I used to be a very positive person but as of late, I am having a very hard time seeing anything positive. Even worse, i am being completly negative!

I realized that all my outlets have been taken away to the point where i have no patience for anyone! I cant work out hard, cant surf, cant drink, i feel like all i can do is THINK about what could be wrong with me!

Although my syptoms are traditional PCS sypmtoms, i a have been non stop thinking(being negative) that i ahve MS or some other debilitating desease. the more i think about this, the more twitches and tingling (MS sypmtoms)muscles i get! Bizarre!

Am i depressed? Why am i being so negative? Has this happened to anyone else?
35 year old "soon to be again" very active male.
Location
San Diego

My Health Concerns
Health Concerns
September 2012 suffered concussion Wakeboarding, November 24th 2012, second impact surfing.

Hi - after my first concussion I was convinced I had everything from West Nile Virus to MS and beyond. All of the symptoms I was experiencing just were so distressing and I needed to find a reason. I visited all sorts of specialists and meanwhile my anxiety was spiraling out of control. Many months later, after finding a good physical therapist to work with my head and neck, I started get some pain relief and came to the realization that my entire system had been out of whack due to PCS.

Now here I am with concussion #2. It's rough going, but I do believe in time things will improve. Hang in there and know that you are alone!

yea you gotta get out of your own head for a little while, as usual stress, anxiety etc etc blah blah you know the drill makes things worse (and doing absolutely nothing can be a stress as well especially since you were so active before), but i think boredom does as well, soon, if not already, you'll be questioning your sanity and your thoughts and even dreams start to drift into some pretty freakin' strange places i think its from being so inactive/ under-stimulated that your brain is maybe exercising itself with strange thoughts, over-analyzing, hypochondria etc. Try playing mind/thinking games online or something that at least entertains you enough to stop thinking about whats wrong all the time, may help

I can relate with you, I was such a happy go lucky always joking around type of person, then I got to be negative all the time thinking of the worst, it does get better over time

Im finally starting to get in a better state of mind getting back to joking around almost enjoying myself although I still do have some symptoms lingering, I would have to agree to try to find something to get your mind off your ailment

I was miserable just stewing over what happened but there's nothing you can do about the past so I would say try to be positive about the future

I know that all sound cliche and ridiculous but it actually does help

Almost every day I find myself in a dilemma: I can either try to be a little active and risk aggravating my symptoms, or I can rest and eventually become depressed. When I have to be inactive, my thoughts inevitably turn inward, and since I tend to be a negative thinker, this results in depression.

The thinking about debilitating diseases sounds like it has an obsessive-compulsive aspect to it. The most effective long-term strategy for dealing with this sort of thing is to work on accepting these unpleasant possibilities. If you do research online or try to "prove" to yourself that you don't have a disease, you will be unsuccessful and the anxiety will become worse.

Alternatively, if you can work on accepting the uncertainty and living with the possibility of having some other condition, the anxiety will eventually go away on its own. The general idea is to expose ourselves to our fears--to go toward what we fear rather than avoiding it. This strategy is difficult--entire books have been written about it and it takes many people months with the close supervision of a therapist--but it works.

If you're already stuck in a cycle of rumination, then distraction is a good technique, but the activity you pick has to be something that fully engages your attention (perhaps a crossword puzzle or a conversation with a friend or family member). Kristara's suggestions are good ones. If it's a task that you can do while thinking about something else (like washing the dishes), then it probably will not be effective in distracting you.