Dear Ben Nik,
Welcome to Beyond Blue and well done for reaching out.
I would like to start by saying that travelling to unfamiliar places alone is such a brave thing to do! Such a shame though that your travel memories are now being interrupted by a traumatic event.
In 2015 I went to America alone, traveled to Atlanta, New York, LA and San Francisco ...... and it was in San Francisco that I had a very similar experience to the one you described above; I had stepped out onto the road to cross the street, not realising I had looked the wrong way before stepping out and a Taxi missed my by mere centimetres. The lady behind me screamed out and as I felt it whoosh past me, all of a sudden I could 'see' myself being put into a body bag. It gave me such an incredible fright, and yes, like you, the incident played over and over in my mind. I had been in the USA for almost three weeks and that incident was in the last few days of my trip.
And before I go on, I must tell you that I am not a professional by any means, but I have had a lot of counseling in my time, for many other traumas (not just the incident in the USA), and i recall one counselor saying to me that our minds are a bit like a filing system or filing room in that every thought, action, memory etc has a place to go once obtained and stored. That our mind is perhaps a bit like a whole bunch of filing drawers; neat, organized and easily accessible at a moment's notice. But when a trauma happens, well, there's no file for that. It's as though it gets dumped on the floor in a messy pile for all to see, but nowhere to be 'put away'. Dealing with trauma (for me at least) has been about learning to find a 'place' for it, and to deal with it in very small chunks at a time. Sometimes, that may mean making a time and a place to talk and talk about it out loud, and then deciding, and indeed taking the next action, to 'put that detail aside' even if just for a few hours or a day or so and then coming back to it again at another time when you are in a safe environment to do so. Does that make sense?
Maybe too, you could think about getting some trauma counseling to help move the event further back in your mind so that it does not continue to overtake your daily life. You may never forget it completely, but perhaps at some point, with help and support, you may be able to look back at the event and say "Wow, I survived that scary event!"
Anyway, I hope that helps at least a little. Take care. xo
