Trauma After the Accident: Identifying and Healing PTSD

Nightmares plague your sleep. You wake up anxious, clammy, on edge. Your hands shake every time you get into the passenger seat. You still can’t bring yourself to get behind the wheel of your own car.

Although your physical wounds have healed, and your family and friends seem to think you should have “gotten over it” by now, you can’t shake the deep-seated feeling that something is wrong. And you’re right. You are living with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Surviving the worst-case scenario

For victims of horrific collisions involving large trucks, there is a period — whether it’s hours, weeks or years — of life that becomes uncharted territory. After surviving the worst-case scenario, people’s worlds are turned upside down. Some people lose their partner or their child. Some suffer life-altering injuries.

For some of my clients, even after their bones have been mended and we’ve settled their cases, life never returns to normalcy. One of the biggest reasons for this is PTSD.

What is PTSD?

I sat down with Tina Elsbury recently to discuss PTSD on my podcast, After the Crash. Tina is a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in trauma, and she has worked with everyone from veterans to prison inmates to car crash survivors.

She described PTSD as a person’s residual reaction to a traumatic event. It can present as a personality change, like frequent and excessive irritability and anger. It can cause insomnia and night terrors, panic attacks, anxiety and various other symptoms. Often, a person’s PTSD can be triggered by reminders — like certain sounds, smells and colors — of the traumatic event.

How do I know if I have PTSD?

Many people who have PTSD never receive a diagnosis or treatment, in part because of the social stigma around mental illness. In situations like large truck accidents, folks tend to think of personal injuries as solely physiological. When survivors are rushed to the emergency room, doctors rightly address the most urgent wounds. Those are the physical ones.

But even after the life-and-death moments have passed, a person’s psychological well-being may be overlooked. They go home from the hospital with instructions to take medication and return for follow-up visits. They focus on the aches and pains, and all the while their brains are rewiring because of the distress they endured.

If you have lived through a traumatic event and notice any of the symptoms mentioned above, you may have PTSD. Memory loss and flashbacks are other signs to take note of.

Is PTSD treatable?

The good news is that PTSD is treatable. Social workers like Tina can practice a type of therapy known as EDMR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. This practice is evidence-based and can be used in court.

During EDMR therapy, patients recall parts of traumatic memories while practitioners stimulate their eyes with guided movements. When you engage in this type of therapy, your brain can reprocess memories.

Think about it this way. If you’ve been in a scary accident, you might associate the sound of cars honking with that experience. Your brain stores that information away and suppresses the trauma. You haven’t properly processed it, so when you hear a car horn, you are easily pulled back into the fear and pain you experienced. You are reliving the emotions you felt during that time.

After EDMR sessions, your brain heals by storing the traumatic memories in the same way it would store others. You will still remember the accident, but you won’t have disruptive and visceral reactions to those triggers.

If you’re seeking EDMR therapy, you should search for a mental health professional who specializes in it. Trauma is a unique and complex condition, and not all providers are trained in its treatment.

And remember, PTSD is a wound to heal — not a problem to “fix.”

Finding a new normal

In my time serving clients at Craig, Kelley & Faultless LLC, I have witnessed the broad spectrum of healing processes. Recovery can take years. My team and I make it our mission to prioritize your health and comfort, both physical and mental.

Your life may never look the same as it did before the truck accident. But we are here to help you get the resources you need to find a new normal. You don’t have to live in fear or fight painful memories.

If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident, reach out to a personal injury attorney as soon as possible. At Craig, Kelley & Faultless, we offer free case consultations and are committed to getting you back on your feet.

David W. Craig sits on the Board of Regents of the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys (which requires the board certification in truck accident law). He is the managing partner, as well as one of the founding partners of the law firm Craig, Kelley & Faultless LLC. He is also recognized as a Top 10 Trucking Trial Lawyer and Top 100 Trial Lawyer in Indiana by the National Trial Lawyers. David is the author of Semitruck Wreck, A Guide for Victims and Their Families, written to help victims and their families as they navigate through a terrible situation and answer the host of questions that come after a tragic wreck. He is also the host of the podcast After the Crash, where you can gain valuable information about the dangers involving semis and large trucks that do not follow Indiana law safety protocol on roads regarding speed, weather conditions, maintenance upkeep, etc.