Back at the beginning of February this year, I posted a blog about a car accident I’d been involved in on the motorway 9 months earlier. Just to recap, when I wrote the post I’d been to see Trevor Silvester for a bit of help with overcoming the aftershock and trauma of the whole situation, as it had been limiting my everyday day life for far too long.

Since then I’ve driven 7 junctions of the M6 from Stafford to Birmingham, through a notoriously horrible spaghetti junction.  It wasn’t easy.  As soon as I got on the entry slip road I could feel my heart rate increase, I felt hot and breathless, and my hands and legs started shaking furiously through the sheer adrenaline that was pumping through me.  The panicky feeling started to rise in my chest, and it reached a crescendo just as I moved into the fast lane to overtake a lorry  – I had the lorry on one side, and a concrete wall on the other side, and I felt completely and utterly trapped.  Flashbacks of the crash filled my vision, and I was convinced that I was going to lose control and crash again.  I gripped the steering wheel even tighter and vowed that I would get through it without having to pull over, and somehow I did.  I made it to our destination, and breathed out all the tension I’d been holding inside.

That was back in July.  Yesterday I went on the motorway where the accident actually happened for the first time – the M54 to Telford.  And guess what.  Nothing!  Not a single thing.  I was absolutely fine!  It’s difficult to explain what I’m feeling now – relief mainly I think.  There’s a curious sense of calm too.  I know now that wherever I want to drive, I’ll be able to do it.  The accident was just something that happened.  It doesn’t define me any more.

And that brings me to this:

“When something bad happens, you have three choices.  You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you”

I love this.  I feel infinitely stronger now than I did 18 months ago, and I know that at some point in the future I’ll be able to use all my learnings from this experience to help someone else.  Everything happens for a reason.

And the moral of the story?  Don’t let yourself be defined or destroyed by things that happen to you.  You can, and you will, survive – and you’ll end up even stronger than you were before.  All you’ve got to do is choose.