Hey All,

I've posted on here before, largely due to anxiety about hitting my head. I recognize the title of this thread seems a little contradictory and it is - this post continues with a question about anxiety around hitting my head, but also I'm, I think, more open to suggestions for "normalizing"; life than ever before and would love to hear whatever comments you all are willing to share.

This past Tuesday, I was skateboarding on some basketball courts. I don't jump down stairs, I don't do handrails. I don't do any of the crazy risk-taking associated with skateboarding. However, regardless of whether or not you're jumping down stairs or just cruising around on flat ground, falls do happen in the sport.

That said, I was skateboarding on an outdoor basketball court, landed a trick and fell backwards, landing promptly on my butt. My head didn't make contact with the pavement whatsoever, but it was, of course, a hard hit - I sort of "slipped" backwards landing on my tailbone. I wouldn't say I had a "dazed and confused" feeling, but I did have to sit there and acknowledge that it hurt and that the fall was harder than I expected it to be (while I'm still young, I'm not 15 anymore). I felt myself start to get hyper-vigilant about having fallen, told myself it was ok, and continued with skateboarding for another 10-15 minutes until going to meet a friend for dinner. I felt fine for the rest of the night.

The next day I felt fine(ish) - could feel my mind wondering about the fall and whether or not anything happened. The next morning, I woke up with a mild headache, felt spacey, and feel like my thinking slowed down.

I'm trying to convince myself I'm fine - as I sit here, I feel a little spacey and a little unfocused, BUT this has been how I've felt after even minor things like 1-2 inch heel drops, or bumping my head a little bit on a freezer door.

What do you guys think? Could the fall have caused whiplash, or sent some force up my spinal cord? I know we can train our brains to react instinctively to certain situations with certain responses - I'm generally a pretty risk-averse person to begin with and don't want to start doing anything crazy, just feel comfortable doing the things in my life that have always been a part of it and felt "normal."

Like I said, I've been trying to convince myself I'm fine, that something happening is possible but unlikely - but every time I try and engage in things that feel normal or "let my guard down" and go back to living life, I get knocked down again or go through something that makes being "present" harder to give myself permission to do.

Aside from whether or not you all think anything happened (which is a question I'm interested in), how have you all gone back to normal, or as close to it as you can?

As always, thank you for the thoughtful comments and any opinions/advice you are willing to share.

Sincerely,
Squash291

First off. There is nothing normal about skateboarding. It is a risky sport. One can feel normal without skateboarding.

A hard tailbone landing can cause quite a shock wave up the spinal column. Vertical concussions can be miserable. The C-1 to occiput joint can get injured. Icing can be helpful. Whiplash can be part of the injury.

But, you response sounds like it is mostly anxiety. A minor injury can end up with an 80% anxiety and 20% physiological injury or even more anxiety.

So, if you want to feel normal, stop the risky activities and find the help you need for your anxiety. You need to remember, you have suffered previous concussions so activities that may be a minor risk to others are a serious risk to you.

Stats show that 4 to 10% of skateboard injuries are head injuries. This does not consider the concussions that are never treated.

Were you wearing a helmet ?

Hey Mark,

As always, thank you for the response. You're right - and I agree with you. Skateboarding is risky. I was wearing a helmet, but after this tailbone fall this past Tuesday, I'm just going to let it go entirely. However, it was a massive part of my childhood and I spent a lot of time thinking about myself and growing as a person riding up and down an alley behind my home. It was less a sport, more an act of meditation and something that I appreciate for giving me so much time and space to just... think and be with myself. So, I guess I say that in hopes you might understand where I was coming from in trying to get back on it.

It's a relief to hear you say the symptoms sound more like anxiety. What I find odd is that whether or not it's me falling on my tailbone, bumping my head against a freezer door, or my head getting tapped lightly by someone's elbow, I tend to develop the same set of symptoms. While this event involved more force than the others, the similarity between symptoms despite the differences in forces seems weird to me - do you have any idea why that might be? Does that "correlate" with a more anxiety-driven response?

And Mark, thank you for the suggestion to get anxiety treatment - fortunately, I see a therapist who works with me on all this. A part of why I wanted to get back on my skateboard was, i think, a little bit of my own exposure therapy - to learn to trust that I could fall, and even fall a little harder than I was expecting to, and still be ok.

But, I think what you're getting at also is that there's a difference in the risk associated with certain falls or head bumps and learning to trust that I'll be ok moving through everyday life is very different than learning to trust that I'll be ok on a skateboard. That's a really important distinction to draw and one I'll both internalize and act on.

If you want to do some exposure therapy, there are safer ways. Do things that cause contact with your head that will not cause a concussion. Open the freezer then push the freezer door open the rest of the way with your head. Have people touch your head, lightly at first then with a bit more touch. Not a hit, though. Eventually, a touch can become a tap, and so on. Fall back in bed onto your pillow.

There are a lot of things you can do that do not have the high risk of a skateboard.

Yeah - I don't need to expose myself to risk, just light contact. That makes a ton of sense and is a ton safer than the approach I thought would work best for getting over these fears.

Just so I can walk away from all this and move forward, you feel like the tailbone was more anxiety than anything else and that I should just step away from skateboarding before anything more serious might happen? That's the plan, but I just want to make sure my interpretation of both what happened and your advice moving forward is correct.

Yes, get moving forward. One of the important concepts to work on is to not look for symptoms or look for possible triggers of symptoms.