whiplash

The lash of a whip.

An injury to the upper spine connected to a violent jerk of the head in either a backward or forward or side to side direction, resembling the motion of a whip.

An abrupt and unexpected change, or the resulting feeling of shock.

Some parents, feeling too hurt by the push-off or taking their teenager’s rejections too personally, choose to make themselves unavailable. In some ways it does feel better to avoid episodes of emotional whiplash.

A week of public health reversals from the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has left Americans with pandemic whiplash, sowing confusion about coronavirus vaccines and mask-wearing as the Delta variant upends what people thought they knew about how to stay safe.

To jerk back and forth; to buffet.

[…] Ms. Kennedy has been whiplashed by assertions that she is at once protected and presumptuous.

To lash as if with a whip.

After a while, he let go of my hand in order to protect his own face from being whiplashed by the low branches.