THUNK!

The interactions between the animal brain and the rational brain are always fascinating to observe. Unfortunately when it is your own brain you’re observing the experience is not always comfortable.

Yesterday I was driving kids home from swim lessons and I heard an awful THUNK noise on the side of my van. I knew instantly that something had struck my vehicle. A glance at the shattered remains of my right side mirror confirmed this diagnosis. I pulled over and turned to face the man running toward me. His truck was parked on the side of the road and also had a shattered mirror. He was afraid that I’d intended to just keep driving. The mirror on my van clipped the mirror of his truck, breaking both. I cannot honestly tell you if I was driving too close or if his truck was parked too far from the curb, a little of both perhaps. We exchanged names and addresses. I wrote down the time/date/location I also identified a witness I can hunt up if necessary. I don’t think it is going to be necessary. I intend to be civilized and pay for the damage I did. The man whose truck I hit also seems really inclined to be civilized. So I’ll be out $500 in damages, but won’t have to deal with any messy civil suit proceedings.

I kept my cool while dealing with the information exchange, but I was shaky and in tears for the rest of my very careful drive home. Unfortunately Howard was not home and wasn’t easy to reach, so I couldn’t confess and deal with all the emotions right away. I used repression as my psychological management tool. I found lots and lots of ways to not think about the damage to my car and the resulting damage to my budget. I also managed to not think about people sometimes screw each other out of lots of money in cases like this. Well, I mostly managed to not think about it. Then Howard got home and most of it spilled out onto poor, exhausted, I-am-in-pain Howard. He was very kind to me about it.

In theory this should have resolved my emotional conflicts. But as I was falling asleep my subconscious kept replaying the events from the first THUNK to the final driving away. This is apparently a very common phenomenon after a traumatic event, as the animal brain tries to figure out how to deal with the situation. The animal brain wants to rehearse and figure out how to survive, or how to not let it happen again. Persistence of this effect is Post Traumatic Shock Disorder and depending on the severity of the trauma can be crippling. In my case the “trauma” was very mild and so was the effect; all it did was make falling asleep difficult. It mostly seems gone this morning. I don’t think I’ll have a problem with it tonight, especially since I’ll take the kids to swim lessons and back this afternoon without hitting anything, thus proving to the animal brain that we CAN avoid doing it again.

Of course all four of my kids got to witness this whole series of events. All of them were very concerned at how upset I was afterward. Kiki offered me her allowance to help pay for the damage because according to her it is a family car and families should stick together. Patches kept coming up to me and giving me hugs and saying “You’re sad?” This morning Gleek very seriously told Howard “Mommy broke the car. Did she tell you that?” I did do some talking about proper post accident behavior, but mostly I guess the learning experience here is mine. I’m incredibly fortunate to have so many wonderful people in my life.