How Do I Deal With All Of This Concussion Anxiety?
 

Hi everyone,

I have been suffering with PCS since May of this year which has been gradually improving, but my anxiety about hitting my head has really started to increase in the past 3 months.

The problem that has really been bothering me is always questioning “if I just bumped my head” whenever I go near things. I also get extremely worried about things like fist bumping someone, sitting down too hard on a chair, bumps in the road while I’m driving, turning my head too quickly, and someone friendly punching me in the shoulder.

I can never convince myself that I’m okay no matter how hard I try and I always have to ask my friends and family for reassurance every time any little thing like that happens, and they’re really starting to get annoyed. I have been seeing a psychologist, but I still question myself all the time. the psychologist thinks that this is related to previously existing OCD that I didn’t really know that I had.

Does anyone know how to deal with these thoughts? The fact of not knowing if I just hit my head or not really bothers me. I get very worried because I know that concussion symptoms can show up later so I get nervous that I will start feeling symptoms and then go back to where I was with PCS before. Would I always know if I hit my head or is it actually possible that I can bump my head and be questioning whether or not I actually just bumped my head?

Today I was drying my hands on a towel right next to an open door. I turned to walk out of the bathroom and heard a cracking noise. My head was close to the door so I’m not sure if I hit my head on the corner of the door or if it was just my neck cracking. I was kind of zoned out when this happened so I’m not really sure if I hit my head or not and now I’m really nervous. Do you think that I hit my head on the door?

If you don't KNOW that you hit your head, you did not hit your head.

You will feel it when you hit your head.

This is OCD. You need to change your thinking. CBT, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, can help. You need to get serious with the CBT therapist about how ridiculous your thoughts are .

I have terrible OCD since my injury and one thing that’s good about that is there’s no WAY any OCD would let me forget where I was hit. Nope, I would remember all the details. I would assume... if you hit your head, you’d know the exact spot. You’d focus on the exact spot, the lingering buzzing of the hit.
This sounds bad, but use your OCD to your advantage in this case and say, “if I really hit my head, I’d be so aware of the location, I wouldn’t have to ask.”