Family and Friends

Talking about your injury with family & friends

When you have a spinal cord injury, it can be easy to avoid talking about your injury with your family and friends. It’s just too difficult. Many of us would rather move on than talk about what happened. Friends and family, however, need to talk about our injuries. Talking about our injuries can help them heal and make sense of what has happened.

You may not know this, but it’s our responsibility to discuss our injury with family and friends. We are the ones who need to let them know if it is okay or not to discuss the injury. After all, they are the ones who are worried about hurting our feelings. We need to be the one to give them the go-ahead.

As soon as you feel ready, take a moment with every family member and friend and let them know they should ask about your injury, and that it’s okay to talk about what happened. Basically, make sure to let friends and family know that talking about your injury won’t hurt your feelings. But if you think these conversations with friends and family about might bug you, you’re not quite ready yet to discuss your injury.

Some families will have a family meeting when the injured family member comes home. This can really help to lay everything out on the table and create an open dialogue between family members. To help your friends adjust to your injury, consider throwing a welcome home party and inviting all of your friends. In environments like this, serious discussions are more likely to happen.

Takeaway Points:

• Let family and friends know it’s okay to talk about your injury
• Let them know that the “talk” won’t hurt your feelings
• Consider throwing a welcome home party for your family and friends to mingle