Tell Me About Your Accident
I had no idea how scary they are.
Hello Beautifuls,
Today is going to be a bit different than usual. I’m not feeling all here and I’m finding that writing isn’t coming out quite right today.
I’ve been in San Francisco since Thursday afternoon visiting my family and one of my clients. On Saturday, after lunch with my Dad, my sister and brother in law decided to take a nap and I decided to take myself out to the Sutro Baths to go for a walk on the cliffs over the bay.
I was most of the way there when another car hit mine. Air bags deployed, this terrible smoke from them filled my nose and my glasses were knocked off my face.
I’m fine. Mostly. But that’s a story for another day, because I realize I am exhausted and there was no way to write a good piece for you today.
My accident wasn’t at high speed, I wasn’t physically hurt, just a little sore, no one else was hurt. So I thought I’d just walk away, but even mild car accidents are serious, as I’ve been learning over the last few days.
For me it’s more about the emotions it has brought up, not just the accident itself, but dealing with the insurance and telling the story of the accident over and over and over again — and here’s the piece I’ll write about later: needing to have done everything right, feeling like people in power won’t believe me and being deeply emotionally distraught that I didn’t know what to do and somehow I did everything wrong.
I have never been in an accident before and when I texted one of the women I work with about it, she shared a recent accident that she had been in. She texted back, “I just had one last month. Totaled my car. The side and front airbags went off and I got knocked out before I even knew what happened. And didn't wake up until the firefighters were getting me out of my car. I'm still traumatized. It's so scary.”
I was so relieved I almost cried. It did feel scary. It felt unsettling, it felt BIG. But also, I wasn’t hurt, I walked away, so I should be fine, right? I am, but I’m also not. I will be, but there’s some big stuff it tapped into that I have to process.
Other people have shared their accident stories and how scary they were. Hearing other people’s experiences has brought me so much comfort and helped me feel so seen and understood, I want to pay that forward here today. I would be honored if anyone wants to share their accident experience. I promise to write back, so you’re not commenting into a vacuum.
Have you been in a car accident and what was it like for you? Tell me about it in the comments.
Also, I realized that many of you don’t know that you can access my Substack and all of my writing online here, not just in email. This is also where you can leave a public comment on this post.
I’ll leave you with some pretty pictures of my trip. The Northern California coast is one of my most favorite places in the entire world.
Be well, drive safe.
xo
Jocelyn
So glad you were ok but in my opinion no matter how minor the accident it is still often unsettling at best and a little traumatizing at worst. The biggest accident I’ve been in was the day before my college graduation, and I was T-boned by a car - the upsetting thing was that it was completely my fault because I was trying to cross the street and they were just driving perpendicular to me, but what sucked was that my view of the street was completely blocked by two cars that were illegally parked giving me no way to see if there were incoming cars. I had three passengers in the car with me and thank goodness no one was hurt, but the front of my car was completely bashed in on the right side and when I got out I was shaking and sobbing both because it was so sudden and terrifying and because I knew it was my fault and I was very worried about the person in the other car. Luckily, she also was not hurt. However, her mom showed up at the scene and absolutely ripped into me - yelling at me that it was her daughters high school graduation the next day, and that she was on her way to a violin performance and didn’t stop yelling at me for about five minutes, while I was still shaking and crying hysterically - it was an awful insult injury since I already knew it was my fault, and I felt so incredibly terrible. Then of course the police show up and it’s so hard to talk to them when you’re feeling so rattled, but the only silver lining was that they at least ticketed the two cars that were blocking my view of the street! I remember feeling a little annoyed after overhearing the other driver tell the cops she was only going 25 miles an hour, which was a silly lie, since the speed limit was 35 - but nonetheless, once again, it was still my fault. It was the firefighters who showed up however that were the true heroes of my story - since their role is more about safety, and if anyone’s hurt, I remember one fireman sat down with me and put his arm around me while i sat on the curb shaking and crying and i will never forget his compassion and kindness because once again, I felt so guilty and like I had no right to be upset since I caused the accident 😔 so besides how jarring it actually feels when two cars collide honestly, the hardest part for me was being yelled at and scolded by the other driver’s Mom - it just felt so unnecessary, but what can you do?
My second story is about a near accident, but worth sharing! It was the middle of winter when I was living in Vail, Colorado and I was driving by myself in the left lane on a pass going the same speed as the other cars is in the left lane and it was blizzarding and pretty icy, and at one point my wheels started to spin out on the ice - And I knew from lots of experience driving in winter conditions that there really was nothing I could do as far as controlling the car so I dropped my hands from the steering wheel and pretty much accepted the fact that I was going to flip off the rail and die and I remember my car doing a complete 360 in what felt like slow motion on the highway and at one point literally being face-to-face with a semi truck going the opposite direction of me in the right lane. Then, all of a sudden, miraculously, I literally ended up perfectly parallel to the railing, and on the shoulder facing the right direction. It was one of those moments where my brain didn’t know how to feel since, for all intense and purposes, nothing happened. All the other cars were safe and it literally turned out to be the best possible case scenario. Nonetheless, since for a minute I thought I was going to die, I still sat on the shoulder sobbing, trying to process what happened and how I was still alive but since no accident occurred and I was fine, I didn’t feel like I had any justification for being as upset as I was so didn’t really tell anybody about it… It was an insane experience though to say the least!
I’m so sorry you had this happen to you. I was in an accident many years ago, at least fifty! I ran a stop sign and realized it when I saw a car coming towards me. I sped up, and he hit the rear right side of my car. I had two toddlers, a four year old and and two year old in the car. We didn’t have seat belts or car seats in those days. One was asleep on the floor of the car, and the other was asleep on the back seat. I was spun around, and also traveled onto the lawn of a house heading towards a tree. The car started to flip, and then came back down on all four tires and stopped in front of the tree. None of us were hurt. Amazing! I was terrified to drive again. My husband at the time said you must get back on the horse. In other words, he told me to drive us all someplace the next day. I don’t think I ever let the trauma of it all sink in, but later when I thought about, I shuttered to think about what could have happened. The car was totaled. We bought another car, and life went on. I remember one lesson I always carried with me after that day: don’t drive if you are distracted or upset. I was upset about a marital issue. I was actually quite despondent about it. I never should have driven anywhere in that state. I still try to remember that because driving takes total attention and ability to focus.