Yes – just like Jerry Springer, the host gets to spout some opinions about the whole ordeal. I haven’t really gone into my inner thoughts about the accident until now – neither on the blog, or in real life – so strap yourself in.

Firstly, if it seems a bit self-indulgent to write fifteen parts about my one accident, you may not have gathered that this is a bit cathartic for me. Like I can write about it, publish it, and then I can come to terms with it and move on. And a lot of shit happened to me in the past months. Plus, I’m quietly proving to myself that I haven’t lost the ability to write. I’ve clearly got ‘quantity’ down pat, next up is ‘quality’.

It’s weird having a “the” event in my life. You know, how as a shortcut, someone may say “since the pregnancy”, meaning since the time they got pregnant. Now I have “since the accident”, which would sound like I wet the bed to a casual passerby. It’s easier to have a handy the to drop into conversation, because I have a whole bunch of complex emotions about the whole thing so it’s usually better not to delve by explaining my reference point.

Someone I know (a café owner in Richmond near the rehab centre, if you need details) said that it must be “a sign”. I don’t believe in signs (nor any gods) but it’s hard to take the accident onboard and not dissect any spiritual reasons for it happening. It could’ve been karma; maybe I’ve treated people badly in the past and it came back to hurt me. Even though I’m entirely up my own ass about this whole affair, I’m still not drowning in enough self-pity to believe the ‘sign’ angle. Mainly because it absolves any real-world person of any action that wasn’t “pre-destined”.

I have a lot of trouble watching TV or movies where someone gets hit by a car. Just today I was watching the Lost season five finale, and Sayid’s girlfriend is hit by a car pretty bad. Watching it happen made me want to hurl.

I often think about what it would have actually looked like when I was hit: which part of me went where, which part broke the windshield, the position I was in on the road after I landed, where I was bleeding from at the time… I can’t. It’s too fucking scary. Seeing a representation of someone getting hit on the screen is a bit much for me because it makes it real, and forces me to wonder if that’s what I looked like.

And what I looked like to the crowd that soon formed: was I this crippled wreck by the side of the road that everyone thought was going to die? That’s a million times worse than any ‘naked in public’ fear. That’s literally dying on a stage.

This is the blessing and curse of amnesia – the brain has clearly blocked out anything it feels is too big for me to process, and I totally get that. But the rest of my anatomy can’t do the same because it doesn’t have its own memory to wipe. Just today, I was struck by the thought that my eyes and ears would have seen and heard everything: a quick glance to see headlights are heading my way, the crashing sound as the car collided with me, the vision of my head hitting the bonnet of the car… And that’s where I have to stop because I’m thinking about it in too much detail. So while I can’t remember it, it kills me that I have senses that experienced it first hand. It’s all way too real.

The thing that really kicks me in the balls is that when the accident happened, everything was going so right. I had a great job, and was moving to my own apartment that was by the beach. When I came to after my coma, they were both gone and I was back at my parent’s house like a teenager – at square one again, after all this progress. So I’ve been angry.

I’ve spent a lot of time blaming people for my accident – like the driver. Sure, the guy must be culpable in some respects; but the police have it down as my fault. I started half-heartedly blaming auxiliary people for flimsy reasons in a desperate attempt to pin it on someone else. But the other day I had an epiphany that’s haunted me ever since.

It could’ve been my fault. No one else’s. Mine. I’m the reason I was in a coma.

Sure, the guy could have braked or looked where he was going or however it happened. But for me to be on the road at the time, I would’ve crossed the street without looking, or crossed thinking I had enough time. So even though (possibly) an amount of defensive driving could’ve saved Avraham extensive repairs to his car, and me a couple of months in rehab and this emotional hangover, I can’t get past the fact that this could be 100% my fault and I have no one to be angry at but myself.

My fault I’m not living by the beach in Elwood; my fault I no longer have the awesome job; my fault I can’t jog because it hurts the pin in my ankle; my fault I have scars on my body. But, most of all, it’s my fault for scaring the shit out of my friends and family. And I just can’t come to terms with that yet.

I know that’s very much a hardline – even unfair – approach, and it probably means I have a bit more acceptance to go, but it’s my thinking at the moment. I’m not trying to be melodramatic but it’s the soundest conclusion I can reach. It also doesn’t help that with no job to distract me, I have nothing but time to process such thoughts and reach ‘sound conclusions’ that are unshakable.

The whole ‘not working’ scenario also gives me far too much time on my hands to think and dissect (as you can probably tell by this scathing self impression), and I’ve come to the conclusion as to why I’m so critical of myself: the accident showed me that I’m no longer invincible. Not that I was fielding bullets without wincing before, mind you; but not invincible in a metaphorical sense. Perhaps because of that, I am doubting myself a lot and my self-confidence is shattered. But I suspect that this has a lot to do with the many experts in rehab that told me to expect monumental changes in thinking or character. I’m not really exhibiting any, so I have to double guess myself at every step to make sure it’s not the brain injury talking.

Even with that in mind, I’m getting a bit over a couple of my friend’s attitudes towards me now. It’s not an “attitude”, per se, but the ongoing implication that I’m reveling in being at home all the time. Or that I’m enjoying being paid by the TAC, who match my pre-accident income. Or that I’m simply being lazy and not working – despite the fact I have a medical certificate, and it would be illegal for me to work. In a nutshell, some of my closest friends don’t take what’s happened to me as seriously as I would like. And I can’t despise them for it because they were – and still are – there for me in the absolute shittest time of my life to date.

I can’t blame them – even through the coma and brain injury, most of the stories I’ve gotten back about my time with amnesia have been “fun”. The shit I was speaking, for example. So they’re the stories I repeat, because the others are god-awful depressing or boring. I try not to dwell on the subject with friends now, although I usually bring it up far more often than I’d like to. So you can see how someone would think it’s a laughable subject – I’m just not ready to fully chortle at it yet. There’s no gentler way to express this, but it has fucked up my life royally for the time being. It’s not as funny as I make out most the time.

At the end of the day though, I think that being able to make fun of it – in this blog, for example, and the times I have in conversation – is a sign of strength. As a wise man once said: you have to laugh at things, otherwise you would cry. Taking a bad situation and turning it into something you can deal with is fucking hard; much harder than I ever thought it could be before the accident. I’ll get there one day.

Thanks for coming along for this part of the ride.