Unexpected detour

This week has been a bit of a roller coaster. Friday, I was going about my day, seeing clients and grading papers. Brains forming ideas about infographics and making notes. I was also booking Ubers and planning to go shopping for formal attire for a commencement ceremony next week out in CA. I’m in a meeting and I had my husband hop on to meet a mutual client. We wrap it up and he says come out for a second. I had another meeting but they were running late. I step out the door and he says “we’re okay but we had a car accident.” Of course as a mother I’m completely freaking out. I know how much car accidents scare two of three kids because of a past experience. I also caught myself being like I should have told Ryan, my son goodbye. I seen him leave out the front and briefly thought I should tell him goodbye. Things like this always make you think, this could have been the last time I seen him or any of them. Thankfully it wasn’t. Minor soreness and some emotional stress, that was all. The other driver, an 18 year old, was okay too. I hugged my kids - the middle asked me “what’s wrong” because to her it was just a minor inconvenience through her day, the other two were pretty upset. Chloe had no recollection of the event- a bit of shock and Ryan seen it happening but froze and couldn’t say anything. My husband processing all the information quickly hit the car in the tail causing it to spin which gave the driver the best chance otherwise he would have hit him in the side, all while making sure he didn’t swerve into on coming traffic. Quick processing skills, right- this is where our ADHD teens struggle and why they have a high car accident fatality rate. Now my husband drives a jeep gladiator, it’s a tank. And just like a jeep is supposed to, it took the hit for the family. Rough and tough.

All my fear was just that. My fears. My work team was supper supportive and understanding. But I’m still low key anxious until it passes. I’ve had a hard time really get anchored in Ventral.  And that’s my point, healing professionals are burdened with managing their own lives in the midst of helping and healing others. It never stops. It could be an unhealthy marriage, issues with your children, your parents, your siblings, your dog, your pet lizard, war, politics. As a supervisor, one of the biggest needs I see with new therapists is just learning how to balance that, whereas seasoned MFTs can manage it not because we know something but because we’ve lived it. We have exercise and exercise our nervous systems to be regulated in the face of a trigger. That doesn’t mean we never dip down into fight or flight, of course we do. With the things we hear? Please! That’s not a realistic expectation, we’re human and we need that. We need to learn to listen to our nervous system and what is it telling us. Mine was telling me, you’re scared- cues of danger landed on my body. I tried to mitigate the best I could and anchor in ventral in the moment, but honestly it was really hard. However I know that seeing and connecting with my kid clients was still better than no connection at all.