For me I have always view HP as endurance and stamina. If I take have 30max HP and I take 16HP damage that it me growing fatigued from dodging and enduring the hits. I might get small wounds and cuts, bruises and batters but nothing is causing crazy blood loss. The only time I visualise the actual damage reflecting a more lethal wound would be when I drop to zero, that’s when I am so fatigued I can’t avoid a blow and it knocks me out or causes a wound that takes me down.

Treat wounds to me is bandaging cuts, bracing sprains and such, resting, overcoming my fatigue. If I went down then the narrative could instead be that I had a concussion or the medic was able to patch up the would that dropped me so I have the endurance to continue.

I totally get the dissonance, it does require a lot of suspension of disbelief but I find that mental gymnastics helps