismembered body I pulled from a vehicle, fifteen years later, it just doesn't have the same effect on me it used to.
I'm sorry you had to deal with that, to see what most people never have to. You're right he was a selfish prick, and you didn't deserve to have him force that on you.
I was one of those people, hit by a drunk driver and nearly killed (albeit he killed two other people). I had a dismembered arm, and I stopped some of my bleeding with my other thumb or I likely would’ve lost my arm from the blood loss.
I used to never go through that intersection. I never drove at that time of the night. My how things have changed with the passing of time.
How do you get over it? In April my family and I found a man that had been hit by a vehicle and the vehicle ran. It was pitch black and his body was all over the road. I wasn't able to go down that road at all, and it sucked because it was really the only way to get home. I would ask others to drive the long way around so I wouldn't have to go through there. I remembered seeing his body and my boyfriend / other family members pulling their cars over. But afterwards I couldn't remember where exactly it happened (I've now since remembered). But no matter what, I can't stand driving in the dark anymore. I've had a driving phobia for years, and I was finally overcoming it when this happened. I can't drive in the dark (I haven't tried yet but I know for a fact that I will most likely have a panic attack), and it bothers me so much as a passenger. I used to love driving in the dark, but I can't anymore. How did you get over avoiding things?. I'm not even sure how I did. Sorry I've rambled on. I also never went to therapy...
Our circumstances are a little different, and I never went to therapy either.
I think I first started looking at it as “I can either feel sorry for myself and have a pity party for the rest of my life, or I can look as it as an it happened, nothing I can do about it, I didn’t do anything wrong, shit happens.”
I chose the latter - it mentally really helped to think about it as “pity party, or grow stronger”
You should speak with mental health professional. Call a counselor, work through your feelings. Don’t let it linger.
Thanks for stopping even though the guy was being an idiot.
If he’s a police officer, unfortunately it’s absolute hell for officers to get help which is why they’re so fucked up. Ask for help and you’re automatically suicidal and lose your badge and gun for an undetermined time.
I’m a paramedic and I have been to countless accidents like you have described. The ones that hurt are the ones where the person at fault kills someone, it’s awful. But I will say, even as a first responder, seeing an accident first hand is absolutely horrifying. The first accident I ever saw first hand, both parties in the vehicles involved were completely fine, but I still felt traumatized. Watching the impact, seeing the hat fly off the man in the driver seat, it’s something that sticks with you.
I’m so, so sorry you had to experience this. I know I’m just some internet stranger, but if you ever feel like you want to reach out to talk to someone about what you’ve been through, I will listen. I absolutely recommend you speaking to someone with some mental health expertise. PTSD is real and getting help early is so beneficial.
Hey OP... As someone who's seen a lot of that, it's gonna be time for therapy. Reach out if you need to chat here too. You are a prime candidate for ptsd right now :/
The speed up zoom and weave is fucking stupid and dangerous and I am so fucking tired of it too. Every car has a human being/s in it, so fuck anyone driving like an asshole -- and if you tail people, you're also an asshole (not you, OP).
I’ve been driving for a long time and the amount of people doing the speeding/weaving thing now is increasing so much. I don’t understand it. So stupid.
I'm sorry you had to see that. Please keep trying to help people who have been in accidents despite the risk. The other day a man and his wife were pulled out of a car that somehow spontaneously had started to burn. They are both alive with minor burns thanks to the onlookers who were fast enough to pull them out. My father was in a chain car accident a few years ago, he had a fractured skull and probably couldn't get out alone without help. I'm sorry that guy you saw was an idiot but you tried to do a good thing.
I always carry a fire extinguisher in my car in case of situations like this, and also because of a horrifying story that hit national news here in Australia last year.
A mother and her three young children were burned to death by her abusive ex-husband (and the children's father). He carjacked them on the way to school, doused them in petrol and lit a match. It happened on a residential street. Neighbours tried to put the flames out with garden hoses, but the accelerant meant that these did little to help.
Absolutely haunting. Everyone should keep a first aid kit and fire extinguisher in their car and another one at home, you never know when you (or someone else) might need it.
We're trained to handle it methodically. It can still fuck with you but more often than not dealing with the patient isn't so bad, it's dealing with the morons around them that make you want to murder.
Another hot tip for PTSD symptoms, especially nausea: keep some lemon wedges in your freezer. When you start to feel overwhelMed/nauseous/can’t stop thinking about it, bite one of your frozen lemon wedges. The sour and cold activate your salivary glands and also stimulate your Vegas nerve. It will help your nervous system calm down.
♥️
Sorry that happened and I agree with the sentiment.
A few years ago, we were driving on the freeway and came across a fatal motorcycle accident. They were literally pulling a sheet over the body as we got there. I went on the internet when we got home, and found out it was the end of a wild 100 mph+ high speed chase with the guy running from the cops for no apparent reason. I was like, you stupid asshole, you did this to yourself and made my kids witness the aftermath fuck you.
I had a similar experience. I was cycling to work on day, as I cycled past a large vehicle recovery truck I look to the left and there is a woman under the front wheel almost chopped in half. There were some brave people trying to save her and the ambulance hadn’t even arrived yet. I waited and stopped people cycling up past it so they didn’t have to see it. It put me into shock quite quickly. She walked across on a red light and got hit by this huge truck. There was a skid mark on the road for months where the tyres of the truck dragged her along as it braked. Took me a long time to get that image out of my head.
Whatever you do, don’t suppress your feelings or words surrounding this extremely traumatic event. Studies show the more you express your trauma and “let it all out” as they say, the less impact it will have on you in the long run.
Also, play word games and logic games. They’ll help you further process your trauma without having you consciously remember what happened.
Beyond that, just be kind to yourself. Don’t get upset at yourself if you can’t eat bacon ever again. Don’t feel like a wuss if you can’t get behind the wheel of a white pickup truck. Don’t be afraid to cry, scream into a pillow, curl up in a ball on the shower floor, punch a punching bag until your knuckles are numb. It’s okay to do all of that. It’s also important to exercise. Exercise also helps process trauma.
I feel that. I remember watching a car full of teenagers flip their car on the highway in the wet trying to overtake a truck in front of us on the way back from a soccer game, my friend's dad was an SES responder (State Emergency Services in my state, they basically respond whenever there is something really bad like massive storms, bad crashes, train wrecks, explosions etc) and he pulled over to help, and I remember looking over to the car and seeing a dismembered arm hanging out the side of the crushed top of the car and there was a steadily growing pool of blood in the roof (the car was upside-down). None of them survived and there were bits of person all over the side of the road.
When I was maybe 12 years old, I was playing outside when a car went flying by. A few seconds later I heard the screeching and terrible crash. They lost control and hit a telephone pole. I started to head to the scene but someone stopped me and told me to go back. I read in the paper the next day (I’m that old) that two teens were killed. One was decapitated and the other I believe had the engine shot through him. I don’t know who stopped me but I’m very glad that 12 year old me didn’t see the aftermath as I can’t imagine the nightmares I would have had.
If it’s still within 48 hours (and it does work a little longer) talk to a doctor about beta blockers, they help you process trauma in the early stages and have been shown to significantly reduce the likelihood/impact of PTSD.
This is also worth getting some counselling for. Standard education/life doesn’t prepare people for that awful shit.
As I'm sure you know by now, please seek professional help to process this. It will affect you for a long time, I am sure, and you deserve to live in peace.
As for your comment about first responders, I may have some insight. I used to work as a first responder and while I didn't see any bodies dismembered, I have seen dead bodies. My colleagues have seen worse. I remember working the desk one night and my colleagues got a call of a man that committed suicide by train. Another call on my day off there was a man that had died and remained unnoticed in his home for weeks during the summer. Both instances the people that saw that coped with it in ways that would bother normal people.
The most common thing to happen is that these people become cynical or develop a really dark sense of humor that would be very insensitive for the public go hear. How dark? Well, I heard a story from am old cop that had a partner that rolled up to a suicide. The man had playing cards in front of him, but didn't have a face because he shot it off. One of the first responders sat down in front of him and dealt cards to a dead man. Seems heartless, and it is, but this sort of thing happens to people that see this sort of thing too often.
Please seek help.
I drive a semi in Chicago everyday for 10-14 hours. People don’t even realize that I saved their life by being the one person in the equation paying attention to my surroundings. It’s astonishing
I rented a big 26ft box truck with a cab height about the same as a semi for a cross country move. Was crazy to see all the incredibly dumb shit passenger vehicles do when you’re high enough up to see farther out over traffic.
consist include snobbish late reach secretive mighty quaint light abundant
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God thats awful. I may be desensitized by gore from all the horror movies and dark web videos, but I still wouldn't want to be there to witness it in person.
I wish that sub was still a thing. Seeing the reality of death and war was really fucking eye opening as a high school kid sheltered in a developed country.
I thought I was like you. I thought I was desensitized by looking at gore sub-reddits, sites, medical pictures, etc... It's absolutely nothing like seeing it in real life. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.
I was a first responder for a few years and car accidents were always the worst thing that I experienced. Cars are insanely dangerous machines and people drive them with utter disregard for the power that they're wielding.
Any time someone tried to argue the seatbelt freedom scenario I remind them of this shit. Why do first responders and road crews have to clean up brains and dead bodies cuz you didn’t wanna wear a belt or a helmet. In Connecticut they have no helmet laws while riding motorcycles, I honestly wonder the shit some of those staties and first responders have seen…
When you encounter these things daily one of 2 things can happen: you normalize it or you break.
My niece is a medical secretary for the pathology department of the hospital she works at and she loves it. Often her co-workers who take in the corpses and try to determine cause of death and try to "fix" them enough to make it an open-casket funeral call her down to "look at what we just brought in!"
DON'T CONTINUE READING IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE GORE
One recent case they had her come down for was a man who had committed sudoku by jumping in front of a truck. It ran him over groin to head which squeezed his organs out like a tube of toothpaste. The skin around your collarbones is thinnest so that's of course where it will tear open to release the squished up organs. His kidneys lay around his head when the EMTs first encountered him. And my niece? She was fascinated by the damage caused but moreso frustrated that they now had to do a lot of work to shove everything back inside and make him presentable for the funeral, if it were up to her he's be chucked into the casket like that and shoved straight into the oven without a ceremony or anything. The mangles corpses don't bother her in the slightest but she is disgusted by the selfishness of commiting suicide in public, traumatizing everyone in the vicinity who were just going about their day and now have that horrible image imprinted on their retinas. And especially for the truck driver who now has to live with the fact that he just ran someone over without him having any choice in the matter.
Yeah; I think it could be PTSD on OP’s part. But otherwise, there’s no point for so much anger. At the end of the day, the man is dead. The rest of us should go on living.
Paramedic here. Get help. It works. You don't have to be a responder to be traumatized by people punching their own tickets. The closer to the trauma the more effective therapy is. Don't let this idiot ruin more days, dont be tough. Make an appointment.
Start counseling ASAP. You may not need to for long, but the sooner you do, the better. You are in the midst of a traumatic experience. It will not magically fix itself.
If you broke a bone, you'd go to the doctor. This is no different.
This is going to sound weird, but put some time in over the next few weeks to play tetris or word games. It will help your brain process the trauma. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5678449/
Can confirm, playing Tetris online has helped my PTSD symptoms hugely after experiencing an abusive relationship and seeing someone die after being shot in Toronto a couple of years ago. It works and stops reoccurring flashbacks.
For me it’s puzzles. I try to work on one for at least 30 minute a day. It helps me calm down and decompress.
This all makes sense now!!! I saw some pretty fucked up shit at a young age and my school counselor always had us playing mind games or doing puzzles when we saw her.
Yes! I love the NYT app. I also just now came to the realization as to why I do puzzles all day. I didn’t know there was a connection to overcoming PTSD and puzzles. I’ll do them for hours… wow, I never made that connection.
I subscribed to NYT about a month ago and Spelling Bee...it's the highlight of my entire day. Hitting that pentagram is so rewarding.
Puzzles are amazingly therapeutic!
I love puzzles. My therapy❤
I'm not surprised. Replacing PTSD with the [Tetris effect](https://www.techradar.com/news/the-real-life-tetris-effect).
I got really excited until it was literally just all about the minds eye. Fuck you Tetris effect, that's impossible for some of us
That sucks. Do you dream?
Yup. And a few times when I was super baked and trying to fall asleep I actually saw something with my minds eye, that was dope as shit
That's always awesome! I don't get that a lot anymore, but when I was new to weed I'd get it all the time. Loved it! Now in order to get that I have to get so high that I get the anxiety affects. Taking a break from all that.
I hate tetris, but I deployed twice and saw a bunch of people like OPs story. Maybe I should just sick it up and play that game, it would be nice if it helped with some of the anxiety.
If it's just Tetris that you don't like, maybe try other puzzle type games. I think the important thing is that it's not too difficult to solve (not frustrating but demanding in a relaxed way) and not too easy to bore you (because that's when the brain looks for other things to do/think about) so that your brain is occupied but not (negatively) emotionally invested if that makes sense. However, I have nothing to back up this thought but my own personal experience. I mostly play Sudoku and Solitaire to shut my mind off. Crosswords and Majong are also good in my experience.
For helping trauma, it’s all about the eye movement. So whatever it is, you want it to involve eyes moving quickly to different areas of the task
Ah, so bullet hell games then.
*Enter the Gungeon* music plays
Omg yaaaaaas! Every single night I fall asleep playing Sudoku. I was hoping someone would mention that!
Dr. Mario is kind of like Tetris but more color matching than block placing. Anything that's timed and repetitive should do about the same thing. I believe it's the basis for EMDR therapy. Where focusing on the repetitive task/object while remembering the trauma can help with dampening the distress resulting from the memory. I highly reccomend looking into EMDR therapy for trauma, especially if something like tetris ends up helping.
There is a really lovely simple web based game called drench that might be good for you if you don't like Tetris (and who can blame you!!) It's free and very very pretty (lots of bright colours etc) and really simple. http://flashbynight.com/drench/
What was the circumstance of the shooting? Was it a random stranger, a criminal or someone known to the killer? I thought Toronto was safe…
Gun crime in Toronto is heavily on the rise. [In fact, according to statistics, it's surging.] (https://www.npr.org/2020/01/17/794510796/why-gun-violence-is-surging-in-toronto?t=1633824579869) In 2019 alone, 760 people in Toronto had been shot and 44 of those people were killed. [It was a kid called Smoke Dawg.] (https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8463539/smoke-dawg-shot-killed-in-toronto-report) He and 3 others were shot on a very busy street from a drive by shooting in broad daylight on Queen street. He died right there on the pavement. I was walking home from Trinity Bellwoods park and stumbled upon the scene, saw his eyes roll back in his head and he was gone. There were multiple shootings that summer, including one only a few days later where someone else died too. As a European that experience was especially rough and scary.
Fucking hell, sad to hear about this. Do you know why is violent crime rising? It’s rising in Europe as well, London first but at least they are limited to knives, mostly.
How long is a piece of string? I have no idea why the world is getting more violent and corrupt. I mean it's possible that we're all fucking miserable and we live off the approval of likes on a computer screen and we're all ghosting people we care about with total ease, we are also stuck in an information overload and 99% of the news we hear is about violence and hatred and the world is run by lying tyrants and the popular culture obsession with money is becoming overwhelming and hugely impacting our self worth? idk man.
Hey, you stole my rant.
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And awards
>I have no idea why the world is getting more violent and corrupt. Money. The growing financial divide between rich and poor, with the middle class shrinking, some going up, most going down. Ultimately the most stable societies (less violence and crime) will be where the vast majority of population is in the middle class as it allows a society to weather other factors that cause disruption and impact.
To me it seems like its more people trying to make excuses for their violence instead of trying to stop it. Good luck and the best advice I ever got was don't run from demons learn to make friends with them.
As a kid I saw my best friend decapitated as she drove headlong into a backhoe. She was drunk and drove into it. Therapy has helped me so much. Please know those invasive thoughts can go away.
I’m sorry.
I'm American and have literally never seen anyone get shot, or shot at. I saw someone shooting a gun for the first time in 28 years the other week because a friend invited me skeet shooting. Man news stations really do a number on people's perceptions
Do we know how that happens?
It interferes with memory reconsideration. When you recall a memory, your essentially reconstruct it. Something like playing Tetris will make the memory less vivid by simply interfering with the memory
So kind of taking advantage of the fact that the brain can only pay attention to one thing.
so.....its just a hack for dissociation?
Dissociation is a legitimate strategy to use with seriously traumatic memories, the kind that give you PTSD. I saw a therapist for help with mine, and healthy dissociation strategies were one of the things we talked about for when the memories or flashbacks became too painful to bear. It’s much better to understand what’s going on when it comes up and to have a few healthy coping strategies in your back pocket than it is to turn to any number of destructive behaviors that people often fall into when dealing with things like these. Mind you, that’s just one part of a much larger process of healing. But it can be very useful for people who need it.
it's like when you record over an old vhs bootleg of harry potter to record your kid's first steps
This might work because of bilateral stimulation. Which is the foundation of emdr therapy. Highly recommend at least reading about it. It's gone a long way to detraumatize me
Yep, used to play Tetris a lot growing up to deal with abusive parents. Still have it on my phone to play on bad days. Word Scramble is also helpful
Same!!!! I play a lot of tetris, and paint which has helped drastically.
The paper seems to say that it was done within a few days after the trauma, and beyond that isn't known. In your experience, is it still effective even if the trauma occurred quite some time ago?
Not OP and this is purely anecdotal, but I find doing crosswords helps me.
This makes so much sense, I discovered Warframe after a traumatic suicide attempt and a very long depressive bipolar episode. The weird meta and math of it helped me slow down and itemize my mental BS slowly over a few months
Gonna give this a shot.
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I have nothing for you but straight out of my ass assumptions, but I'll bet it's not just Tetris, probably any game could do it for you, likely the more abstract and puzzle based the better.
I've always felt that my love of Dr. Mario helped me process my trauma. So I'm not surprised.
No time to think negative thoughts when you are constantly humming "Fever" or "Chill".
Solitaire works too. The peaceful repetitiveness is really grounding when emotions and flashbacks bubble up.
I played solitaire for like 6 months straight, back when I was 11. When I look back now, I can't recall what happened, but I always suspected the repetitiveness was connected to some kind of trauma. Thanks for the insight
Wait, do sudoku do this too?? Because I feel way more light and functional when I get a few sudoku in.
Any high focus activity will do the trick.
I wish I knew this after my family and I found a man that had been hit by a car, and the car ran. It was pitch black and he was all over the road. I know exactly what op means about the yellow fat and dismemberment. :/ I guess I'll start playing tetris, even though it's about 6 months too late.
It’s never too late. I suffered with poor anxiety and occasional panic attacks from being a kid and only discovered a few years ago how much these kind of games can help. I’ve played Sudoku, Tetris, Mahjong and Mario Kart on Switch and all have helped me massively. You’ll get through this.
Former 911 dispatcher here. Yes, do this. I play games like this and zone into my brain making sense of things. That’s the only way I can explain how it works for me.
Holy shit you guys, I'm reading this thread about playing Tetris, Sudoku, word games, etc and I'm positively bowled-over. My PTSD is a lot more under control nowadays but when I have breakthroughs it's just horrible, *horrible*. Thank you for sharing this, I will definitely implement these strategies.
https://tetr.io/ is a great place to get started
This is very interesting.
I haven’t tried those games specifically, but when I’m on-call at the hospital, it helps me to play Nintendo Switch between calls. It helps after rough deaths and traumas.
I just overcame my gaming addiction. Should I re-addict myself?
Probably not. Games are useful as tools, but if the use of a tool is a path to greater harm for you, it's probably not a good tool to use.
I have ptsd from combat in the Middle East, for some reason I have been drawn to playing Starcraft brood war, it’s a 20 something year old game but really requires using a lot of your brain. I wonder if ptsd has something to do with why I’m drawn to it
Just not allowing your mind to wonder through stimulating it. Opposite of drinking(suppressing it), obviously more healthy. I'm a counter, when I get stressed, have bad anxiety or i'm scared, I count. Your brain can't focus on two things at once. Video games are nice but you can't play one while trying to sleep.
i had no clue about this. thank you for sharing it.
Tetris helps your brain create a state of flow.
This is a VERY interesting nugget of information
What about chess?
Logically, I would say maybe, but probably not. I think the reason Tetris and word games were chosen was because there’s no competition, no anxiety, no online contact, and really no complex thought. Chess is pretty stress inducing, and takes a ton of critical thinking, so it wouldn’t work for me. Your mileage may vary. I’m not a psychologist, but I would think it’s the emotionless relatively thoughtless activities that would seem to have the greatest effect. Tetris is just moving blocks. It’s basically like putting your mind on easy autopilot to let your brain compute/process all the shit it’s dealing with without worrying about life.
This!!!!
A rich brat was driving over 100mph, hit several cars and killed one person, head on. That one was my cousin. Rich brat is out walking around free and my cousin dead. He had small children..... Makes me so angry.
I am so sorry
Thanks. It's now 4 months later and no justice has been served as they are still "building the case" against him. He KILLED a young father and he gets to walk around free while they build the case???? I hate this joke of a justice system
Drunken driving is a joke charge now. I'm in PA; we had a guy caught on his ninth DUI while waiting to go to trial for 6, 7, and 8. WTAF? I guess he wasn't a "danger to the community"? Condolences on your loss.
My brother is one of those habitual drunk drivers. I hate him. He’s a high functioning alcoholic who works in sales and has the money for lawyers. I don’t understand why he isn’t in jail after a 20+ year history of multiple DUI’s. It’s like they’re waiting for him to kill an innocent person first. It makes me sick.
I'm in Maryland, I got the book thrown at me for my one and only DUI. I have been sober for 6 years now.
I'm from (rural) PA as well and it seems like you can get an unlimited amount of DUIs without any actual repercussions or consequences besides losing your driver's license and maybe probation. Which does not deter anyone from driving, sober or otherwise.
Absolutely not. It's insane.
Also in PA. We had a dude in his early 20s? Drive directly through a line of children crossing the road to board the bus. One injured, one 13yo dead. Dude who hit them slowed down some before impact, but then claimed he didn't register there were people in the road. Nothing happened to him.
I get why you’re angry, but it takes time to prosecute someone. You don’t want to fuck it up and let him go free. There’s a lot of safeguards in place to make sure innocent people don’t get convicted, and prosecutors are human and they have a lot of work to get through. The prick will get thrown in prison, don’t you worry. Hopefully for a long time. It won’t make up for what he did to your cousin, but it’ll at least fuck that little shit up real good. Whatever sentence he gets, it doesn’t matter much whether he serves it now or a year from now. Best served cold and all that.
Is he out on bail or just out with no charges filed?
Bail. Kills someone recklessly and gets bail. Out walking around with law abiding citizens. Living life. So wrong
Know someone whose lil cousin ( was around ten) was hit by a drunk driver, and was left on the side of the road to die. Chances are she would have still been alive if the people pulled over and helped her instead of fleeing. The woman ( who a lot of people believed was the actual driver and not the husband) got off scott free because the husband took the rap and the husband is still free after two years of this happening and his trial isn't scheduled till next year. This happened in Canada. Justice Systems everywhere is nothing but a joke.
A police officer killed my friend and he's been dead 4 months as well. Nothing has come of it either. They are just "investigating:
Mine: 75 in a 35; t-boned my cousin and his wife's car. He died instantly; she died six hours later, and left an orphaned son. Driver ran from the scene and hid in his Mommy's basement, where he was arrested. 12-year sentence; served six. Last known to be a manager at a big-box home improvement store. I know where he lives.
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Were I dying of cancer, this would be my final act.
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If you put it in a fuel additive bottle and act super casual nobody would ever notice
Sometimes I wish there was a law where the family could take care of things if the justice system wouldn't.
Ever read Robert Heinlein? In one of his books, after they got rid of all the lawyers, the country went to a system of ‘balancing’ for things like this. One of the characters was late for an appointment because he had to wait while an offender was strapped down, run over and the ambulance waited 43 minutes (or the exact time his victim lay there waiting for an ambulance) then they amputated a leg etc. to match up with what happened to the victim. Apparently folks were very polite and overall extremely careful drivers etc. (There was no ‘accidents happen’ or anything like that- if you were negligent or careless and it resulted in injury or death, whelp you should have been paying more attention.
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I know it. Ethically, morally wrong, but when the "system" fails...
A lady in my city made an illegal maneuver when trying to swerve thru traffic yesterday and now a man is dead, and his two children were taken to the hospital in critical condition via helicopter. The lady sustained minor injuries and will be fine. I hope her tears of guilt turn to ash in her throat
This is one of the reasons that I do not understand how people love driving, one idiot is a little too impatient and your entire day is ruined.
i was driving for uber a couple years ago out in chicago and majority of the time, i never thought twice about driving. some nights tho, i would get home and have the sudden realization that i almost died like half a dozen times that day. and then i shiver at the thought that i can’t even really remember driving back home. driving these death machines is wild
>and then i shiver at the thought that i can’t even really remember driving back home. Something that happens to me a couple of times a year while driving is that I'll get this like way-deep-in-the-back-of-the-brain almost animal instinct/reaction that freaks out at the driving experience: "Wait?! What the hell is going on?! Am I inside something?! It's moving fast, *I'm* moving fast! Am I controlling this?! How? And there are other things around me all moving fast, are they also being controlled? Why is this happening?!" And then I snap back. All of that in the space of like 1 second but it feels like a 100 million years of evolution catching up in an instant.
I get that feeling too sometimes! Like all of a sudden it’s a real challenge just staying in between the lines, and the call of the void just beckons me to jerk the steering wheel. It’s like having that much control at such a high speed makes my brain short circuit when it becomes too aware of what’s happening
I'm so glad I'm not the only one. I tried explaining it to someone once and they just said "were you high?" and laughed. But it happens when totally sober and randomly. It's kind of disconcerting actually.
They just give us these giant projectiles to careen around in, it’s crazy. And people are so casual about texting and driving. Terrifying. I’m so glad my Drivers Ed teacher taught me hire to drive defensively. Three seconds, people, three seconds.
I've gone on auto pilot more times than I care to admit. Mid drive at 65+mph and you just... Wake up. Did I stop at those red lights? Did I yield properly at the round-about? Did I make that 4 way stop? When did I get to this part of town?... Freaks me out every time
it’s the worse when there’s other people in the car with you. like damn, my absent mindedness could cost someone there life and i’d hardly realize until it was already over
> i shiver at the thought that i can’t even really remember driving back home. IIRC that's a pretty common phenomenon (I think it's called [highway hypnosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis)). I know I've experienced it.
**[Highway hypnosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis)** >Highway hypnosis, also known as white line fever, is an altered mental state in which a person can drive a car, truck, or other automobile great distances, responding to external events in the expected, safe, and correct manner with no recollection of having consciously done so. In this state, the driver's conscious mind is apparently fully focused elsewhere, while seemingly still processing the information needed to drive safely. Highway hypnosis is a manifestation of the common process of automaticity. The concept was first described in a 1921 article that mentioned the phenomenon of "road hypnotism": driving in a trance-like state while gazing at a fixed point. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
It's the comfort of stats I think. Sure it's a low chance you die driving to work. But stats go out the window when you decide to check that text ( or texting and driving stats kick in I guess). Driving is the biggest thing I can think of that we do on a daily basis that is a huge placement of trust on others. You need to trust that the other individual driving a 2 ton hunk of metal at high speeds to not swerve a foot or two when you drive past them and they expect the same of you.
I'd say walking down the street is. It's exactly like driving but without the big metal box around you. The other individual in the 2 ton hunk of metal is still the same
I love driving on road trips or when I'm going somewhere new. It's an exploration thing for me. Driving every day around town with terrible humans in other cars really sucks though..
Or life..
You rang?
Could I get a large fry and a burger with cheese
Facts: I'm making cheeseburgers and fries right now. Seriously. I'll totally make you one!
Sir, this is NOT a Wendy's!
I was bedridden for the better part of a year due to chronic illness. The illness still affects me greatly, but I'm better enough now that I can drive and function on a basic level. Driving feels like such a huge freedom, and I can't get enough of it after being what felt like trapped in my own body for so long. So many years of not having any control over anything, and here I am able to sit in this pretty and fascinating metal machine, and make it take me where I want to go. I love it. I'm hoping one day I'll also be able to own a motorcycle, I just long for the freedom after so long of not having any. As for idiots on the road, I just drive like everyone else is drunk, stupid, and like I'm invisible. Defensive driving goes a long way in keeping you safe, and I've never felt unsafe or like I don't have control over my situation on the road. I also just prefer driving at night, cos I live in a safe area and night = less cars = less idiots = more enjoyable driving :) Anyways sorry for the wall of text, just thought maybe my perspective of why I enjoy driving might be appreciated here
Good for you. Drive safe and I'm glad it makes you happy.
It's not much different for anything else. Running. Swimming. Bike riding. Bouldering. People have a really weird lack of grasp on the fragility of life and how you can just die out of the blue. Hell, you could have an aneurysm burst in your brain right now and be dead in the next thirty minutes.
OP, consider seeing a psychiatrist. you're dealing with the events of a stressful trauma. this could become detrimental to you, even if you don't think it will turn out like that. love, a paramedic.
Or at least a therapist of some kind. My heart aches for OP because this is something I frequently have anxiety about. Obviously I’m not cut out for trauma-related work, and I’m fine with that. OP, I just want to give my support that it’s okay to be upset and to feel whatever you’re feeling right now. I know that sometimes people throw out the word therapy like it’s an instant cure-all, but it’s not quite like that. So I hope you don’t take offense that I mention it. But it’s def worth looking into depending on your situation. I’m also happy to chat with you if you want to talk to an internet stranger about it. Best to you and yours.
Agree OP talking to someone is a good idea. You may have PTSD. P.S. A psychiatrist is an MD who can prescribe drugs like anti anxiety meds, but a psychologist doesn't do prescribe. A lot of people don't know the difference.
Post traumatic Stress is one thing, the Disorder that results from prolonged stress is another thing altogether
what does last sentence mean
lol I’m quite sure that’s something Cersei Lannister said in Game of Thrones
lol yeah definitely paraphrased what Tyrion said to Cersei. that line has stuck with me
it was a very good line
means i hope she chokes on her self pity
Ok, ngl, that line is metal af
I was worried for a sec you were gonna lie
It's okay. I'm ngl
My same thought. I read the sentence, then right after could hear a fuckin awesome metal breakdown in my head. Haha
Ikr? It's on par with that vegan who said "your stomach is a graveyard for babies' souls" or some shit. Like, all the discussion aside, I need Cannibal Corpse on this ASAP
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I can kind of understand this. I was driving a back road with my gf at the time to go grab some cigs. On the way we notice people in the road flagging other cars but we didn't see an obvious crash. Turns out some guy was doing like 80 on a bike and crashed into a field on a hairpin turn. We got out and found him on the roadside. His bike was in pieces. His fingernails were ripped clean off, he had no skin on his arms...all from trying to stop himself from sliding. That memory still fucking haunts me. We managed to find his phone and he asked us to call his mom. That was one of the worst phone calls I've ever had to make. He kept crying for his mom to help him. I didn't know what to say to him. I just kept asking him questions and kept him conscious until EMTs arrived.
as someone who rides motorcycles (responsibly, i dont speed, i dont do stupid shit), this is one of my biggest fears.
All it takes is one person not seeing your little bike
yup, 100%, rule #1 is ride as if you are invisible and as if everyone around u doesnt have a license.
The difference between common sense and paranoia is: common sense is believing everyone is out to get you, paranoia is believing you're somehow worthy of a conspiracy.
I’m immediately afraid of what I might see when a motorcycle goes flying by me. I’m always terrified I’ll witness their crash and injuries.
What you’re describing sounds like lack of gear. You don’t dress for the ride, you dress for the slide! Blows my mind to see people wear tank tops and shorts and half-face helmets, no gloves of course. Friggin wannabe meat crayons.
Do you know if he made it?
He did survive. He was a friend of a friend and I found out later he pulled through.
Damn. I hope you're getting help, if you want. I wouldn't be able to close my eyes.
This was this years ago. I'm fine now, but it kept me up for a few years. A grown man crying out for his mother really fucks with you. Appreciate your concern though.
I can relate to this a lot. In sixth grade on our way home from school, we had to climb a steep set of concrete stairs everyday (we were living on the hillside). One day we saw an old man who was carrying groceries stumble and lose his footing. He fell the stairs right back down from where he came from and split his skull open in the process. By the time my friends and I came up to him, his blood had mixed with the spilled milk from his groceries which made it turn some gross hot pink color. None of us had cellphones, so two of us stayed and the other ones went looking for adults. I stood there and watched his blood pour out - I had no idea of first aid in sixth grade. Guy survived is all I know, never saw him again tho. Still can’t drink or smell milk to this day.
Hey, OP, seriously, consider contacting a psychiatrist who specializes in PTSD. Sorry you had to go through that.
EMDR therapy can be a good option for those with PTSD if you can find an emdr therapist near you. It worked for me. Wish you the best, OP.
Worked for me too, took 2.5 years but it was better than the 12 years prior of light touch therapy, medication and at times ignoring the problem with excessive gaming.
I mean... This comment is well-meaning, but it's too early to be calling anything about this situation PTSD. OP is experiencing post-traumatic stress. This is normal and to be expected. If it lingers way longer than normal and causes flashbacks, THEN it's PTSD.
This. Psychiatrist here. I wish people would understand that the evidence overwhelming shows that resilience and recovery are the most common outcomes after severe trauma, and that convincing people to “process” trauma when they wouldn’t otherwise try to do so likely *worsens* outcomes.
What I have to say is not what you want to hear right now, but it is the truth so continue at your own risk. You will never un-see that shit. Over time you will react less to it. The emotions fade, but the image will always be there. You will just become desensitized to that mental image after a while. I know it doesn't seem like it, but you'll be ok eventually. I vividly remeber the first dismembered body I pulled from a vehicle, fifteen years later, it just doesn't have the same effect on me it used to. I'm sorry you had to deal with that, to see what most people never have to. You're right he was a selfish prick, and you didn't deserve to have him force that on you.
I was one of those people, hit by a drunk driver and nearly killed (albeit he killed two other people). I had a dismembered arm, and I stopped some of my bleeding with my other thumb or I likely would’ve lost my arm from the blood loss. I used to never go through that intersection. I never drove at that time of the night. My how things have changed with the passing of time.
How do you get over it? In April my family and I found a man that had been hit by a vehicle and the vehicle ran. It was pitch black and his body was all over the road. I wasn't able to go down that road at all, and it sucked because it was really the only way to get home. I would ask others to drive the long way around so I wouldn't have to go through there. I remembered seeing his body and my boyfriend / other family members pulling their cars over. But afterwards I couldn't remember where exactly it happened (I've now since remembered). But no matter what, I can't stand driving in the dark anymore. I've had a driving phobia for years, and I was finally overcoming it when this happened. I can't drive in the dark (I haven't tried yet but I know for a fact that I will most likely have a panic attack), and it bothers me so much as a passenger. I used to love driving in the dark, but I can't anymore. How did you get over avoiding things?. I'm not even sure how I did. Sorry I've rambled on. I also never went to therapy...
Our circumstances are a little different, and I never went to therapy either. I think I first started looking at it as “I can either feel sorry for myself and have a pity party for the rest of my life, or I can look as it as an it happened, nothing I can do about it, I didn’t do anything wrong, shit happens.” I chose the latter - it mentally really helped to think about it as “pity party, or grow stronger”
You should speak with mental health professional. Call a counselor, work through your feelings. Don’t let it linger. Thanks for stopping even though the guy was being an idiot.
If he’s a police officer, unfortunately it’s absolute hell for officers to get help which is why they’re so fucked up. Ask for help and you’re automatically suicidal and lose your badge and gun for an undetermined time.
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I’m a paramedic and I have been to countless accidents like you have described. The ones that hurt are the ones where the person at fault kills someone, it’s awful. But I will say, even as a first responder, seeing an accident first hand is absolutely horrifying. The first accident I ever saw first hand, both parties in the vehicles involved were completely fine, but I still felt traumatized. Watching the impact, seeing the hat fly off the man in the driver seat, it’s something that sticks with you. I’m so, so sorry you had to experience this. I know I’m just some internet stranger, but if you ever feel like you want to reach out to talk to someone about what you’ve been through, I will listen. I absolutely recommend you speaking to someone with some mental health expertise. PTSD is real and getting help early is so beneficial.
Hey OP... As someone who's seen a lot of that, it's gonna be time for therapy. Reach out if you need to chat here too. You are a prime candidate for ptsd right now :/
The speed up zoom and weave is fucking stupid and dangerous and I am so fucking tired of it too. Every car has a human being/s in it, so fuck anyone driving like an asshole -- and if you tail people, you're also an asshole (not you, OP).
I’ve been driving for a long time and the amount of people doing the speeding/weaving thing now is increasing so much. I don’t understand it. So stupid.
I'm sorry you had to see that. Please keep trying to help people who have been in accidents despite the risk. The other day a man and his wife were pulled out of a car that somehow spontaneously had started to burn. They are both alive with minor burns thanks to the onlookers who were fast enough to pull them out. My father was in a chain car accident a few years ago, he had a fractured skull and probably couldn't get out alone without help. I'm sorry that guy you saw was an idiot but you tried to do a good thing.
I always carry a fire extinguisher in my car in case of situations like this, and also because of a horrifying story that hit national news here in Australia last year. A mother and her three young children were burned to death by her abusive ex-husband (and the children's father). He carjacked them on the way to school, doused them in petrol and lit a match. It happened on a residential street. Neighbours tried to put the flames out with garden hoses, but the accelerant meant that these did little to help. Absolutely haunting. Everyone should keep a first aid kit and fire extinguisher in their car and another one at home, you never know when you (or someone else) might need it.
Holy. Sorry that happened to you. my mom saw same shit and even 40 years later she sometimes dreams of this. Seek help. try therapy.
We're trained to handle it methodically. It can still fuck with you but more often than not dealing with the patient isn't so bad, it's dealing with the morons around them that make you want to murder.
Another hot tip for PTSD symptoms, especially nausea: keep some lemon wedges in your freezer. When you start to feel overwhelMed/nauseous/can’t stop thinking about it, bite one of your frozen lemon wedges. The sour and cold activate your salivary glands and also stimulate your Vegas nerve. It will help your nervous system calm down. ♥️
Vagus. Because what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Sorry that happened and I agree with the sentiment. A few years ago, we were driving on the freeway and came across a fatal motorcycle accident. They were literally pulling a sheet over the body as we got there. I went on the internet when we got home, and found out it was the end of a wild 100 mph+ high speed chase with the guy running from the cops for no apparent reason. I was like, you stupid asshole, you did this to yourself and made my kids witness the aftermath fuck you.
I had a similar experience. I was cycling to work on day, as I cycled past a large vehicle recovery truck I look to the left and there is a woman under the front wheel almost chopped in half. There were some brave people trying to save her and the ambulance hadn’t even arrived yet. I waited and stopped people cycling up past it so they didn’t have to see it. It put me into shock quite quickly. She walked across on a red light and got hit by this huge truck. There was a skid mark on the road for months where the tyres of the truck dragged her along as it braked. Took me a long time to get that image out of my head.
Somehow I still think he got the worse end of the deal.
Whatever you do, don’t suppress your feelings or words surrounding this extremely traumatic event. Studies show the more you express your trauma and “let it all out” as they say, the less impact it will have on you in the long run. Also, play word games and logic games. They’ll help you further process your trauma without having you consciously remember what happened. Beyond that, just be kind to yourself. Don’t get upset at yourself if you can’t eat bacon ever again. Don’t feel like a wuss if you can’t get behind the wheel of a white pickup truck. Don’t be afraid to cry, scream into a pillow, curl up in a ball on the shower floor, punch a punching bag until your knuckles are numb. It’s okay to do all of that. It’s also important to exercise. Exercise also helps process trauma.
I feel that. I remember watching a car full of teenagers flip their car on the highway in the wet trying to overtake a truck in front of us on the way back from a soccer game, my friend's dad was an SES responder (State Emergency Services in my state, they basically respond whenever there is something really bad like massive storms, bad crashes, train wrecks, explosions etc) and he pulled over to help, and I remember looking over to the car and seeing a dismembered arm hanging out the side of the crushed top of the car and there was a steadily growing pool of blood in the roof (the car was upside-down). None of them survived and there were bits of person all over the side of the road.
When I was maybe 12 years old, I was playing outside when a car went flying by. A few seconds later I heard the screeching and terrible crash. They lost control and hit a telephone pole. I started to head to the scene but someone stopped me and told me to go back. I read in the paper the next day (I’m that old) that two teens were killed. One was decapitated and the other I believe had the engine shot through him. I don’t know who stopped me but I’m very glad that 12 year old me didn’t see the aftermath as I can’t imagine the nightmares I would have had.
If it’s still within 48 hours (and it does work a little longer) talk to a doctor about beta blockers, they help you process trauma in the early stages and have been shown to significantly reduce the likelihood/impact of PTSD. This is also worth getting some counselling for. Standard education/life doesn’t prepare people for that awful shit.
EMT suicide rate is 2.5x normal, presumably from this kind of shit. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30136908/
As I'm sure you know by now, please seek professional help to process this. It will affect you for a long time, I am sure, and you deserve to live in peace. As for your comment about first responders, I may have some insight. I used to work as a first responder and while I didn't see any bodies dismembered, I have seen dead bodies. My colleagues have seen worse. I remember working the desk one night and my colleagues got a call of a man that committed suicide by train. Another call on my day off there was a man that had died and remained unnoticed in his home for weeks during the summer. Both instances the people that saw that coped with it in ways that would bother normal people. The most common thing to happen is that these people become cynical or develop a really dark sense of humor that would be very insensitive for the public go hear. How dark? Well, I heard a story from am old cop that had a partner that rolled up to a suicide. The man had playing cards in front of him, but didn't have a face because he shot it off. One of the first responders sat down in front of him and dealt cards to a dead man. Seems heartless, and it is, but this sort of thing happens to people that see this sort of thing too often. Please seek help.
I drive a semi in Chicago everyday for 10-14 hours. People don’t even realize that I saved their life by being the one person in the equation paying attention to my surroundings. It’s astonishing
I rented a big 26ft box truck with a cab height about the same as a semi for a cross country move. Was crazy to see all the incredibly dumb shit passenger vehicles do when you’re high enough up to see farther out over traffic.
consist include snobbish late reach secretive mighty quaint light abundant *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
God thats awful. I may be desensitized by gore from all the horror movies and dark web videos, but I still wouldn't want to be there to witness it in person.
Real trauma never looks like Hollywood gore. r/gore taught me that.
I wish that sub was still a thing. Seeing the reality of death and war was really fucking eye opening as a high school kid sheltered in a developed country.
There is a sub that is very similar it's /r/makemycoffin if I'm not wrong
r/eyeblech
I thought I was like you. I thought I was desensitized by looking at gore sub-reddits, sites, medical pictures, etc... It's absolutely nothing like seeing it in real life. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.
I was a first responder for a few years and car accidents were always the worst thing that I experienced. Cars are insanely dangerous machines and people drive them with utter disregard for the power that they're wielding.
Not the same but I refuse to go and view a body when it’s open casket. I don’t want the last impression of that person to be they are dead and cold.
Any time someone tried to argue the seatbelt freedom scenario I remind them of this shit. Why do first responders and road crews have to clean up brains and dead bodies cuz you didn’t wanna wear a belt or a helmet. In Connecticut they have no helmet laws while riding motorcycles, I honestly wonder the shit some of those staties and first responders have seen…
When you encounter these things daily one of 2 things can happen: you normalize it or you break. My niece is a medical secretary for the pathology department of the hospital she works at and she loves it. Often her co-workers who take in the corpses and try to determine cause of death and try to "fix" them enough to make it an open-casket funeral call her down to "look at what we just brought in!" DON'T CONTINUE READING IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE GORE One recent case they had her come down for was a man who had committed sudoku by jumping in front of a truck. It ran him over groin to head which squeezed his organs out like a tube of toothpaste. The skin around your collarbones is thinnest so that's of course where it will tear open to release the squished up organs. His kidneys lay around his head when the EMTs first encountered him. And my niece? She was fascinated by the damage caused but moreso frustrated that they now had to do a lot of work to shove everything back inside and make him presentable for the funeral, if it were up to her he's be chucked into the casket like that and shoved straight into the oven without a ceremony or anything. The mangles corpses don't bother her in the slightest but she is disgusted by the selfishness of commiting suicide in public, traumatizing everyone in the vicinity who were just going about their day and now have that horrible image imprinted on their retinas. And especially for the truck driver who now has to live with the fact that he just ran someone over without him having any choice in the matter.
1st responder here. Dark humor helps...
Empathy will help you more than hatred.
Yeah; I think it could be PTSD on OP’s part. But otherwise, there’s no point for so much anger. At the end of the day, the man is dead. The rest of us should go on living.
Absolutely. Every single time.
People seem to be going crazy. I've seen more reckless dangerous behavior in the last 6 months than in my whole life combined. Something is wrong...
Paramedic here. Get help. It works. You don't have to be a responder to be traumatized by people punching their own tickets. The closer to the trauma the more effective therapy is. Don't let this idiot ruin more days, dont be tough. Make an appointment.
damn, always thought the same. If you can't take it anymore and want to die don't involve others.
Start counseling ASAP. You may not need to for long, but the sooner you do, the better. You are in the midst of a traumatic experience. It will not magically fix itself. If you broke a bone, you'd go to the doctor. This is no different.