How to Deal with the Mental Side of Being Injured

Being injured can make you feel angry, alone, and as if things will never get better. We find that our patients tend to follow the five stages of grieving, which are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. All of these emotions and stages are normal, but it's important not to get so caught up in it that it hinders your recovery. In this video, we share some of our tips that our patients find help them to deal with the mental side of injury.

👉You may also find these videos useful:

Chapters:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:41 The five stages of grief
00:01:50 Denial
00:02:58 Anger
00:03:36 Bargaining
00:07:16 Depression / Low mood
00:13:24 Acceptance
00:17:05 How we can help

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[debradaugherty]

Thank you so much for this video. I'm in the "I'll never heal" stage of this and I really needed to hear your message that injuries do heal and there's an end to this.

[elizabethinglis]

I appreciate that you mention that one might have the kind of injury scans can’t see. It wasn’t until the twentieth doctor I consulted for a complicated back/chest/abdomen injury that he, a think-outside-of-the-box neurologist, said that “a big problem is that mri’s, ct scans, emg’s, and xrays don’t see everything” and affirmed, as you have, that the body does heal, but it can take time, especially with damaged nerves, maybe some years(6 years for me so far but I am about 70% healed). Earlier md’s were rushed, dismissive, and invalidating and acted like their tests are the gold standard, yes, a cause of anger in me. I have witnessed my present slipping-through-the-cracks of mainstream medicine predicament many times as a licensed massage therapist working in PT and pain clinics for 32 years as well as being a former dancer and dance teacher. I also appreciate your description of how one can proceed without a diagnosis. I have also been injured during this injury by 2 PT’s who didn’t have proper diagnoses and weren’t careful enough with me, but I didn’t totally blame them. A Trauma Neurosurgeon I connected with through Justanswer.com said it is very common for PT’s to not get proper diagnoses from doctors. If you’ve read this far, do you treat thoracic ligament injuries? I’m coming along with daily work on myself from all I know from my background and a little from past PT’s, and am about to try Peptide Therapy with hopes of speeding my recovery. I might be interested in consulting with you at some point in the future. Thank you so much for this video, and your video on meniscus injuries.

[liljemark]

People not injured need this video and its comments. You may want to have a balanced life of friends, family, work, lovelife and few hobbies including non-sport. When sports fail, you have other things to focus on.

[elliebe]

Thank you, this is very helpful. I’m not a sports person but I broke my tibia plateau six weeks ago while in Bangkok (I’ve been traveling as a digital nomad since 2021). My insurance forced me to return to my home country to recover - where I do not have my own home anymore. I feel like my identity has been snatched away and like I’m a burden to my friends who needed to take me in and need to help me with basically everything. I can see all the phases of grief I’ve gone through, the denial, the bargaining, the anger, and I think maybe I’ starting to get to acceptance but it’s been extremely rough. 10 days ago, I got a secondary injury from using my crutches - not sure exactly what it is but might be a torn pec muscle, it’s extremely painful and has reduced my mobility even more cause I can’t use my crutches now. Last weekend I crashed mentally. So many tears, so much sadness, …. Anyway, I’m hoping my orthopaedic specialist will allow me to start bearing weight in 12 days from now and start physio. In the mean time I try to do some easy chair exercises for seniors to keep my body somewhat active without taxing it too much. And I’ve just rented a place for myself for the next 6 months too. Initially I thought I’d might be fully recovered by the end of June, but I see now that that was wishful thinking. Hope I will be more independent by then though…

[lynny]

My husband who was only 54 yrs old passed away last Nov 2021 and then two weeks later I fell down my stairs and broke my right ankle. I have the boot off now but struggling to walk without crutches. I think dealing with grief from the losing my husband suddenly then the injury has made the injury harder to deal with.

[boneless]

currently suffering from runners knee on both knees i have rested for 5 weeks planning to do 5 more yeah to anyone reading this with injuries i wish you a speedy recovery and sending all the love cuz this stuff sucks!

[stavshimoni]

I just got myself into an active lifestyle for the first time in my life. For a few months I felt so much passion towards exercising, dancing, yoga, anything. I had an amazing exercise which I love and then something really small happened- I tried to work out on the same day I had a vaccine and during the first stretch my muscle became painful for the next few days, which got me to be emotionally scared of working out, as if it can damage my body. It's been a storm since then, now I try to workout again but I feel both paralyzing fear and also my muscle. It isn't painful anymore but I can feel it stronger than the other arm. Now I think I will go check it so I can focus on my emotional healing.

[CAPDIEGO]

I used to play volleyball and pratice calithenics everyday, now i got some several injures on my knee shoulders and wrists, its hard to don´t be able anything more but one things that i learn is to celebrate the baby steps during the journey of recover. i´m able to squat and walk short distances now and every week i can see my body getting better, even though i still have a long journey to go i belive that is a important part of the life learn how to deal with those things

[seafoam]

2024 here thank you, this helps. Broke my toes and still pushed on, now its scary because it feels worse i wish i knew that i was in denial. Maybe i would have rested longer. Now im just upset. This video helped, though. ❤

[anubhutimishra]

I love basketball, I live for basketball. 2 days back I dislocated my left knee while trynna catch the ball my friend passed to me and it was pretty silly way to injure yourself based on my history of sports. I passed out so bad and felt the worst pain one could feel in the history of leg injuries. For a moment I saw my basketball career flashing to zero in from of my eyes while I was trying my best to get my patella on place yet I couldn't because the pain was killing me, as I am a 1st year medical student, my JR immediately arrived and twisted by knee back at its place while I experienced nightmare. I could get up with the help of support and walk a little and was taken to ER where because of all the pain I suffered hypoglycemia and was given DNS. My doctor said "you should never do any sport activity again as your knees are easily displaceble and will continue to do so in future". This wasn't even the worst part. I was bargaining the whole time and gaslighting myself into believe it's nothing and I'll be fine but later I realized the worst part isn't injury but how it makes you beg to god to be able to do things as basic as bathing or peeing or even just walking. It's been 2 days since my injury happened, my knee still hurts like hell but is in its place but I have been having multiple mental breakdowns as I was a very happening and active person and had a whole life going on and it feels like someone detached me from everything and has put me into hell while I m observing people living normal. I couldn't play ever again. I hope I get the strength to deal with this because I think I m losing it all.

[sunnyrk]

It sucks all that progress and hard work, it helped me through my depression and now it just fucking sucks

[johnogaage]

Thanks for sharing.
Best Physio-Channel hier on YT🙏

[Hellyeah]

Having a hips and shoulder injuries sins 12 month and i think im getting depresed like really the gym was my heaven

[orjanmyklebust]

I needed this at the moment! Thank you <3

[seansmith]

Video was amazing and truly helped me!!

[meybandzz]

im a male cheerleader and i fractured my finger and its been so hard wanting to get back out there i have another 5 weeks till i can do anything and its makin me so mad

[ultralyrics]

Coming up on a year of my thumb being broken, anyone have any advice to get it fully healed? I'm becoming scared it will never heal 100% and will always bother me. Thank you

[relapseminem]

I'm bouncing between anger and depression because my tendonitis keeps coming back no matter how I tweak my regimen, anyone got any suggestions for a lifter?

[Marie-flem]

These are like the stages of a break-up haha. Currently recovering from threee spiral fractures in my leg. I miss rugby and my team mates!

[monicamomney]

6 weeks into a terrible foot sprain. Mentally exhausting injury