What is Emotional Distress in a Personal Injury Case?
After a Traumatic Experience, Some Injuries are Unseen
Did you ever fall down the stairs when you were a child? Do you remember that feeling, somewhere in your stomach, of losing control and wondering how bad this would all hurt? Taking a tumble down the stairs certainly does hurt, but the pain lasts much longer than at the time of the accident.
For many children that slip and fall down the stairs, there is anxiety, fear, and trepidation that creeps in for a while afterward. They’re suddenly scared of the stairs because of that tumble they took just once.
Emotional distress happens to everyone. After a traumatic experience, emotional distress will work its way in and must be dealt with before you can return to feeling complete and happy.
What is Emotional Distress?
Emotional distress is a bit of a catch-all term for different forms of mental suffering. This distress, or trauma, comes about due to someone else’s intentional or reckless acts. In many situations, mental anguish or distress pops up after a car accident.
Some of the common ways we see emotional distress in a personal injury case include:
Anxiety – Anxiety plagues millions of people in the US. While there are different forms of this type of anguish, it is often referred to as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and affects about 3% of the US population.
After a traumatic experience, one can feel anxious. For example, if you were injured, or a loved one was killed in a car wreck, you might be anxious about driving or riding in a vehicle. If you were bitten by a dog, you might feel anxious about pets in general. You might feel anxious about shopping if you slipped and fell at a store.
Anxiety can be mild, but it can also be debilitating and cause immense impacts on your day-to-day life.
PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is usually thought of as a condition that only plagues those returning from war. While combat is a traumatic experience for many veterans, it’s not the only experience that can cause PTSD. Car accident victims also experience this condition until they receive help from a mental health professional.
Depression – Sometimes, the effects of an accident go far beyond those injured or killed.
If you lost your spouse due to someone else’s negligent driving, how long would it take for you to get back to activities or normal life? How many counseling sessions would ward off the depression that could quickly set in?
Fear – Fear, like anxiety, can manifest in different ways. It can be debilitating if you fear driving after being involved in a major wreck. That fear can lead to other conditions that compound on each other until the root cause is eliminated.
Emotional distress isn’t just feeling bad about what happened. It can build up and take a physical toll on the body and lead to further complications in your life and those around you.
Can I Receive Compensation for Emotional Distress after a Car Accident?
The short answer: yes.
The longer answer is that without the help of a personal injury lawyer, it will be much harder to receive the compensation you need.
Most insurance companies will focus on what are called the economic damages of a claim. These can quickly be accounted for: damage to vehicles, hospital bills, and lost wages from work.
What they will readily pass over are the non-economic damages. These damages can’t be quickly accounted for. How do you put a value on the sadness you feel because your spouse was killed, and you no longer get to have weekend dates? How does one value the debilitating anxiety every time you get in the car to drive to work?
With the help of a personal injury lawyer, you can receive compensation to alleviate the emotional distress you feel.
Gonzalez and Jones Help Accident Victims in California
If your emotional distress was caused due to someone else’s negligence, then we should have a conversation about it!
The Gonzalez and Jones team helps victims across the state from our law offices in Hollister, California.
But it all begins with a simple phone call where we get to know you, understand what happened, and create a plan of action.
Call us at 408-848-2208, or fill out the contact form on our website, and we’ll get things started.