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Nowadays, mental health is at the forefront of culture in a way that it never has been before. We’re more aware, more capable, and better encouraged to take symptoms seriously.

Due to the societal stigma surrounding mental health, clear communication on the issue has always been difficult in the past. It’s become normalised to brush difficult feelings under the rug, or deal with them alone, without even the most basic resources and support. Often, the psychological impact of serious trauma, such as recovering from personal injuries, can be one of the most challenging things to overcome.

Many of the most common side effects of personal injuries, such as loss of earnings, time off work, or losing jobs completely, often stem partly from the anxiety, stress and reliving of incidents, related to the injury itself.

In a recent legal study, 57% of respondents pointed to the mental aspect as a major concern of recovery. So, in this enlightened age where we take our mental health seriously, how do we deal with these kinds of struggles effectively? Let’s look at how we can build a lifestyle of healthy habits around our recovery so that we can not only return to our ‘normal’ lives but actually gain new strength from our experiences.

Professional Support

Personal injury is always a claim worth pursuing if you feel a third party’s negligence is responsible. However, the legal process itself can be intimidating and emotionally draining for someone unaccustomed. Unfortunately, legal arbitration can be complex and fairly combative. The insurers who cover costs are not driven by the well-being of claimants, so much as the preservation of their own business, so pushback there can also be an added stressor.

There is a wide range of types of personal injury, too. Law firms often specialise in different areas of personal injury, due to the breadth of ways a claimant can experience injury through negligence. As such, turning to a lawyer you can trust to support you and represent you helps protect a claimant from the most mentally-demanding aspects of a claim. Not only is a claimant represented by a lawyer more likely to come away with a fair settlement, but they’re going to be able to focus on recovery instead of the claims process itself.

Self-Care

No one actively experiences the recovery process more than the claimant themselves. This reality means that while people can empathise and sympathise, they’re still not going to be able to entirely understand the things an injured person feels. That’s why self-care practices and acceptance exercises are really helpful for processing difficult experiences like this. Journaling recovery, goal-setting and committing to a rehabilitation program are your personal, introspective, practical steps to feeling better and providing context to a lawyer on pain and suffering experienced, too.

Physically and mentally, these practices allow you to be aware of changes as they happen and work towards normality. Meditation and maintaining manageable aspects of life (cleaning, exercise, light working) can be hugely rewarding to an injured person, searching for answers. Finally, try to be grateful for any small gains. Serious injuries don’t heal overnight, but celebrating progress, no matter how small, is very important.

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Don’t Go It Alone

Mental illnesses and strife can be magnified by isolating yourself. Often, the unique difficulties of recovery can make someone feel like keeping to themselves and finding routines of their own is their only option. However, friends, family and medical or rehabilitation professionals like doctors or physiotherapists can allow you to divide up and share your experience. Not only can it help a person recover physically, but it also allows those around them to process what has happened to a loved one in their own way, and accept what might be major changes to the person they knew.

The feeling of helplessness is reflected in many ways during personal injuries. From the complexity of legal issues, actual steps to physical recovery and mental processing that needs to be done, a lot of it can be overwhelming. It’s also likely to be new territory for an individual and those close to them. If you take anything from this, it’s that you’re never alone, and the road to recovery is always easier if you can lighten the load on yourself.