Psychological damage isn’t visible in a photograph. There is no swelling, rupture, or bleeding lacerations. Compound fracturing of the mind won’t be detected by diagnostic imaging.
Yet the damage is as real as a shard of bone protruding through flesh.
Proving a mental injury in a personal injury claim can be a challenge. Most accident survivors hardly know where to start. Still, anxiety, PTSD, depression, and emotional distress are all compensable injuries if they’re properly documented and supported by evidence.
Common Types of Psychological Trauma Following an Accident
Time doesn’t heal all wounds. In fact, inattention to certain mental conditions can cause them to grow worse as months pass. These include:
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: PTSD is the most recognizable psychological injury. It can manifest in a variety of ways, such as hyper vigilance, avoidance of driving or of particular locations, and even nightmares.
- Anxiety: Certain scenes and noises, such as heavy traffic, car sounds, flashing lights, or returning to the site of the accident, can bring on panic attacks.
- Depression: Withdrawal, apathy, and an inability to return to regular daily life are flashing signs of this condition.
- Adjustment disorder: This shows up as difficulty coping with the life changes brought on by the accident.
- Somatic symptoms: Chronic pain and/or insomnia can be physical manifestations of psychological injury.
Survivors rarely realize that they’re experiencing psychological damage from a traumatic accident. Most consider these conditions “normal” because they feel that way, even when the survivor is suffering.
If your relationship with driving has fundamentally changed, if you’re not sleeping, or if you’ve been skipping activities you once enjoyed, these changes could have legal significance.
The Role of Professional Medical Documentation
Keep track of your condition.
You’ve seen the regular doctor. The next most important step you can take as a trauma survivor, legally and personally, is to begin treatment with a licensed mental health professional. Begin as soon as possible after the accident. An expert’s diagnosis will be the foundation of any psychological injury claim.
Treatment records establish the state of your mental health and lay a timeline of the trauma’s ongoing impact. The sooner treatment starts, the stronger the causal connection to your mental health legal claim. Relevant providers for diagnosis and treatment include:
- psychologists and psychiatrists
- licensed therapists, and
- primary care physicians with experience documenting psychological symptoms.
Be steadfast in all your medical appointments, including psychological treatments.
Every appointment kept, every treatment note, every prescription becomes part of the evidentiary record connecting your mental state to the crash. Without a solid paper trail, even a genuinely serious ailment is difficult to prove.
Using Expert Testimony to Quantify Emotional Distress
A medical paper trail documents that a condition exists. You still might need an expert to testify and explain what it means.
A documented condition isn’t necessarily a compensable one. If the insurance company fights your claim all the way to the courtroom, you can bet they’ll have their own expert ready to raise their right hand and testify against you. This is why you need a credible and respected expert on your side.
A forensic psychologist can speak to causation, connecting the accident directly to the conditions you’re experiencing. Even better, mental health experts know how to translate clinical findings into powerful descriptions a jury can understand and quantify.
This can make all the difference between a claim that settles fairly and one that gets minimized by the defense.
The Importance of Personal Journals and Witness Statements
You can help your claim even more by keeping a personal journal and getting witness statements from family, friends, and coworkers.
A daily journal doesn’t have to be too long or involved. You’re simply documenting emotional pain, symptoms, anxiety triggers, and sleep disruption day by day. This creates a contemporaneous record that’s hard to challenge.
Keeping in mind where and how these entries might be used, make sure they are dated and specific. General statements can sound vague or even fake. Detailed accounts are more useful. Also, be consistent. You don’t have to experience post-traumatic stress symptoms every day to keep a daily record.
Compelling witness statements also carry a lot of weight. It’s especially powerful from those who can describe the person you were both before and after the accident.
Reach Out to a Jackson Car Accident Attorney
Remember, psychological trauma doesn’t show up like physical injuries, but the damage is just as real and can last even longer. It should be equally recoverable under the law, and with the right documentation and legal representation, it can be.
If you’re struggling with a psychological injury claim and are not sure where to begin, our firm can point you in the right direction.
