Your Shattered Post-Accident World

You may have a difficult time describing to others how your world is shattered by your accident.  To help you, here’s a clinical description of what that shattered world is about.  Share this with those who love you and who are trying to support you.

Our “world” is a set of assumptions and beliefs that are structures of information stored in the central nervous system.  People who are not touched by this severe event can maintain beliefs that are incompatible with the experience of such a severe accident.  For them, there is a rejection of the severity of the experience or their basic way of being in the world.  For you, however, there are some profound beliefs that have been shattered and will need to be restructured.

• Safety.  Before the accident, you might have had an assumption about being safe from harm and invulnerable to bad things.  Now, however, you face intrusive thoughts about danger, intense fears about future victimization and panic when faced with any sight, sound, smell, or feeling that your survivor brain (amygdala) associates with the experience.  Molly, a victim of a pedestrian accident couldn’t drive or walk beside the road for two years following her accident.
• Trust.  You’re ability to trust your own perceptions get unraveled.  You used to believe that you would sense or know when danger is near, but after your experience, that is also shattered.  You may feel confused, overcautious, or paralyzed when you have to make any decisions, since that underlying structure of trust in your own judgment is gone.
• Power. Your belief in your own capacity to solve problems and meet new challenges can also unravel.  You might have unrealistically high or unrealistically low expectation about personal power.  Without this sense of your own power in place, you might find yourself in patterns of passivity, submission, loss of assertiveness in your life, especially in relationships.  This may be made worse by any physical symptoms from the accident, and since the body-mind is really one system, who can say that the lack of capacity to use your thinking brain (say for calculations or reading) is a result of brain response to the trauma, or a brain response to the accident.
• Esteem.  Beliefs in your own worth or value can be eroded by the accident with confusion about why you aren’t healing more quickly and why your life seems to be compromised in general, not just the limit from the broken bones.  Some victims conclude that they have an inherent badness about themselves, and that they are somehow responsible for the bad outcome.   This also extends to the beliefs about the worth and true nature of people.  You may find yourself fearful of your spouse or neighbors or anyone who drives a vehicle or lights a fire, simply because your own view of the world has suffered an earthquake.
• Self-Care.  Here is the place where the shattering is most devastating.  The belief in your own ability to comfort or nurture yourself erodes, and you may find yourself overwhelmingly anxious in the face of demands, fears of being alone or even a feeling of inner deadness.  Sometimes attempts to obtain comfort come through alcohol, pills, excessive spending, or superficial sexual encounters.

As you and those who love you recognize that this shattering of your inner world is a reality, be assured that this inner world can be rebuilt in a way that allows you to feel safe and move forward into a joy filled life.  It will take work on your part and is not an instant fix.  You created that inner world through years and years of experience, and you will build a new one again.

You will heal, in your own time.