MENTAL EFFECTS OF A DUI: How Does a DUI Affect Your Life?
The Department of Motor Vehicles stipulates that people are considered to be drunk driving if they are driving with a Blood Alcohol Content of 0.08% or higher. This puts the drivers themselves as well as the people on the road at extremely high risk of getting spine and brain injuries that could single handedly alter the trajectory of their lives —and not for the better.
In fact, more often than not, it’s caused the wrongful deaths of many individuals, specifically 37 people a day per a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report.
Adding onto the fact that there are probably a lot more drunk drivers who slip through the cracks of the police officials’ scrutiny, it’s not far-fetched to declare the roads to be a lot deadlier than it is initially thought to be.
For this reason, drivers must caution against driving while inebriated as it may exacerbate the existing dangers in these roads. In the same vein, they also need to watch out for drivers exhibiting signs of drunk driving.
How Does DUI Affect Your Life Emotionally?
While a lot of people are concerned about the physical repercussions of a drunk driving accident, they should also be concerned about how a DUI could affect someone’s lives mentally and emotionally. Below are a list of things that DUI victims may feel well after they got hit by a drunk driver:
1. Depression and anxiety
If you’ve gotten hit by a drunk driver, then there’s a likelihood that you’ll endure depression and anxiety after the accident. Usually these come about as you suffer through some limitations on your physical mobility. A lot of people after an accident get a life-altering injury which will significantly affect their day-to-day lives.
For example, it may stop them from doing the things they love which could cause them extreme sadness and despair. This is why it’s important to take care of your mental wellbeing as well as your physical wellness since both go hand-in-hand. Make sure you’re seeking help from a licensed mental health professional.
2. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
A drunk driver’s judgment is extremely distorted. If you just so happened to fall victim from their recklessness, the impact of the collision is going to be a lot harder than the driver may have thought. This then makes you vulnerable to catastrophic injuries like traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury.
Because of the traumatic nature of this accident, victims of car accidents may be subject to other mental and emotional maladies like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Symptoms of PTSD manifest in various ways for different people. They may, for example, get recurring nightmares or intense flashbacks.
To better deal with your trauma, consult with a mental health professional.
3. Extreme grief
Remember, when an accident occurs, those affected aren’t just the ones who are directly involved (ie: the victim and the at-fault party). It affects the people close to them as well. Wrongful deaths aren’t uncommon in a DUI accident. And when they do happen, the families and friends of those involved would then have to deal with the abrupt loss of their loved one.
The extreme grief that they may feel thereafter could often be all-encompassing and be too much to bear. When dealing with the trauma of losing a loved one from a DUI accident, it’d be best to confide in your friends and family. Make sure you don’t isolate yourself.
4. Suicidal thoughts and ideation
The victim of a DUI accident could very well develop suicidal thoughts and ideation after a traumatic incident involving a drunk driver. As mentioned before, DUI victims usually endure significant limits in their mobility — which negatively affects their quality of life.
This would usually lead DUI victims to a downward slope towards depression and then—if not treated appropriately — suicidal thoughts and ideations. Which is why we can’t overstate it enough: as much care you choose to exert for your physical wellbeing, treat your mental health with the same level of caution.
5. Mood swings
Drunk drivers usually drive above the speed limit. So in the event of a car collision, it’s very likely that the one affected most by the impact may come out of that event with extremely volatile moods —maybe even exhibit signs of erratic behavior. If this is the case, then they may be suffering from a traumatic brain injury as emotional volatility is a symptom of this issue.
Call Omega Law Group
If you have to endure the misfortune of dealing with the aftermath of a drunk driver’s recklessness, then you should know the importance of taking care of your mental and physical health.
A mental health professional can significantly help you ease the burden of carrying all the emotional baggage, but a sense of justice brought to you by a qualified drunk accident attorney may alleviate your sadness just the same. In a DUI accident, you need the best personal injury lawyer by your side to get you the justice you deserve. You need Omega Law Group.
The highly skilled and empathetic legal team of Omega Law Group will work towards getting you the compensation you need for your physical and mental treatments, as well as get you paid back for all the troubles such an accident has caused your life. With over millions of dollars in settlement accrued on behalf of their clients, Omega is best fit to fight for you!
Omega Law Group’s legal team has been met with widespread acclaim from their peers in the industry as well as prestigious publications. Omega attorneys consistently acquire accolades from industry-vetted organizations like SuperLawyers.com, Avvo, and Best Lawyers.
And just recently, they’ve been featured in prestigious publications like the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Business Journal. The latter publication has heralded them as one of the “Most Admired Firms,” and has featured Omega for their innovative integration of A.I. technology to improve their case processes.
Omega Law’s constant desire to innovate and improve for their clients is grounded in their mission to provide equitable and quality services for them. In order to make their elite legal services accessible to everyone, they are steadfast in their decision to operate on a contingency fee basis, relieving clients of the burden of any upfront legal fees.