I actually managed to bump my head in low-sloping ceiling of a converted barn I've been staying in the last few nights.

I had my active noise cancelling headphones on at the time, they seem to take away some proprioceptive ability due to imposing a level of 'temporary deafness' - literally and spatially, to the outside world.

Luckily, the headphone band sits slightly above my head and this compressed first, alerting me to the fact I had made contact, so I was able to whip my head back down before making full contact. In fact, this movement was far more rapid than the initial contact.

It still left me adrenalised, although I can now see that bumps like this can't really cause concussion... because there's just not enough force involved to activate any coup/contre coup injury mechanism. It's just hard bone bumping into another hard object.

This is obviously different than someone rising into a roof with force from a squat position, or walking/tripping headfirst into a low-slung concrete door frame, which would definitely cause a level of injury.

I'm starting to see now it's more about managing the anxiety response to these low impact events, which can still give symptoms even when you know logically it's not possible.

The anxiety response is driven by different part of the brain - the reptilian and emotional brain regions (basal ganglia and limbic systems), directly linked to the nervous system via the amygdala and HPA axis.

Unfortunately, some parts of the basal ganglia and limbic systems can be impacted as part of any original TBI(s)/concussions, hence the overactive anxiety-stress-depression response.


Basically, the brain replays a pre-recorded, "3D experience" of previous actual symptoms - a virtual reality concussion movie, where you're unwittingly, the main lead. This is classic PTSD symptomatology - on a sliding scale of severity, and many TBI survivors are often diagnosed with some level of PTSD.


This is part of the reason why I had EMDR therapy, unfortunately, I did actually suffer a lot of multi-modal traumas when growing up. In fact, I got told I likely had C-PTSD; due to the sheer amount of crap I survived.


What a conundrum.