Concussion Life Can Be Grim with Lindsay Nohl
Show Notes:
Welcome back to another episode, where today we welcome to the show, guest Lindsay Nohl. Lindsay currently lives in Victor, Idaho with her two dogs, Owen and Brady, where she serves as an Executive Director of a nonprofit called Mountain Bike the Tetons. She is also certified as a life coach and mountain bike coach and runs her own business called Lindsay Nohl Coaching in her spare time. Lindsay spent 18 years working for the National Outdoor Leadership School as a Field Instructor Director of the Southwest Program. She's a lifelong athlete, and her initial passion for soccer carried on into her early 20s. After attempts at playing soccer professionally, she dove headfirst into various outdoor sports like rock climbing, canyoning, caving, and more recently, mountain biking. Join us today as we hear from Lindsay about Post-Concussion Syndrome and how finding out she had a brain injury cleared up months of anxiety-ridden experiences. She shares with us about treatments and therapies that helped, and how changing to an anti-inflammatory diet resulted in a life-changing outcome. Don’t miss out on this, and much more, so join the conversation and tune in today!
Key Points From This Episode:
• Lindsay talks to us about her personal concussion injury story.
• She shares the progression of her symptoms and how she realized something was truly wrong.
• What it felt like to feel she was losing control or going crazy, and how she navigated that.
• We hear about her reaction to finding out that she had a head injury and what that was like.
• Lindsay shares the type of treatments and therapies she tried that helped after all this time.
• How changing her diet played a large part in changing her life.
• Navigating the process of starting to feel better, normal, healthy; navigating the fear.
• Lindsay leaves us with a tidbit about post-concussion syndrome.
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Transcript - Click to Read
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:06] MW: Hi, I'm your host, Bella Paige, and welcome to the Post Concussion Podcast, all about life after experiencing a concussion. Help us make the invisible injury become visible.
The Post Concussion Podcast is strictly an information podcast about concussions and post-concussion syndrome. It does not provide nor substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast. The opinions expressed in this podcast are simply intended to spark discussion about concussions and post-concussion syndrome.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:04] BP: Welcome to today's episode of the Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige, and today's guest, Lindsay Nohl. Lindsay currently lives in Victor, Idaho with her two dogs, Owen and Brady, where she serves as an Executive Director of a nonprofit called Mountain Bike the Tetons. She is also certified as a life coach and mountain bike coach and runs her own business called Lindsay Nohl Coaching in her spare time.
Prior to moving to the Tetons, Lindsay spent 18 years working for the National Outdoor Leadership School as a Field Instructor Director of the Southwest Program. She's a lifelong athlete, and her initial passion for soccer carried into her early 20s. After attempts at playing soccer professionally, she dove headfirst into various outdoor sports like rock climbing, canyoning, caving, and more recently, mountain biking. Today, her favorite outdoor adventures are long bikepacking trips in the Desert Southwest. Welcome to the show, Lindsay.
[00:02:07] LN: Thanks. Glad to be here.
[00:02:08] BP: So to start, do you want to tell everyone a little bit about your concussion injuries?
[00:02:13] LN: Sure. Well, back in August 2019, I crashed my mountain bike riding downhill at a resort in Idaho, actually, Wyoming, right on the border of Idaho where I live now. I went off a jump, my foot slipped off the pedal, and I landed on my front wheel, and I sort of supermaned off my bike over the handlebars and landed chin first and stopped my momentum, which was probably 20 something miles an hour with my face and my chin. I had a full-face helmet on, but I still had a huge impact. My chin was sticking out the bottom, so I did split my chin wide open and damaged some other parts of my body. So I was eventually brought to the ER and got some X-rays on my arms. They check to see if my jaw was broken and then stitched up my chin, and I was on my way out of the ER.
Unfortunately, I never got – concussion never got brought up, and post-concussion syndrome never got brought up. I left the hospital thinking I was pretty darn lucky. Yeah, that's sort of the start of the story. To fast forward, it took me nine months to figure out I was dealing with a concussion. So there was that huge chunk in between where stuff went very wrong for me, and it was sort of a slippery slope, I would say. I didn't block out during the crash. I did not feel dizzy or nauseous. I did not have light sensitivity. Sort of all the normal concussion signs that I had known as I play college soccer, and I had a couple concussions playing soccer as a sort of young adult and never really had any bad symptoms or aftermath. But I also headed the soccer ball for about 25 years, which I'm sure has done something.
But, yeah, I just didn't have any normal concussion symptoms right after the fact. So I just sort of didn't even think about it. Honestly, I hit my chin, and I had associated concussions with like actually hitting the top part of my like head because that's where your brain is. But your brain is like the consistency of Jell-O. So if you take your head and stop it really fast, actually your brain moves around pretty fast in there.
But, yeah, so I have this sort of slippery slope into getting very, very sick. I will say, my story was a little unique. I was going through a pretty stressful life situation sort of in the time of the concussion. It had been going on for about eight weeks or so. I was just dealing with just hard relationship issues, and I had not been sleeping well already. I had already been sort of stressed out. Sure, I had some just inflammation in my body stress-wise. So as I got sicker after the head injury, I just pegged all the future symptoms towards life stress, which is why it became so – I'm happy to go into the symptoms because they were sort of a laundry list. It was pretty bizarre.
[00:05:13] BP: Yeah, we'll get into it. I liked that you mentioned that the concussion was never brought up at the hospital but neither was post-concussion syndrome. I don't think I've met anyone yet where that's where they learned about post-concussion syndrome. A lot of the time we learn, you get that piece of paper they give you about what not to do and what to do after a concussion. Usually, it's actually really incorrect. Most of them are really outdated. But you get that.
But post-concussion syndrome, the fact that the symptoms could last more than two weeks is usually what they suggest, is never mentioned. If they actually mentioned the concussion. The one time I didn't have mine mentioned was after I had gone headfirst off of a horse and then run over and then was put in an ambulance. Nobody mentioned my head, and I hit the dirt like head first and then got run over and probably kicked in the head by a horse. I was like, “Okay. Thanks for noticing.” But I had already been dealing with this for a long time at that point.
But I think it's interesting. You said a lot of your symptoms didn't start until later. You're definitely not the only one. I do question — it'd be interesting if they could do studies on that scenario. But I think it'd be really hard to find people. It’d be like, “You hit your head? Oh, sign up right away.” “Oh, I don't feel anything.” “Well, sign up.” That kind of thing because it is often where people – it's like six months later or months later, where they're like, “Well, now I'm struggling at work. Now, I'm struggling at home. I'm emotional.” Those types of things start to set in later on rather than right away.
[00:06:53] LN: Yeah. I mean, I felt pretty bad. I was like bruised. My arms were bruised. My legs were – like my body was just so – I mean, it looked like I got hit by a train, so like I felt bad. But like the symptoms that started coming on were just stuff I'd never experienced before, and it was like this build up after about a week or two where stuff started to be noticeable. I'd started having really high anxiety and just sort of like weird vibrational anxiety to where I was starting to try to – I was like drinking to try to quell that like during the work day, which is not something that I've normally ever done.
I think when I noticed I was doing that, I definitely knew something was up. Then I was just like exhausted. I literally couldn't do anything, and I just was like, “Oh, man. I've had a stressful summer, and I just like had this big accident.” I'm sure some of that was the case. That started getting worse. Then I would say like three weeks after the accident, and this is the sort of the piece that I looped back to nine months later, was that I had my first suicidal thought, which is something, again, I've never had in my life. So it was sort of terrifying, and I didn't really know what to do with it.
But like looking back, it was pretty clear like by September and then into October, and then it got really bad in November. I was like slipping into depression of which I didn't really know what depression was. So it was hard for me to know what was happening. Like I did go seek – I think the first – I went to like an urgent care clinic to get anxiety medication because I didn't really know what to do. Then I was handed Prozac as well at that point. I remember reading the description, and it said, “May cause suicidal thoughts.” I'd never been on in an anti-depressant before. I was like, “I don't want to take this thing. I have suicidal thoughts,” and I was already terrified. So that was so crazy.
[00:08:43] BP: Fair thought.
[00:08:44] LN: Yeah. I mean, yeah. So I was like just hoping the anxiety meds would work, and that would be the thing. Then I just started getting worse and worse. I started having like lack of attention span, and I was not really performing at work. All that gray. Then stuff got worse to where I was starting to have like these physiological responses in November but had these like weird fear responses, too, about I like didn't want to be left alone. I think it was like weird fear about that. I think it sort of overlaid with the fact that I was like having like suicidal thoughts a lot. So I was afraid to be alone. I was like scared of knives, having just like weird thoughts. They were just popping in my head. It wasn't like I wanted to have those. It was so crazy, and I didn't know what to do with them. I was just like trying to push them away, and it's scary.
[00:09:33] BP: Yeah. I would like to say how powerful your thoughts can be. I do really question, and a lot of the science is there to show how much your brain can be affected after head injuries and how that mental health stuff can be exasperated to such an extreme point and those thoughts. I’d always use the word spiral. They just get worse and worse. Getting out of those spirals is really tough. It’s like you don't trust yourself when you are in that suicidal state or mindset where you're questioning.
I know a lot of the time, when I used to get like that, when I got better, but those thoughts would come. I would go to my sisters, actually, because my sister has kids, and I'm a huge kid person. So it kind of just like helped me be like, “I want to be here because like I want to watch these little people grow,” kind of thing. It would like help me like calm down a little bit, and I would go like stunned, not like associating with anyone. But by the time I would leave in a few hours, I've kind of feel more like myself because I kind of put myself in a situation that I knew would bring in better thoughts.
It can be tough sometimes if we don't have those places to go. I haven't always had them. Sometimes, I just mentally wasn't there to do that. I was more of a close the door, cry myself to sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep because I don't want to think this way, so sleep. The fatigue is really strong, so sleep. Like biggest solution for a while for a few years was to just sleep. Whenever I would get overwhelmed, I just go to sleep. Whenever I got really suicidal, I would just go to sleep. Because I would hope that I would wake up without those feelings.
So you kind of start to feel – you mentioned it when we talked before. I've felt that way, too, is you start to feel like you're kind of going crazy, honestly. It's because you're losing control. So how did that feel?
[00:11:33] LN: Oh, man. It was the most scary thing ever. Like I really lost control of my body and my thoughts, like my brain, everything. Nothing worked. Like I ended up in a treatment center. I ended up in a behavioral health hospital, first because I was having these – like I couldn't control my heart rate. I was having these vibrating like anxiety. Like it was to the point where I'm like I don't know what to do. I had to like basically check myself in somewhere, and that was terrifying. That made me think like I was going crazy. It was a place where you're basically on like suicide watch. Like people are watching you sleep and like checking on you every 15 minutes. You're never like allowed to go anywhere alone. You're basically like being kept all the time, which is sort of what I needed at that point, which it's just so crazy now like being well and being – I can't believe like that was my life. It is what it is.
I got out of that place, and I ended up in a treatment center for six weeks in Tucson, where I was living at the time. I mean, again, it was just to keep me alive basically. I didn't know what else to do. My body was like freaking out, and I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think straight. I couldn’t remember like a conversation I just had. I couldn't like relax. Like I just remember this feeling of like adrenaline coursing through my body at all moments. Like even when I was trying to sleep and I'd be exhausted, I couldn't sleep. Just like what is wrong with me?
Now, it's like I understand like the fight or flight system was broken, and my parasympathetic nervous system was just like totally on high alert. So I had lots of problems there. When that starts happening, all these other systems in your body start breaking down as well. So like your HPA access, like my gut, which is, again, I read a lot about the brain-gut connection now with head injuries. I ended up having severe gut issues to where I wasn't even like digesting food, and that went on for a few months, until I sort of figured I was dealing with leaky gut.
But just all these systems shut down. I had vision issues and just super executive function issues. I couldn't read like sentences and make sense of the words. I was trying to pretend I could read the words because after I got to the treatment center, I tried to go back to work because I didn't want to lose my job. I didn't know what was going on. So I was just like trying to do it, and it was terrifying every time I would try to do something, and it didn't work, and I didn't know why.
I mean, it seems crazy that like now like – At that point, it was like six months after I'd hit my face, and I'm still unclear of why I'm like this disabled, basically. But it's like shocking, and like the medical system these days that I could last that long. I had seen therapists in the treatment center. I was seeing them daily in group therapy or individual therapy sessions. Again, processing all this other stuff, thinking that was like what was just destroying my brain. All the symptoms of depression that you read are very similar to symptoms of TBI, and I had depression. So there was so much overlap in the whole like what was going on in my brain category.
But I was seeing psychiatrists once I got out, and they were not helping really at all. Like I felt like I wasn't being believed. I was trying to share how I was feeling internally. I think that is a super common thing from reading lots of post-concussion syndrome and TBI. Sort of like being a part of a lot of Facebook groups and being part of a local TBI support group here in the town I live in Idaho. It is very common for people to feel like they are unheard in the medical world, which is so sad and hard.
[00:15:14] BP: It's tough. I've talked about it a few times when I got told to go to a therapy to see if it was actually in my head, like I was making it up. That was really hard to hear, and I know that looking back feeling because I have accepted what's happened to me. Then I created a wall and block it all out. Like memory-wise, I don't really think about it often. It's kind of like there's a wall there. If I want to think about it, I got to break the wall down for a minute.
It’s helped me because I have accepted it. For a while, I hit that wall up, and I didn't accept it. So it was really tough. But when I think about how I felt then and those emotions and how strong they were, and even just the amount of pain, I didn't think it was possible to be in that much pain and for that long because I dealt with severe headaches.
I remember when mine started, well, most people know, I didn't tell anyone for like months. Then once everyone found out, and I started doing therapy and doctor appointments and things like that, I remember wishing it was something else because I knew what it was. I knew it was the head injuries. I knew I had had a lot. I knew that there was an amount of research. I knew the doctors looked at me like they had no idea what to do with me. My parents were flying me to every research center they could find. I remember just hoping they could find something else wrong with me that could be cured, like something that could be fixed.
Maybe in one of the scans, in one of the blood tests, something would be found that had a better solution than, “We don't really know?” Or, “How about try this? How about try this?” Because with brain injuries, it's such a mystery still. Of course, there's so many things that can help, and I obviously have gotten significantly better, as you have as well. We're going to get into that after the break. So with that, we'll be back.
[BREAK]
[00:17:19] BP: It has now been over two months since Concussion Connect has launched, and it is continuing to grow every day. Just like last month, we have a new topic. This month's topic is depression. Though a very sensitive topic, I believe it is so important for us to talk, be open about our mental health. If you have questions about your mental health or need someone to talk to, join concussionconnect.com today or find the link in our episode description.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[00:17:52] BP: Welcome back to the Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige, and today's guest, Lindsay Nohl. So I was talking about how I wished it was something else, and Lindsay has different thoughts on that.
[00:18:05] LN: Yeah. That last statement that Bella made, I was just laughing about how I was so happy to find out that I had a head injury for nine months and make that connection and was so thankful that a therapist – the new therapist I started seeing asked me during my intake about concussions and head injuries. I rattled off my two normal ones, and then I said, “You know I did hit my face really hard nine months ago.” Then she said, “You know, you can get depression from head injuries.” I said, “Oh, you can?”
Then I started Googling that for the next year. It just was this huge weight off my shoulders of, “Oh, my gosh. I've felt internally so horrible, and I now have an answer of why.” Then I started reading all the post-concussion syndrome symptoms. I had never even heard that term before I started Googling stuff. Then all the symptoms I had lined up. I had said those other ones earlier, like the ones I didn't have, the obvious ones. I think I had almost everything else, basically. So it just all lined up. Gut issues, vision issues, memory loss, emotional regulation, can't think straight, can't make decisions, depression, anxiety. I mean, it’s just like mind blowing. I was like, “Oh, my gosh. I am not crazy.” Like, “Thank you. Finally.”
[00:19:29] BP: That's a good feeling. Not knowing when you're ill, what's wrong is really tough. I know, for myself, I knew what it was wrong. I just didn't want to admit it. It's a little bit of a different mindset. But what type of treatments and therapies have you tried that actually at least you found helped after all this time?
[00:19:48] LN: Yeah. Well, I tried a lot. I was in this like mode of desperation for so long, but I was willing to basically do anything. I didn't really have another choice because the other choice was I was going to like I take my own life, which was horrible. I didn't want to, but it was just this like urge feeling that I had really no control over.
So I would say one of the early things that I did, it wasn't that early, but it was early. Well, it was after I got out of the treatment center, so this was like in February. So this was, I don't know, five or six months after the crash. I guess that's early. I was having these anxiety attacks that would last like 10 hours long, and it was like I couldn't control my body. Again, fight or flight totally out of control. I would wake up. I would like do something. I don't know if it was just a tiny bit of stress would come in, and then my chest would tighten up. I would just – I couldn't control them without Xanax. I'm not saying that's what fixed me, but I did start going to the chiropractor. This guy I had seen again, and it was crazy.
The first day I went to the chiropractor was the last anxiety attack like that I ever had. The first treatment he did, he like the little pop in my side of my head, and I started like having an emotional release. I don't know why. It wasn't like I was crying out of emotions. It was just like I just – I don't know. It was crazy, and I went. He was like, “You need to come in twice a day. Every day you can,” which I did for about three weeks. So I was going to the chiropractor. My dad at the time, who was out taking care of me, was driving me back and forth to the chiropractor twice a day.
The chiropractic is about nervous system control and like helping your nervous system. It's not just like fix your back or your pains. So that was really a great learning. I think I know a lot of people have had success with chiropractic. So thank God those anxiety attacks stopped because they were really the thing that was probably going to end me. So I never had to take Xanax again after that first time I went there, and I was taking it almost every day.
Other things that worked like in May, I think I ended up – I had been on and off of multiple antidepressants and other medications. But I got put on Wellbutrin after like begging the psychiatrists. Within 48 hours, I like had this light switch go back on, and the depression lifted. The suicidal thoughts went away for good. That was a huge, huge like fix for me. I know so many people out there are like so hesitant about medications and antidepressants. I would just like want to tell people like give it a shot. It might not –
Like I was on multiple and one for a long time, and it was a serotonin-based one, and it just didn't work. Wellbutrin works on the dopamine system, and it was just super clear to me that I had a dopamine problem in terms of like something in my dopamine system was broken. When I got the right key that fit in the lock, and like it turned me back on, it really again saved my life. I am so thankful I found that, and I just finally like stopped taking Wellbutrin at the end of 2021. So I've had been off all the medications. At one point, I was on six at once. But I am like medication-free, which feels like a huge milestone.
I wanted to bring that up because I think it was huge. The other big thing that I would say was a big lifesaver for me is I was changing my diet, and I had no choice. Like I wasn't taking in any calories. I would eat food, and I would have like diarrhea, and I was having it 10 to 15 times a day. So I ended up eventually seeing an integrative doctor who helped me get a nutritionist. Somehow without any energy, I managed to start eating out anti-inflammatory diet, and that – within a month's time, I like was back to having normal stools again after like literally liquid like 10, 15 times a day. Like I wasn't digesting my medication. It was coming out in the toilet, like pills. It was so bizarre.
I cut out everything except for fruit, vegetables, meat, and a couple of different oils. As I started doing that, I could feel the brain fog lifting, and it was like – It’s just so clear to me now that my brain was inflamed. Once I started lowering the like inflammation in my body by not eating inflammatory foods, my brain started healing, and my gut started healing. Like in terms of depression too, like 95% of your serotonin receptors are like in your gut. So if your gut is all screwed up, you're not doing yourself any good in terms of your mood and emotions and things like that, too.
I think that's a huge piece that I think people think, “Oh, food doesn't really do anything. I need like comfort foods.” Like sugar was probably the like worst thing I could have eaten, even though that was what I craved, right? So I'd say those were the big three for me, and I've tried a lot of other things and talk therapy. Continued talk therapy has been helpful too.
[00:24:42] BP: For sure. I like that you mentioned the depression meds. They are definitely a good choice. I'm not against them at all. I think there's a lot of stigma around them still, and I don't think that should exist. But it does, of course. But if they can help you and it's – like I always say, you have to try more than one sometimes comes with everything because what fits you might not fit someone else.
You mentioned the sugar, and actually sugar is something I can't actually have it all, even to this day. Like any high-processed sugar I will once in a while. Like I’ll have like Fuzzy Peaches or Sour Keys or something or like Birthday Cake. But I know when I've had it within an hour that I've had sugar because I can instantly feel it in my head. So I stay away from it. I have like a sugar cupboard in my house, and I only go in it like once in a while.
[00:25:39] LN: You have good discipline, if I had a sugar cupboard in my house —
[00:25:41] BP: Once, twice a month maybe.
[00:25:42] LN: I would not be able to regulate my sugar covered.
[00:25:46] BP: Yeah. So I have a problem with the carbs, like the neuro-inflammatory diet. Without like bread and things, it's really tough for me. I like my French toast. I like my bready. I like my chips, like those types of things. I'm a potato person, like deep fried potatoes, roast potatoes. All those types of things are really hard. So doing those diets is impressive when you are ill because I find it's really tough to do. I always say is start taking things out slowly because doing it all at once can be really tough emotionally too. Because all of a sudden, it's a lot of meal prep. It's a lot of planning. It's a lot of organizing, especially if it's very different from what you've eaten before, depending on your diet.
[00:26:28] LN: Yeah. I mean, I was really sick still when I started. Like I was just starting to drive again, I think, and so I was like just able to like drive myself somewhere to get food, and I was living alone. Basically, like a meal for me, I could barely pull this off, and pulling it off meant like I had a pound of ground beef. I put it in the pan. I put salt in it and like sauté it, and then I’d eat an apple. So that was like what I was making for meals, but I was following the diet that it was like that's all I could do, like energy-wise and like functionality-wise. I mean, it was so crazy. But you know, you just –
[00:27:04] BP: That’s why I think it's tough when you see the really complicated recipes for the low-inflammation diet.
[00:27:11] LN: Yeah, overwhelming.
[00:27:13] BP: It's great if you have the energy for it, but I always think like that list is – I even have half those things in my house on a good day. It's going to take me a while to switch over to that.
[00:27:24] LN: I can but I couldn't like cook a normal recipe before I was sick.
[00:27:28] BP: Yeah. So one needs to call it like neuro-inflammation recipes for what you can only stand up for five minutes at a time because that would be helpful. Because I used to get dizzy standing and cooking, so that’s safe. So things that go in the oven always worked really well because I could put it in the oven, stand up, take it out, flip it, put it back in the oven. Those types of meals were kind of what I lived on for a while because I didn't have the balance to stand and especially over hot things. Kind of dangerous.
But you started to feel better, and something that I felt as well that we talked about in the past was when you start to feel better, sometimes it’s almost like scary. Like you get this fear of feeling normal. Because for myself when my headaches started to go away, I started to get anxiety about why I wasn't having my headaches, rather than accepting that I was getting better because I had had them for years. I hadn't gone more than an hour without a headache in – I think it was six, seven years. So to have 24 hours without them and then two days without them and then a week here and then a few days here, I was, “What is going on? What did I do? What switch flipped?”
It’s interesting how that fear can happen because then you also get the fear that it can come back as well.
[00:28:48] LN: Yeah. I mean, I feel like me getting better was such this interesting like conglomeration of all these things happen at once. Like the diet and the Wellbutrin and then figure out a head injury like happened all within the same couple of weeks after months of like nothing. So I had this pretty rapid like, “Whoa, I have energy to like clean the house or take a shower or like my brain is sort of functioning again. I can drive.” Like I rode my bicycle for the first time, and that was like a huge milestone.
So I was definitely scared it was going to come back. I think as I've progressed, I am pretty nervous about hitting my head again. I started – I moved up to Idaho full time after I lost my job right in that same month that I figured out I had head injury. That was another good milestone, but I started playing ice hockey up here in Idaho, and I have fallen on my head a couple times. Not super-duper hard but it definitely was a little bit rattled, and I just got a little anxious around, “Oh, my gosh. I hit my head again. Am I going to have the same like I'm going to go down like the tunnel of crazy town again?” I didn't, which was great. So I'm like building that confidence that not every whack of your head means you're going to spiral. It’s not great.
Again, I didn't have these major hits but one game I got tripped, and I fell right on my face mask, like right on my face. My jaw like hurt a little bit. I was like, “Oh, no. It’s like the same mechanism of injury sort of.” I was fine, but I definitely had this moment of like, “Oh, no. Come on. I was like doing so good.” So I've tried not to think about that too much, and I've just tried to continue to live my life. For me, movement and sports and outdoor activity has been like the defining piece of my life, and that's how I identify as like a human. So I just can't give that stuff up. I can't say, “Well, I hurt myself biking, which was like my biggest passion, and I can't ever mountain bike again.” Like I coach mountain biking. That's what I do for fun. I can't stop it. I think if I chose to not go back to that, I think I'd be giving into the like fear of the concussion like happening or something.
I'm like taking a gamble there. I get it, and I try to make better choices. Maybe like super-fast jumping in high speed isn't the best thing. Like I don't really do enduro downhill mountain bike races anymore. It seems like those are high, like more high likelihood things, but we'll see.
[00:31:25] BP: Yeah. I'm not laughing at you. I’m laughing at me. I ride dirt bikes and do motocross.
[00:31:33] LN: I’ve been thinking about it –
[00:31:34] BP: I get that not giving it up. Yeah. Sports, for me, is like a really big thing. It's been a huge part of my life. I think I was sports at three years old, so it's a huge part of who I am, and I like having something else to work on other than work. I like the like research techniques and have goals that are not work, things to work towards, how to get better, those types of things. It's just how my brain works.
I also have the hitting my head fear. But it's interesting how I'm more comfortable in some places than others. Like snowboarding, done it since I was a little kid. It was really icy this one day. I went with one of my best friends, and I said, “I'm actually kind of nervous.” Like my head, like when we hit the ice, I kind of tense up. She said, “Well, why don't you just not go as fast as you can go?” I was like, “Oh, yeah. Okay.” She was like, “Just don't like fly down the hill. Just because you can doesn't mean you need to go that fast.” So I just kind of slowed down. I was like, “Right, I could just go slower. It’s not a rush. It’s not a – There is no race to the bottom of the hill. I'm just having fun.”
It’s kind of like a good reminder for myself to like slow down and put my health first, which is tough but important. So you've talked about a lot so far and really shared a lot. Is there anything else you'd like to add before ending today's episode?
[00:33:01] LN: I've got, yeah, just a couple of points that have really resonated with me as I've gotten better. I think a big thing out there because a lot of my concussion and PCS symptoms had to do with mental health, I tried to describe like depression and anxiety and talk about it with people because I think the more we talk about it, the more, well, less stigmatized it becomes. But I really just – I see like depression and anxiety really as a sick organ. I think like people have kidney problems, or they have liver problems, and it's a sick organ, and what the liver does like doesn't function. So your brain is like this emotional center, and it is a thought center. So when you have a sick brain, it's just another organ.
But the output and the downstream effects of that organ being sick are really crazy things, like weird, hopeless thoughts and suicidal thoughts. I mean, even – It’s just hard because I think depression and stuff gets stigmatized so much. I was on the other side of that. I'd never understood it, and I think that I used to think, “Oh, man. People are probably just lazy. Why can't they just fix that?” Or like, “What's going on? Why are they so sad?” Like being in that and having no control of like how desperate and hopeless you feel, it’s like the scariest and saddest, hardest thing.
I guess I just want to like break it down to this. Like mental health is a physical health thing, and it's like cells and chemicals and stuff in your body, and it's a sick organ. The organ just happens to like control almost everything in your body. So I just want to like throw that out there. It’s something I thought about a lot, and I think it could be a good way to like help people understand what it's like to have this invisible illness or even like – Whether it's a concussion that causes depression or just like depression from stress and trauma, PTSD from other things.
The last piece I just want to say is I think something that got me through was just like this feeling of one day at a time. I mean, just like one moment at a time, one half hour at a time, like just getting through these days because when you can't figure out what's wrong with you, and you don't understand why, and nothing you're trying is helping, it feels really hopeless and desperate. Then things happen.
Like for me, it was like the Wellbutrin like turn this light back on, and all these little tiny like fixes made me back into this like person that is functional again and has joy and can work and do lots of tasks and all those things. So I just want to like people who are listening that are struggling with this and have been struggling with this for months or years, like keep trying. There are things that might fix you, and don't give up.
[00:35:50] VW: Yeah. Well, that is a great message, and I strongly believe as well that mental illness is a brain illness. I just want to thank you so much for joining us today and sharing some of your life post-concussion.
[00:36:02] BP: You're so welcome. It was great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:36:08] BP: Has your life been affected by concussions? Join our podcast by getting in touch. Thank you so much for listening to the Post Concussion Podcast, and be sure to help us educate the world about the reality of concussions by giving us a share. To learn more, don't forget to subscribe.
[END]
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