Since I've had my concussion, I've been afraid that I'll hit my head again. This anxiety is extreme and for me, it is the worst PCS symptom
Of course, all of the symptoms are bad, but the fear of hitting my head again is absolutely the worst symptom.
Here a few examples (I have to deal with all of these 24/7):
- It is so bad that I walk slowly in my house and enter rooms very slowly because I'm afraid of getting hit in the head from one of the walls or from a door frame if I walk any faster.
- When I bend down to pick up something, I am intensely afraid that I'm going to hit my head when I rise up (stand up again).
- Whenever I walk in the street and there's a narrow path, I'll go to the other side of the sidewalk because I'm afraid of getting hit.
- When I go to sleep, I carefully and very slowly put my head on the pillow because I fear getting hit.
- When I wear clothes, I take them off and put them on very slowly since I'm afraid that they'll hit my head.
- When somebody calls my name, I turn my head around very slowly from the fear of getting hit.
- I cannot hug or be too near to people because of this fear. If I sit in a chair and somebody walks behind me, I get very stressed because there's a possibility that they'll hit my head.
- Whenever I drink something, I take the glass to my mouth really slowly from the fear it'll impact my mouth too strong and deliver the impact to my brain.
- Today, when I walked on the street, a small fly got into my eye. I have an insect phobia, so I freaked out and immediately threw my head forward very quickly (that was a reflex triggered by my insect phobia - it happened very quickly). After I threw my head forward quickly as a fear response, I have feared for hours that the fast head motion counts as a concussion.
- I'm afraid of going to public places because there's a bigger probability there to get hit in my head.
- When I sit on the couch, I have to make sure my head is positioned forward and not backwards, so it doesn't impact the wall behind me.
This fear is also obsessive. Most if the time, if I'm afraid that I hit my head, I'll try to reproduce the same scenario again just to make sure that I hadn't hurt my head. I usually give up to these obsessions since they are persistent and hard to ignore.
In the scenario with the fly I wrote about, for example, I was really afraid that turning my head very fast forward (because the fly got into my eye) caused me another concussion. I was starting to think "that's it, I'll never recover now". It took me hours to convince myself that it's impossible to get a brain injury just from turning your head too fast, and during all these hours that I obsessed and was afraid, I felt nauseous and just very bad.
This anxiety is stealing my life. I cannot enjoy almost anything that I used to because this fear controls my life now. I've tried to ignore it and just brush it off, and there were a few days that it actually worked. Sadly, it always comes back, sooner or later - it's just stronger than me.
I want to end PCS totally and recover, but the anxiety of hitting head symptom is the first thing I want to get rid of. I hate dealing with brain fog and headaches caused by PCS and I really want to get rid of them, but the anxiety is absolutely the worst symptom and I have to get rid of it ASAP. Moreover, I'm 100% sure that this ongoing anxiety worsens my PCS and delays my recovery. Whenever I get such fears that I've hit my head, it takes just a few minutes to ruin my focus and good feeling for the rest of the day. I also think I might have recovered already if I didn't have all this anxiety.
I know that I won't heal without getting rid of the anxiety, and it's very important for me to get rid of it. I know this anxiety is ridiculous and that I won't get hit on my head so easily, but I just can't control it. I believe the anxiety is a defensive mechanism against getting more concussions, but right now it's more damaging than helping.
All of this stress worsens my mood and depresses me. I get out of my home as little as possible to lower the chance of getting hit in the head. This anxiety cause me irrational behaviors that have already got noted by some people - for example, reproducing situations that I think I got hit in them. If I don't give up to the obsessions, they can even last a full day and steal my concentration and the ability to do stuff I love doing.
And even though I stopped obsessing about the scenario with the fly that caused me to throw my head fast forward, I still feel absolutely terrible after a few hours of obsessing about it. When I threw my head forward, I didn't feel bad, but I immediately started being anxious. The result was that a few minutes later I got nauseous and all my PCS symptoms got really bad. This happened on my way to school, so I had to leave early to rest at home.
I'm tired of making excuses to my friends of why I can't go and hang out with them like I used to. I can't simply tell them that this anxiety is what causes me to be afraid of going.
I am heavily considering psychological treatment to help me put the whole thing behind me and just continue in life. I'm sure my recovery speed will increase greatly if I let my brain rest from the stress caused by the obsessions, so I want to start a psychological treatment very soon. Do you think I can benefit from such treatment and put my anxiety behind me?
Do you have any advice of what can I do to get rid of my anxiety? I'm willing to do a lot to get rid of it, so I'll be more than happy to hear what you can suggest me to get rid of my anxiety.
Also, I've improved in the last month or two. My headaches are becoming less and less frequent, although I'm still dealing with brain fog almost daily. I know that many of the brain fog cases are brought on by my anxiety and that significantly slows down my recovery.
I'm optimistic and I know I'll recover, but I also know that it won't happen if I don't help my brain recover. Not only that the anxiety of hitting my head slows down my recovery, but it also (as I said) robs me of life activities that I enjoying doing, and this is very depressing.
So if you do have any advice or suggestion, please tell me.
Thanks,
-ProAgonist