After experiencing your first car accident event, and incurring significant injuries and damages as a direct result, it is understandable if you are left shaken up for the following weeks, months, or even years. Without being able to get this accident out of your head, you may turn to a licensed psychiatrist or mental health professional for help, who may later on diagnose you with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If this hypothetical is relevant to your personal life, please continue reading to learn whether you can be compensated after receiving a PTSD diagnosis and how an experienced Morris County, New Jersey car accident lawyer at Macri Law Firm can help make this argument on your behalf.
What is the definition of post-traumatic stress disorder?
For starters, you must be able to distinguish between having PTSD or simply being left shocked and frightened after your car accident event. That is, the medical definition of PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that may develop after experiencing or witnessing a natural disaster, war, violent crime, and namely, a serious personal injury accident. The most common signs and symptoms associated with PTSD include having intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, or nightmares of the traumatic event, purposely avoiding reminders of the traumatic event, and overall demonstrating heightened anxiety, negative mood swings, and a lack of concentration.
Can I be compensated for my PTSD diagnosis after a car accident?
It is quite inevitable that your PTSD diagnosis may negatively affect your day-to-day life following your car accident event. For example, if you purposely avoid reminders of the event, this may mean that you no longer want to drive or be a passenger in a motor vehicle. So, this may affect your career because you can no longer commute to and from your workplace. And, this may hurt your relationships with family members and close friends because you can no longer travel to visit them. Moreover, your negative shifts in mood and concentration may further damage your work and familial relationships.
Therefore, should you pursue a personal injury claim in the state of New Jersey, you may most definitely seek financial compensation for your PTSD. This is because PTSD is observed as a non-pecuniary damage, closely attributed to pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life. Since non-pecuniary damages are harder to exemplify than pecuniary damages, you require a lot of evidence to tie your PTSD to your car accident directly.
So, you must get an official diagnosis from a licensed psychiatrist or mental health professional and ask them to provide an oral or witness testimony. You may even ask them to provide copies of the medication prescriptions they have given you thus far and the notes they have taken during your scheduled therapy sessions. Lastly, your family members and close friends may testify about how they have personally witnessed your relationships and quality of life severely diminish since your accident.
All of this to say, the time to act is now. Please pick up the phone or message us at Macri Law Firm. Surely, a skilled Parsippany, New Jersey personal injury lawyer on our team will be the perfect fit for your upcoming legal case.
