Lucky : Live & Learn...

Day 1

Not long after I made my slow exit out the hospital, my friend arrived.

Seeing a familiar face after so many hours of despair and loneliness was unbelievably overwhelming. I went from having just calmed myself down, focusing on the movement and ignoring the pain and thinking I was ok, to breaking down again. She took my crutches from me, placed them in the car while I just cried, watched and attempted to ‘sit’ in the car seat. I felt so helpless and reliant.. After always proving myself to be dependant this was a whole 180 turn. 

She said what she remembered of the night, and kept questioning what was happening in my mind at the time. I couldn’t answer though. I had no idea. In the end she realised bringing up the unknown wasn’t really helping and she went to trying to say positive things and distracting my negative thoughts. I appreciated that.

As we were pulling out of the hospital I thought I recognised a car turning in. It looked like the car of the other person I had got my sister to contact. He had showed up to help me also, but I couldn’t call him to let him know I had been discharged and wouldn’t be there so I had to wait it out. I was touched again by his concern though. I really hadn’t expected that!

As we were driving my friend asked where I wanted to go. Did I want to go home? Was there anyone there or would I be alone? Did I want to be alone? I was welcome to go to hers, but there were people over for the pool party. The same people who had been at the staff party the night before…

Honestly, I didn’t want to be around people, especially the people who had seen me having a ball not even 24 hours before, and now I was on crutches and couldn’t walk. I felt shame. They would know my stupidity. I couldn’t be by myself though and I think she could pick up on that.. My scattered thoughts were anything but good. They were depressing and scary and as far as I knew, no one was at my house, so I would be left to them. I needed to change though and see if my phone was there so I chose to stop by mine then go to hers.

When we got to mine, my housemate had gone out. I had no keys as the police had taken those with my car keys so we started the challenge of entering through an alternate route.. The kitchen window. Once she was in we patched it all back up, I entered, found my phone and quickly changed.. Well as quick as I could considering.. My phone had bulk missed calls from my mum and friends so I grabbed a charger, got back to the car and we headed off to my friends place.

Once there, I didn’t know what to expect and I still don’t know what they may have been saying behind my back, but I was very surprised that none of them looked at me judgmentally. They were friendly, kept trying to make me laugh and lots of them shared their own personal experiences of similar stupid driving choices. I was shocked and grateful. This is why I liked this place more than my home town! The thoughts were still there though. I tried to have fun and forget, but I was tired, and it wasn’t really something that could be so easily forgotten and so the tears kept falling.

I called work and told them what happened and my other closest friends came and saw me. It was all upsetting, but I couldn’t hide it and so the necessary people knew. Eventually my housemate called me to see what had happened with everything since the police and as I was tired he came and collected me. We talked about all I could really do for the moment. As well as being positive he helped me to break it down to more bearable thoughts.. Small steps and it would all sort itself with time and patience. Like everyone else he sensed I was beating myself up inside more than I was letting on, and he started talking about cancelling his 6 week trip he had booked to leave in 3 days’ time to help me instead, but I was adamant he wouldn’t be doing that! No way! Finally I convinced him I’d be ok, just leave his mates number for if I did get stuck; and we settled it on that. He could see I was about to pass out from exhaustion. I didn’t even know how many hours I’d been going for, but it had to be one of the longest, physically painful and emotionally draining days I’d ever had.

This was the first day..