Last night, I was involved in a hit and run accident. A young male hit my car and fled. Today, I'm having a difficult time dealing with the fallout stress of this (I'm 57). I am already recovering from 2.5 years of PTSD from stress at work and a horrible relationship, so this is making things much worse. I don't have anybody to talk to about all this, so i hope somebody can give me some support or ideas on how to move past it.

I was driving in the lane of traffic and the guy who hit me was driving in the parking lane. At some point, he decided that he wanted to be in front of me, and barged his way into the lane of traffic in front of me, swiping across the front passenger side of my car. He didn’t stop! He kept driving! I couldn’t believe that he hit me and didn’t stop, to see if I was ok or anything. I followed him, trying to at least get a photo of his license plate, since it didn’t look like he was going to stop. As I was trying to take the photos, he slammed on the brakes and I ran into him. That’s when he stopped and turned on his flashers.

I got out of the car and approached his driver’s side window, and he didn’t open the window or talk to me. He sat in his car, txting on his phone and talking with a woman in the passenger seat (I’m now guessing he was either calling his insurance company or the police too). That’s when I called 911 to report the accident. I told the police what had happened, and that the guy wouldn’t talk to me or give me any of his information.

While I was on the call to 911, the guy got out of his car and said numerous times “I need to see your insurance and drivers license” and “I am not going to argue with you”. He took a photo of my license plate. Also he insulted me, “You are so ignorant. You hit me. You are a stupid old lady. I have a witness.” Of course, I stood up for myself and said “no that’s not true. You hit me first and fled”. I remember he also said that he thought, that I thought, he was trying to cut me off, but that he was just merging. (He was not merging—he intentionally cut me off.)

In response to his requests for my info, I said, “ok I need to see yours too”. He replied, “share yours first”. He was totally refusing to share his info with me. It all felt so violating, and like a setup. I said, “Lets both put our information down on the hood of my car and we can each take photos at the same time”. This was the only way I could think of to be fair with someone that didn’t want to play fair. We both put our info on the car hood, he took a photo of my info—and before I could get a photo of his, he snapped up his cards and fled again.

That’s when I called 911 again, told the police what had happened, and I pulled over to the side of the street. I waited there for police to show up. When the police came, we stood on the sidewalk and I explained what had happened, and we looked at the damage to my car. Its actually minimal—long scrapes across the front side panel, and the panel is knocked in. There wasn’t any damage to the front of my car, since I didn’t hit his car very hard. (When I was trying to get the info for the make/model of his car, I didn’t see any damage to the back of his car. He had removed the lettering of the car model on the trunk and replaced it with "RYOT" and alien face stickers). I showed the officer the photos that I did take of his license plate, but they both are so blurry that you can’t make out the numbers. The officers then went ahead and filed a police report and gave me a card with all the info. One of the officers was trying to calm me down, saying I should sit and relax in my car for a while before proceeding on my way. He also said that, in the future, I should not pursue someone in a hit and run. He could’ve had a gun. (That’s not easy to do in the moment, when you have been severely violated and insulted.)