The Car Crash Moment

 I have realised things in stages. Processed the ball of twisted thoughts in disconnected moments, the frequency of which have intensified, their significance gaining traction. Sitting in the Law classroom with one of the personal tutors and one of my learners, helping them process their tornado of thoughts, I processed one of my own.

Their tutor and I were talking them down. Telling them that if they don’t accept help for their mental health now, they will have a ‘car crash’ moment. A moment of culmination; a moment in which the monster will go from breathing down their neck to snaking his fingers around it. We told the learner about our own ‘car crash’ moments. I told them about an actual car crash, because I do tend to smash the Fiesta into things when I’m overwhelmed, but it got me thinking. What was my actual ‘car crash’ moment? The real one, the one that’s too messy to share with a vulnerable young person and my colleague. I knew straight away because I’d filed in under ‘The worst day of my life’. Am I exaggerating? It doesn’t feel like it, honestly.

The date was 4 days later than 17^th August 2022, the day my grandad got his wings. Theo’s gender reveal. I had been entrusted with making cupcakes, pink and blue, and I’d promised everyone that I’d make a balloon arch, too. I had a vision of what that day was going to be – I felt part of something life-changing for us all. It promised to be so full of love for the little one but also among the people who had already come together because of this new life. Then grandad died.

4 days after being ran over by the last train on the Northern line, I didn’t feel so full of hope as I had in the weeks prior. I felt like a zombie. I didn’t realise how dangerous my situation was until much later (maybe I’m still realising). The grief coupled with going back again to a man who was abusing me mentally at the time (which turned physical by the end) out of pure loneliness and desperation set me up for my tragic fall that day.

Like any great tragic hero, I grappled with a hamartia, and that day it was prosecco. My loved ones could see that I was battling to stay present, my mind barely able to graze the surface of this very special moment. The solution? Have a glass of prosecco, Charlotte. Aka the stupidest idea of all time and one which I should’ve immediately vetoed but did not because I was desperately seeking an escape and other people were telling me to do it and I was so bloody weak.

I knew Theo was a boy. I saw him in the back seat of Nana’s car in a dream once. So I was wearing blue. I watched the cannon blow, raining pastel confetti, cheering the loudest, moved by the joy on my brother and sister-in-law’s faces. “It’s a boy, Grands! A boy!” I sent the thought up to heaven as hard as I could. It was full of overwhelmed elation, teetering across a fine line into something more sinister. A feeling of pessimism that we were celebrating new life days after my very favourite life had ended. A feeling of injustice that grandad had been robbed of knowing that baby, who had been made while he was still on this earth. A screaming feeling that I wasn’t coping, awash with guilt because it was Dan and Britt’s special day.

I picked a fight with mum. I directed my annoyance at not being able to express myself at her because it had been her in the past who had silenced my emotions. The party had quietened down and people had started to leave, and I knew I had to go home. I had enough wherewithal to ask Britt to take me home, and bless her, she did. I thanked her profusely and apologised for not being myself.

When I got back to my house, my ex was there. I had promised to help with his application for a job, but I underestimated how much the gender reveal would impact me. I was decently drunk, and I took a bottle of prosecco into the garden and poured myself another. It was too late to stop drinking, I was spiralling and I knew it. I was sitting on the grass with Willow, sobbing almost uncontrollably by this point, and he was standing at the back door, annoyed that I had gotten in to too much of a state to help him with his admin. He snatched the prosecco out of my hand, began to shout, and I just continued to cry. Notably, friends, if a man (or anyone who claims to love you) can watch you break your heart and either treat you unkindly or not react at all (e.g. fall asleep), RUN.

The next part is a blur. I had started to disassociate when he did this, plus I was numb with grief. Of course, the blur was exacerbated by the fact that the glass I’d drank from the second bottle had now entered my bloodstream. He shouted so loud, he called me names, he told me I brought nothing to the relationship, and he wouldn’t let me walk away from him, that much I know. He would never let me leave, never, not until he was done. Sometimes this took hours. I also know that I was on the kitchen floor, sobbing, hitting myself in the face, unable to take anymore but unable to get away. There was blood. I remember that. An eerie calm came over him, the savage yelling stopped, and he started filming me. Then, he called my brother. He told Dan in the most pathetic voice I’ve ever heard that I was a mess, I was crazy, I was out of control. Said he needed help because he didn’t know what to do or how to stop me.

Dan and Britt came to the house immediately. Dan was upset and angry with me, struggling to regulate his own emotions, trusting what my ex had told him and taking the situation on face value, which is fair enough. Britt, pregnant, seemed much more doubtful. Then, somehow, my mum was on the phone, also yelling at me. My ears were ringing, and time warped as horror poured from my broken heart. Very slowly, I retreated the three steps towards the back door. I looked at their faces in turn as I moved, my face painted with panic and my own blood.

And… that was it. My car crash moment. In that moment, I internalised the disgust on my brother’s face, the concern of my pregnant sister-in-law and close friend, the mock fear and sadness on my ex’s face, simultaneously hearing my mum’s voice on the phone affirming his lies… And then, finally able to escape since we were in the presence of an audience, I bolted. I ran up my cul-de-sac in my blue dress as if the devil himself was chasing me.

I often think of the women who helped me that night, picking me up off the concrete where I lay and sobbed. One of them gave me a blanket. They told me I wasn’t crazy. That I was just grieving. That I should get signed off work, but that I would be ok. I didn’t get signed off work, but that’s a story for another day.

So, what did I realise in that moment in the law classroom talking to my learner about car crashes? I realised that I forgive the girl whose soulmate died, which lead to her getting too drunk that day. I love her. I grieve the fact that she wasn’t seen by those closest to her in her darkest moment. Britt came very close, but she was carrying our special boy and I knew I couldn’t lean on her as much as I maybe needed to at the time. I tried hard to protect her from that moment, but my ex didn’t have that same respect unfortunately.

It's not often that the tragic hero doesn’t die after the climax of the plot, to be honest. I teach literature, I would know. But this tragic hero remains to establish a new status quo. And, for the first time in a while, I’m excited to see what that looks like.