I laugh about it now but I could have been "seriously killed" in my accident and still have a few throwbacks to remember it by. I forced myself to sit on a bike a few days later and rode it around a carpark despite hardly being able to get on it... I wasn't going to let myself get beaten and give up.
So, once I was back on the mend I took every opportunity to pillion with mates to keep myself used to the sensation of riding... and as soon as I had the funds I went out and bought another, better (that's debatable.. but it was bigger and faster!) bike.
It took me a 'running in' period with the new bike to really get my confidence up.. and before I knew it I was back at it hell-for-leather terrorising the same groups of guys I used to get out and tangle with before my off. It took me about 4,000kms to get back where I was, then that many kms again to get up and over the lacking skills that caused the accident in the first place.
The hardest accident to deal with is one where you don't know what happened.. in my case I was lucky that I could pinpoint it to a reliance on the rear brake in general riding - particularly an emergency braking situation - and a terrible case of failing to look far enough through corners. Problems identified, problems remedied, problem solved!
It's all about geting 100% comfortable with riding hard again.. and until you start doing bulk miles on your bike at elevated speeds, you'll never get comfortable at those speeds. It's like walking across the road and back then complaining you get beaten in a 100m sprint race.... you need to train yourself to be good at it. Work at it bit by bit and you can't help but get there... it's just a long process and don't let anyone (yourself included) push you too hard.
Touch wood, but if I do ever have another off then someone please refer me back to this thread for some of my own inspiration
Having said that, everytime I go passed the corner where I came off, I slow down. I just cannot convince myself that I have the ability to take that stinking corner.
I crashed on a corner I'd never been on before... so I'd never done it successfully. The first time back was a really wobbly experience... and since then I must have done it 20+ times and in both directions... yet despite my regained confidence I still can't master the bastard as the defence mechanism kicks in and I become just that little bit too conscious of my surroundings.