For riders who've crashed: Will riding ever feel normal again? I know I want to get back on, but the anxiety is growing.
A little background: I've been riding for about two years. I sold my bike back in March with the hope of upgrading later this year.
About three months ago, I was backpacking my boyfriend when we crashed. It was dark, and we hit some loose gravel on a highway on-ramp while going around 40 mph. The bike went into the guardrail, and we both slid about 25–30 feet.
Thankfully, we were both wearing full gear, so we walked away relatively okay. I ended up with a concussion, and because my gloves were slightly too big, my hand slid into a less-padded area. I got pretty bad road rash down to the tendon on one of my knuckles and needed three stitches.
After the accident, my anxiety was rough. For a while, I'd almost have a panic attack anytime we went around a curve—even in a car. Seeing my boyfriend back on a motorcycle would also make my anxiety spike.
About a month after the crash, he took me for a short ride just around the block. That honestly helped a lot, especially with my fear of curves in cars. I enjoyed the short ride but still caught myself panicking when I knew we were about to turn. I still get anxious when I see him riding, but it's improved a lot over the last three months.
Lately, though, I've had this growing fear in the back of my mind that I'll never be able to truly enjoy riding again. I'm scared that I'll always be anxious and never get back to the confidence I had before the accident.
The frustrating part is that I want to ride again so badly. If I had the gear right now, I'd get back on in a heartbeat. I know that actually riding again is probably what will help me the most, but because I need new gear, the longer I'm off the bike, the more that doubt grows.
I finally tried talking to my boyfriend about it the other day, but I'm not the best at putting my feelings into words. He thought I was saying I never wanted to ride again, when really I was just looking for reassurance that what I'm feeling is normal and that I'll eventually get back to where I was mentally. I know he beats himself up a lot about the crash so I try not to bring it up to him a lot.
For those of you who've been in a crash, did you ever feel this way? Did you worry you'd never enjoy riding again? How did you overcome the anxiety and rebuild your confidence?