The Shoulder
The Shoulder
68
quick-elk-253

Nobody got seriously hurt but I can't stop shaking — do I even belong here?

I'll keep this short but I need to say it somewhere because I've been holding it in for almost two weeks now.

I was rear-ended at highway speed on my way home from work. The other driver didn't brake at all — just full force into the back of my SUV. I got pushed into the car in front of me. Airbags went off, my neck snapped forward, glass everywhere. My coworker who was riding with me walked away completely fine. I had some soft tissue stuff in my neck and shoulders — sore, but nothing broken, nothing that landed me in the hospital overnight.

So technically? We're both okay.

But I genuinely cannot explain what's been happening to me mentally since then. I flinch every single time a car gets within three car lengths of me. I had a full panic attack in a parking lot yesterday because someone tapped their brakes hard nearby. I've been sleeping maybe three hours a night and when I do sleep I wake up replaying the impact. I feel frozen at weird moments throughout the day.

And then I feel stupid about it, because I'm fine. Like, physically I'm going to be fine. I keep thinking about people who've gone through genuinely catastrophic accidents and telling myself I don't have the right to feel this wrecked.

I finally made an appointment with a therapist but it's not for another week and a half and I just needed to put this somewhere in the meantime.

Does anyone else go through this even when the physical injuries were minor? Am I overreacting? I really can't tell anymore.

10replies

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10 replies

  • 7
    candid-seal-884

    You absolutely belong here. I was in a low-speed collision a while back — barely any damage to either car — and I spent two months unable to merge onto the freeway without my hands going numb on the wheel. The brain doesn't care how bad the damage report looked. It experienced something terrifying and it's trying to protect you. Please don't minimize what you're going through.

    • 14
      daring-elk-906

      Reading this honestly made my chest tight. You don't need a certain injury threshold to be allowed to feel scared and shaken up. Please stop comparing your experience to someone else's worst day — it's not a competition and you don't have to earn the right to not be okay.

  • 16
    patient-mole-186

    What you're describing — the hypervigilance, the sleep disruption, the intrusive replaying of the event, the freeze response — those are textbook acute stress reactions, and they are a real physiological response, not a character flaw. Your nervous system got activated hard and it hasn't fully come back down yet. This happens to people after minor fender-benders all the time, not just serious crashes. The therapy appointment is exactly the right move. In the meantime, try to be patient with yourself the same way you'd be patient with a friend describing this to you.

  • 14
    candid-mole-801

    One practical thing: make sure you document how you're feeling with your doctor before that therapy appointment if you can. Psychological trauma is a real injury and if anything comes out of this accident legally or with insurance, having a medical record that notes your mental state early on actually matters. Don't just white-knuckle through it quietly.

  • 20
    gentle-kestrel-195

    Not legal advice, but just so you know — psychological injury like PTSD and acute stress disorder is compensable in personal injury claims in most states. It doesn't require a broken bone. If you're seeing a therapist and a doctor about this, keep those records. What you're going through is real and the legal system recognizes it as real too.

    • 1
      kind-parent660

      How long did it end up taking in your case?

  • 19
    steady-swift-657

    Just heads up — if you end up dealing with the other driver's insurance, do NOT describe yourself as 'fine' or 'okay' to the adjuster. I know it feels weird to claim psychological harm when you weren't hospitalized, but adjusters absolutely use those casual comments to close out claims fast and low. Let your doctors and therapist do the talking.

    • 21
      kind-marmot-913

      Seconding the comment above. I used to work claims and I saw soft-tissue and psych claims get dismissed constantly because the person seemed composed on a recorded call early on. The insurance side of this moves fast and doesn't wait for you to figure out how you're actually doing. Don't close anything out until you've had time to go through therapy and understand the full picture of how this is affecting you.

  • 10
    daring-sparrow-674

    The fact that you recognized something was wrong and booked therapy before it spiraled into something worse — that's genuinely huge. A lot of people push it down for years. You're already doing the hard thing. Week and a half will go fast and you've got people here in the meantime.

  • 11
    clever-finch-428

    Genuine question, not trying to be harsh — have you talked to your regular doctor at all since the accident, or just scheduled the therapist? Asking because some of what you're describing (the shaking, the sleep issues) can sometimes have a physical component too, especially if there was any head movement involved in the impact. Might be worth a quick checkup just to rule things out before that therapy appointment.