Life After an Injury or Disability – (Part 1)

Welcome to Legal Tip Tuesday, this is Vince Quatrini, from the law firm of QuatriniRafferty. Today I wanted to talk about a subject that impacts all of our clients who experience a permanent or a chronic work injury disability. Over the years we’ve found that there are certain habits that you can do that are highly effective in helping you cope with a permanent change and the way your life is going to be going forward. I’m going to talk about a few of them today and I’ll be back again to talk about others in the future. Let’s start with the emotional side of what you experience. You need to accept the new emotions that you experience, the feeling of vulnerability, loss of control over your life, anxiousness, uncertainty, depression, loss of self-esteem. Who am I now? I’m not the same person I was before. You need to know that it is very normal to have all of these emotions. Your life has been turned upside-down. You’re not in control. In fact, you’re probably in my office at some point trying to get some direction of your life going forward. So, what we also know is that you need to share these feelings with a professional. Your significant other, your wife, your husband, your close friend, even the priest, or your minister, is not the person that is probably going to be able to understand and guide you forward.

We’ve seen how psychologist or psychiatrist or a counselor can help our clients understand what’s happening, deal with it, and very importantly, develop coping mechanisms to live with these new changes, these new emotions. Another way to share what you’re experiencing, and you realize, “oh, you know what? I’m not alone” is to join a support group. There are other injured workers, who you can share your experience with. Even if it’s in a group that some of your friends who you know are injured and/or are disabled from a medical condition and they can’t work anymore. Get together, it’s very effective to know you’re not alone. The next time we’re going to talk about how to change the financial picture going forward. How to be ready for a chronic or a permanent in your income. So, for today, don’t be afraid of those new emotions, embrace them. Get help in dealing with them going forward. Have a great day, this is Vince Quatrini with Legal Tip Tuesday.