I haven't written here for the last few days because I was an emotional wreck. Looking back on it, I was more or less following Elsabeth Kubler-Ross's "5 Stages of Receiving Catastrophic News":
- Denial - This is where I was when I wrote here last. I was aware of the facts, but they had not made much real visceral impact yet.
- Anger - I really begin to feel real anger toward myself on Sunday for two reasons: 1) I was stupid enough to cause an accident and hurt someone, 2) I did not listen to Mrs. Geek when she suggested that we should get a higher levels of auto insurance coverage.
- Bargaining - This is more or less where I am now... hoping like hell that the injured party will accept settlement with insurance company.
- Depression - I think this will set in if an insurance company settlement is not forthcoming.
- Acceptance - I look forward to the day when this will all be behind me.
Reaction to how I am dealing with has varied, in an interesting way. Mrs. Geek always seeks to distract me from my troubles by doing something demonstrative, like tickling me. My Mom tries to be sympathetic and reassuring when I sent my parents an e-mail saying I was losing sleep over this: "Just remember that you have a good job, a loving wife, and excellent prospects. Plus, Plus you have experience at managing stress, think of those final dissertation days." My Dad got rather Yoda-like: "There is NOTHING you can do about the insurance, so why worry about it?" Ummm yeah, detachment is the Buddhist ideal... but often difficult to achieve in practice.
The one useful data point I got over the last few days was from my manager at Company O. When he asked how I was doing, and I mentioned how this was dumped on me late last Friday afternoon, he told me of his own experience with insurance companies. Being an avid road cyclist, he once got hit by an opening car door. He had a broken leg and a couple broken ribs. The whole thing was settled for much less than the maximum amount of injury coverage we have. Hopefully, the poor fellow with the aggravated knee injury will settle for as much.
said drgeek
on 2006-04-13 at 3:18 p.m.
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