The Complexity of the Pain Dynamic

Many lawyers do not realize that chronic pain is about much more than just the pain occurring within the body. The reality is that pain can wreak havoc across someone’s entire life experience.

Most lawyers understand that pain can affect one’s daily routines, the ability to work, and the ability to participate in many of the regular activities of life.

But where many lawyers fall short is that they do not realize these life disruptions are only the beginning of the problem. These lawyers do not realize that these issues can cause a whole new set of problems, which can magnify the original injury.  For example, chronic pain can cause feelings of depression, anger, anxiety, demoralization, a sense of isolation and loneliness, as well as feelings of being misunderstood. This can lead to difficulty in sleeping, strain and tension in the relationships with the people you love, as well as depressive disorders.

A Vicious Cycle

And since pain can be influenced by emotions, the cycle of emotions can become interrelated to the pain.  For example, both anger and anxiety can cause muscles to tighten, and those tightened muscles can cause increased pain, and that increased pain can cause more anger and anxiety which can cause the muscles to tighten even more.
A vicious cycle can be created where the depression, anger, and anxiety are all feeding off of each other and keeping the pain going.

Only an attorney who understands all these issues can effectively communicate to a judge, jury or insurance adjuster the true extent to which someone’s life has been affected by an injury. Mr. Blaylock understands that this communication is essential in obtaining full and fair compensation for your loss.

Pain can be Invisible

Further complicating this is the fact that pain can be invisible to others — your outward appearance may remain unchanged — so there will be many people in an accident victim’s life who won’t understand.
For example, you may not see your close friends as much as you used to due to the treatments, doctor appointments, medications and fatigue.  Your friends may not understand and may misinterpret your absence, especially if you look fine on the outside. This can magnify your sense of isolation and depression.

Pain affects family dynamics

All of these things can adversely affect important relationships with the people you care about most. For example, an accident victim may not want to “bother” his or her spouse with yet another request for help with something.  That can cause frustration to build up, especially for people who pride themselves in being independent and self-sufficient.

Pain can impact intimacy between a couple, can cause financial stress, can result in feelings of not being heard, and can strain relationships.

The sense of having control of your life is an essential part of having peace of mind.  And what people do not realize is that the sense of control of one’s life — that peace of mind -  is taken away by pain from an unexpected injury.  No one has the right to take that away from you!  And when someone does, you must be properly and fully compensated. And the only way that is going to happen is if your lawyer both understands and is able to explain all these different dynamics, and how they relate to each other.

That is what we do. We bring clarity and support to accident victims through our knowledge and understanding of the multi-disciplinary components of pain and the many ways its interrelationships can affect your quality of life.

If you have any questions about personal injury cases or anything discussed above, please let us know.

Contact:
Bruce A. Blaylock
Bruce A Blaylock Law Office
4610 Elm St.
Bethesda, Maryland 20815
Phone: 301.951.1800
Fax: 301.656.6957
http://www.blaylocklaw.com/