Anxiety of hitting head again is stealing my life
 

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

It sounds like you idea of CBT therapy may be a good start. You need a professional to help you with this. You might want to discuss the Ritalin and its side-effects.

Thank you, Mark.

Have you ever had CBT? If so, can you please tell me what should I expect from such treatment?

The side effects of the Ritalin don't bother me much, but I guess it could somewhat delay my recovery, so I might soon go for a very long period of time (6-12 months) without taking it in order to ease the recovery. I'm very close to my senior year (which is easier than the current one), so I probably won't need to take the Ritalin anyway.

There are some excellent resources in the Anxiety forum here.

Useful Websites and Resources for Anxiety & OCD

Bro, this is nothing more than a bad case of anxiety. Listen, just start living your life! YOU WILL NOT GIVE YOUSELF A CONCUSSION FROM A SLIGHT BUMP. U are also early into PCS so be optimistic. You WILL get getter. I also had depression and anxiety from this and it didn't go away till I started to just live my life and the psychological issues went away. I'm not almost com playlet recovered after 5 months of pcs. Just relax bro. You are fine. I take lost of psych classes and I've learned that u need to just live with the anxiety and it will go away on it's own

ListenToThisPost,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. I tried listening to your post but it did not say anything so I opened my eyes and read it instead. LOL

These bumps may not cause concussions but for many of us they do cause a return of symptoms. The big question has always been: Are the symptoms due to physical trauma or the result of anxiety ? For some of us, these bumps do cause a bit of trauma. For me, it does not take much to cause me to have a metallic taste in my mouth. For others, it may be just an anxiety reaction.

Please feel free to introduce yourself and tell us how we can help. What symptoms are you still experiencing ?

ProAgonist... I really do agree that your idea of getting psychotherapy is a good one.

We have a sister forum you know, called PsychCentral which has many forums for mental issues. Anxiety, ADHD and OCD are just some of them.

Here is the link to the OCD forum...
http://forums.psychcentral.com/ocd-trichotillomania/

I also hope you understand that the Ritalin may be causing alot of anxiety for you too. As kids mature into adults their brains change and the stimulants may become too strong and create many mental side effects. Look up the dopamine system online and see how dopamine fuels habits, and addictions.

I attended a day seminar on habit formation...it is really interesting stuff:
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/27/31/8181.full

Habits can become compelling when the dopamine system engages, and Ritalin is a big dopamine agonist. Now would be the time to learn about this and prevent unwanted habits from controlling your life.

PsychCentral has been online for over a decade now with many good blogs and their helpful forums. You need to register there, as our membership list is separate. So do give it a try.

ADHD meds
 

ADHD meds can cause/worsen anxiety

Thank for all the replies!

I'll join the OCD forum to get further advice on anxiety management (specifically the anxiety of hitting my head), in addition to CBT treatment of course.

I know ADHD medications can worsen anxiety, but I'm anxious of hitting my head also when I don't take my medication. The anxiety is always there.

mrsD,

I understand what you say about the dopamine system, but I disagree with you.

First of all, Ritalin is not a dopamine agonist, it's a dopamine reuptake inhibitor (reuptake inhibitors makes the neurotransmitters stay more time in the synapse so they can activate the receptors for longer time). So we can say it's an indirect dopamine agonist, but still, not a direct one.

Second of all, dopamine is absolutely involved in addictions. It is the neurotransmitter which is responsible for cravings, to be specific. Ritalin does boost dopamine to high levels, but it's not the same as other strong stimulants (such as Cocaine, which is addictive), mainly because Ritalin is taken orally. Taking a medication orally means that it hits the brain slowly, and there's a proven correlation between how addictive a substance is, to how quickly it reaches the brain from the moment of consumption. So taking pills is not nearly as addictive as snorting drugs like Cocaine.

Of course, Ritalin is still a drug and it still greatly boosts dopamine, even if it's taken in pill form. But studies have actually shown that Ritalin can prevent addictions - people with ADHD are more prone to drug addictions because they naturally have low levels of dopaminergic transmission. For this reason, ADHD people tend to seek different things (unconsciously) to help compensate for their brain abnormalities. That seeking sometimes ends in compulsive drug taking, which is much worse than taking an ADHD medication on a daily basis. By taking medication that boosts dopamine, ADHD patients don't have to do risky things to fix their abnormalities, because Ritalin does that too.

In any case, I'm heading into my senior year in high school. In my country, senior year is quite easy (easier than the 11th grade, which I'm currently at), so I'll start the school year without Ritalin. If I'll see, though, a decline in my grades and difficulty studying, I'll return to the Ritalin.

Thanks again to everyone,
-ProAgonist

I suggest you study reward and reinforcement ProAgonist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reward_system

This wiki article is just an overview. You can Google much more.

It appears from your posts, that you are reinforcing your anxiety. And that this may be due in part to the dopamine actions of the Ritalin you take. Patients do become anxious on methylphenidate, and it is a well known side effect.

I hope that your therapist can help you with this, as it is really too complex to do here on the internet.

I noticed that you changed your signature too....your last one said you were taking Omega-3's and now it says you are planning to? What is up with that? As you change your brain for the better with Omega-3 intake, you WILL notice MORE side effects from the Ritalin. This will be a signal to taper down to lower doses, or eventually no longer need it all.

Have you read Dr. Amen about changing your brain, and helping ADHD? You might want to get his books at your library. His ADHD one is very interesting.

http://www.additudemag.com/slideshow/61/slide-1.html