On top of the PCS symtoms, I ve been having fits of anxiety-filled moments. I panic about my future, about what I have done wrong to get here, about the possibility of a second concussion and a relapse, about other possible health issues. Pre-injury, I have not felt anxiety like this. It almost feels incapacitating and paralyzing, so painful. Does anyone have a similar experience? how do you overcome this?

Hey Will,

Yep, ditto to all the above, my anxiety hits like a brick, I start shaking, can't breath properly and basically want to freak out.

Lately...and I try so hard not to do it....I am terrified of getting another concussion (mostly when driving with all the baffoons on the road) as I'm convinced that will be it, my brain will never recover and I'll be a vegetable...I know, too much.

The way I calm down is breathe....really concentrate on breathing, I always thought that was crazy but it works.

I know I have to get to a quiet place and relax too, try to keep busy doing something so mind is not all over the place, get enough rest...that's a biggie and hard to do.

Others will be along with other ideas so will check back in too.

a therapist taught me this technique. practice it several times a day so it's second nature when you need it. breath in while counting to four. hold for four more seconds, breath out slowly while counting to four. repeat four times.

if you catch yourself early in the anxiety cycle it can help. and any exercise at all is helpful if you can.

Anxiety IS a PCS symptom.

will,

Make a journal about your anxieties. Write them all down. Then list what you can do about those anxieties. If you can list and make small steps toward resolving an anxiety, great. Most are beyond your control. Make it a point to consciously put those decisions and goals off to the future.

Your biggest is simple anxiety. Resolve to tell yourself that anxiety is counterproductive to recovery.

Maybe a therapist with experience with PCS anxiety can teach you some CBT concepts (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) to help with this.

Remember, you can not control tomorrow. It is tough enough controlling today. Do what you can for today and wait for tomorrow to come.

My best to you.

Hockey, would it still be a PCS symptom, if specific circumstances/situations/thoughts trigger it? (although I did not get these symptoms when I got anxious in the past) PCS is just making EVERYTHING worse

PCS make anxiety worse and makes anxiety easily triggered. Anxiety is a PCS symptom. It is due to the PCS brain struggling to ignore anxiety triggering stimuli. Much of the anxiety triggering stimuli is over-stimulation of visual, auditory and tactile senses. We need to learn to avoid these stimulations. We also need to learn to manage thought patterns.

One of the most important skills to learn is this; We need to accept where we are with our symptoms. We can not change them. We can only make them worse. When we learn to work with and manage our symptoms, our stress and anxiety levels will decrease. This usually helps us heal.

For some people, I think this forum is detrimental. It creates too much opportunity to constantly try to figure every little symptom out. That is an impossible task and causes anxiety.

Yes, you feel lousy. Yes, you want your old life back. No, nobody can tell you when that will happen. Nobody can tell you how much you will recover........ and on and on.

Those who do the best have learned to work with their symptoms rather than fight against them. Many of us have lived with these symptoms for years or even decades. There is life with prolonged PCS. It is much better when anxiety is controlled. It is miserable when anxiety rules our every minute.

Right, thank you for the information and advice Mark. What you said makes a lot of sense.

I was thinking about my sister who has severe adult ADHD today. She somehow has managed it thus far. Of course she gets a lot of help and accommodations, but she has somehow learned to live a life with the symptoms. She is officially undiagnosed as my family is in denial(family is also in denial about my PCS). However, I think perhaps the lack of medical diagnosis and symptom-identification have benefitted her as she strives to be better instead of resigning to the fact that she has ADHD.

Some really excellent points here, Mark.

Before my TBI, I was VERY together emotionally, so the anxiety was a real shock.

I started to deal better with it when, I accepted that it was a symptom of my injury and, as Mark said, stopped pushing against it. I sort of treated it like giving birth: labour goes much better if you go with your pain, rather than fight back against it. (Sorry that I can't think of an analogy the guys will get.)

Basically, realizing that it only added to the anxiety, I stopped feeling guilty about my "weakness." I accepted that, no matter what, it was going to happen sometimes. That said, with the help of a psychologist, I set about finding ways to eliminate triggers.

Some of my big triggers are: being rushed, being over scheduled, crowds, loud noises, aggressive/confrontational people, decision making, etc...

To cope, I have simplified my life. For example, I have a very limited closet, eliminating the problem of deciding what to wear. I do my best to avoid nasty, negative people. (I wish I'd done that more BEFORE I got hurt.) I don't fill my days with "must do" commitments. If I feel good I go, if I don't, I don't - big deal.

There is no way in life to avoid all the important aspects/decisions. However, eliminating the trivial, gives you the energy to concentrate on the important ones.

I know it sounds cliché, but I really did have to learn to stop sweating the small stuff. Seriously, a lot of the things we worry about, can be pretty inconsequential. For example, the world isn't going to end because I can't go to the neighbourhood fundraiser. Is my house as clean as it used to be? NO!!! So what? If that offends anybody, they're too superficial to be a valuable asset to my life.

I've also learned to try to live one day at a time. If I think about all the possible future scenarios, I get overwhelmed. Yes, we can't know about our finances, relationships and health in the decades ahead. But really, nobody can. Life is a journey with ups and downs, where one never knows what's around the next bend. We can do our best, but I believe we have to accept that their are things beyond our control.

There was nothing I could do about my accident - but I am in command of how I chose to respond to it. I am not omnipotent - but I'm not powerless, either.

Looking back, many of the things I feared in the early days, didn't come to pass. Worrying about them wasn't necessary - and didn't help one bit.

Get some professional help, be kinder to yourself and the anxiety will abate.

I'm sorry to hear about your anxiety. The good news is that there are a lot of things you can do to make it more manageable.

As others have mentioned, it is important to find a therapist who specializes in anxiety disorders and is trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Sometimes this is combined with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP); usually ERP is used for phobias and OCD, but it might be useful for other types of anxiety as well. Stay far, far away from therapists practicing Freudian psychoanalysis; that will probably make things worse. Your therapist must be a specialist in anxiety disorders and he or she must be trained in CBT.

Doing relaxation exercises and/or meditating can be part of your toolkit as well, though I personally have not found meditation or relaxation to be cure-alls. They help, but by themselves they do not take me very far unless I'm also using other tools to manage my anxiety.

Some people find some relief through medications. I take Klonopin (Clonazepam) regularly and it has worked wonders for me.

Another important part of your toolkit is educating yourself about anxiety. If you are able to read without too many problems from your injury, you might check out the book Dancing with Fear, by Paul Foxman. I found this book very useful when I was first educating myself about anxiety. You can also check out online resources such as the NIMH:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topic...rs/index.shtml

In sum, I think the best approach involves a combination of (a) CBT, (b) meditation and/or relaxation, (c) educating yourself about anxiety disorders, and possibly (d) medication.

Good luck.