[BenW]

(This is an old post I that I never posted but had saved up on my google docs and thought id post now since ive been having a relapse in my anxiety recently. ive spoken about this issue at length with Mark but I wanted to make this post to see if anyone had any opinions or shared similar circumstances, thank you)

Im an 18 year old, 5'11, 135 pound Caucasian male. I have a history of many head impacts from things in my childhood like accidents, fighting and physical abuse and impacts in my adolescent years from competitive contact sports. Because of this I now have a severe anxiety disorder which currently revolves around a very unhealthy, ocd like obsession with concussions and brain damage.


From online research and answers by doctors on quora.com, it seems as if brain injury can happen incredibly easily, even from things so banal as moving your head around too vigorously, jumping down a few stairs, bumpy car rides/breaking and pretty much any impact or jolt. It also seems as if people who have already sustained a concussion(s) become exponentially more at risk to sustaining further concussions and brain injuries. This is all incredibly demoralizing for someone like me. I want nothing more then to go live my life the best I can but this seems impossible when seemingly everything can potentially cause my brain further harm. I just want to move on in my life and focus on my education and enjoying myself being a normal teenager with friends/gf and doing the things normal teenagers do but it seems impossible if I could be getting constant brain damage. I wanna be able to bump my head, get jolted. go running, dance all crazy, make love, etc... and not freak out but that seems impossible and I feel like I have no choice but to walk on eggshels for the rest of my life.

How do I know what impacts and activities in my day to day life are damaging my brain and what can I do about it? Are the doctors on quora right or do I have a bit more resilience then that to where a hard head impact is likely required?

My irl doctor told me "don't worry too much unless you get a hard impact to the head that makes you see stars, your not doing yourself more harm" (he was being a little hyperbolic I think). Ive also seen a neurologist and neuropsychologist who both said I was pretty much fine and just needed to treat my anxiety and live life but they didn't elaborate on what could harm my brain further and they are not necessarily concussion specialists so Im not sure how trustworthy they are regarding this issue.

How do I move on from here? What would it take to damage myself further? How can I possibly live a normal life and start a family with my condition? How do I know what is damaging or how much damage I sustained in the past?