How Your Life Changes with Sarah Williams
Show Notes:
Be who you are born to be, not what the world has transformed you to become. On today’s episode of the Post Concussion Podcast, we speak with multiple concussion survivor, equestrian, and athletic identity coach, Sarah Williams. She kicks off by telling us about the short- and long-term effects of having suffered multiple concussions, shares a bit about her rehabilitation process, and lists some constructive coping mechanisms she has established in order to make life manageable. Next, Sarah unpacks how her personal experience has made her a better coach who is able to empathize with her clients. We chat about the psychological impact of being unable to partake in your sport, the difficulties of navigating the digital world after the injury, and the ebb and flow of recovery. Sarah shares some tips on how to manage your relationships and emphasizes the immense value of asking for help.
Tune in for an honest perspective on life after a concussion and leave with a fresh perspective on how to give yourself grace and see the possibilities in your life after a concussion!
Key Points From This Episode:
• The details of Sarah’s most severe experience with a concussion.
• The long-term effects of having been concussed in the form of balance, ear problems, headaches, gut and more.
• How a functional neurologist in Portland has helped to rehabilitate Sarah’s eyes and ears.
• Constructive coping mechanisms that Sarah has established to manage the long-term effects of multiple concussions.
• How the injury impacted Sarah’s career and her ability to manage stress.
• How her injuries has made her a better coach who is able to empathize with her clients.
• The psychological impact of being unable to partake in your sport.
• Why social media and digital work is particularly challenging after a concussion.
• The ebb and flow of recovering from a concussion and how unexpected triggers can arise.
• How relationships can change as your life and identity shifts after a concussion.
• Tips on how to manage relationships with honesty after an injury.
• The value of asking for help.
• The ways in which the pandemic has facilitated Sarah’s healing.
• How making a shift to thinking about all the things you still can do can help you live with greater ease.
Connect with Sarah
Check out Born to Endure Coaching here: www.borntoendure.com
Follow Sarah on Instagram: @borntoendure.coaching
Transcript - Click to Read
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:05.3] BP: 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.
Welcome to today’s episode of The Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige, and today’s guest, Sarah Williams. Sarah is a certified athletic identity coach who works with high-performing competitive athletes from young athletes through retired professionals, learn that they are more than the sport they play.
Athletic identity is where an athlete identifies themselves solely based on the sport they play, athletic identity can lead an athlete to neglect other areas of life and find themselves lost and without purpose when a sudden loss of sport occurs.
Sarah helps current and former athletes create an identity outside of sports that will ignite the hunger to reach success as a whole person with passion and purpose on and off the field as Sarah says, “Be who you were born to be, not what the world has transformed you to become.”
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:54.3] BP: Welcome to the show, Sarah.
[0:01:56.0] SW: Thank you, it’s great to be on here.
[0:01:58.2] BP: To start, you want to tell everyone a bit about your injuries and what occurred?
[0:02:02.6] SW: Sure, I am actually a multiple concussion survivor. I’ll talk about the one that I think is the biggest and had the most traumatic effect on my life and that was back in 2014. I had been training for a triathlon, I do triathlons, I’m also an equestrian and I was learning how to do flip turns in the swimming pool, as silly as that sounds, but I had never done it, I had never learned to swim competitively before I started triathlons in 2013.
This was just shy of my year participating in the sport and I heard that if you do a flip turn, you can get faster, right? In the pool. I went to push off the wall, this is only my second time trying to do it, I had met up with a friend before and I then tried to do it on my own in the shallow end of the pool, which ended up not being a great choice.
I pushed off the wall and instead of going out, like, towards the other side of the pool, I went straight down and I crushed my head on the bottom of the pool. You know, I had been training a lot because I had a race in like three weeks or something.
I was not feeling that well, I was feeling kind of nauseous and I was able to get up in the pool but I look around and I’m like, “oh gosh, I hope nobody saw that, that was kind of embarrassing, right?” Then what I ended up doing is I tried to keep swimming and then by the time I got to the other side, I was like, “Nope, this isn’t working.” I didn’t attribute it to anything, I just thought, “Well, I had been overworking.” I thought I might have been – maybe I didn’t eat enough that day, was tired. I just chalked it all up to just overtraining, basically.
I went home and I remember laying on my mom’s floor and was like, “I don’t feel very good.” I shared the fact that I hit my head pretty good, I knew it was pretty good and I’ve had previous concussions so I knew how to be aware of the fact that it could be a concussion but I never – I didn’t think about it being one, right?
Then I just go home and I’m like, “Okay, in the morning, you might want to just check on me if you still see my car in the driveway” right? I made it all the way to work the next day, I woke up, everything was great, I started working on my computer and I remember kind of, my eyes started to be a little bit blurry but not like – again, I thought maybe I was just tired.
Then I remember heading up to a business meeting with my big bosses and we’re all sitting around the table and then all of a sudden, I just started getting really hot and sweaty. I think this is in March and it’s not that warm here, I’m in Oregon and so I’m taking off my sweater and all of a sudden, I can’t hear, I feel like I’m underwater and then my eyes start really playing tricks on me and then people are like, “what’s happening?” Right?
I’m like, I knew enough to go, “I think I have a concussion.” Then I got taken to the hospital. That’s how the injury occurred.
[0:05:25.9] BP: Yeah. Well, it’s quite the underwater feeling, I don’t know if I’ve ever had that but it just shows that every injury is so different, right?
[0:05:36.2] SW: Yeah, it’s definitely in the ears and eyes, right?
[0:05:40.8] BP: Yeah, what type of symptoms have you experienced since – not the right after symptoms, for the long-term, what have you had to deal with?
[0:05:49.6] SW: Definitely some balance issues. My balance is not great, I have had ear problems since then with my equilibrium and vertigo and stuff like that. Definitely a lot of headaches, my gut is really not great, my stomach is a mess and I think that I’ve tried to do everything in a world and then I get afraid to eat and then I don’t eat and then I got malnourished but balance is a big one, memory is huge, dizziness as far as cognitive abilities, I think that I have definitely decreased in those areas, which is kind of frustrating at times, you know, I’ve had to learn some other ways to try to get things done.
I feel like I really am – it’s very hard to focus on one thing so I kind of go all over the place, all day long and it’s exhausting, right? Yeah, I’m a lot tired, I’m really tired a lot of the times, like I have to stop in the day and most days I have to take a nap or I won’t be able to make it through. It’s really actually impacted the quality of life quite a bit.
[0:07:02.6] BP: For sure, I definitely get the nap thing, I still nap so I definitely get that. What have you done to help with your symptoms, have you done anything that works?
[0:07:12.7] SW: Well, I actually saw – I have a functional neurologist here in Portland, he is a world-renowned doctor, people come from all over the world to come see him so I feel very blessed, he’s a backyard. I have done some rehab treatment with him and it’s all through eyes, ears. There’s a lot of activity that I’ve done and as far as I didn’t tell you about the – the mental part of having a concussion has been huge, right?
The depression and the loss of purpose and passion for your life because everything is a hundred percent different and you have no way to prepare for that. I also had treatment in as far as depression goes and TMS where they tap your cranium trying to reach your motor cortex, it’s like this little machine and then they call it trans magnetic simulation and it feels like a woodpecker on your head, it’s the weirdest thing, it is so interesting.
I didn’t find really great results with that because I think that there’s underlying things so because of so many concussions, I think I’m up to eight.
[0:08:25.8] BP: One is lots in my opinion.
[0:08:28.7] SW: I know, yeah it is, they just keep – right now it’s just like, any little bump gets it. I’ve had a lot of other things happen as far as just being really unhealthy since the concussions. For me, I’ve had to learn to just listen to my body, what does my body need versus what my head thinks I need, right?
I rest when I need to rest, I have to write down a lot of things, I use my phone a lot either with the voice memos or notes, whenever I’m anywhere because I forget what was said two minutes ago. Other than that, I try to take on a task and complete it but it doesn’t always happen. I just take things a little at a time, I think that’s the best thing that I can say is just – I’m a person who used to be all out, want to get everything done a 100% or better and now, I’ve had to settle for basically 20%.
[0:09:32.2] BP: Yeah, it’s like, settling seems like a bad word.
[0:09:38.8] SW: Yeah I guess.
[0:09:37.2] BP: It takes some time to accept it for sure and it’s a big change, it really is life-altering and as you mentioned, your productivity has changed because of your symptoms and your ability to focus and I get the memory part, I write everything down, my to-do list looks huge but a normal person probably wouldn’t write down half of the things I wrote down but otherwise, it’s just out the window.
How has work been? You mentioned when you got your concussion, you were going to workplace and it was busy and meetings and such, so how has your ability to work been affected now?
[0:10:19.7] SW: It’s really affected, honestly, unfortunately, I went from a really high-performing person at work to, I ended up having to lose my job actually because I wasn’t able to return after the three-month FMLA leave that I was given and so they ended up terminating me, which means then, I didn’t have a job to go back to for that particular company.
They ended up working with me a little bit where I was a program manager and I dealt with millions of dollars daily. The account was like the number one semiconductor manufacturer in the world. I went from handling that to counting parts in a stock room, which felt really beneath me at the time.
Of course, then, that just brought up anger and frustration and I’m just like, “Oh my goodness” but I was able to after that injury climb back up, I got my position back and then it just wasn’t a good fit for me anymore. I realized that the stress was something I could not deal with. The stress I have now, a very low ability to handle any stressful situations. I did notice that and so I ended up getting another job and I then had another concussion and so I’m still on disability and so I’m working lower hours per week because I just can’t function a full-time employee anymore.
[0:11:58.3] BP: Yeah, for sure, you’re not the only one and I get the ability to – all of it, it just changes and the stress and I never really thought about it that way. I don’t handle – stress gets to me a lot harder than it gets to most people because it exasperates a lot of my symptoms, especially head pain. If I’m really stressed out, I guess it was a while ago, now I was really stressed out about school and work and I was doing way too much and I overloaded myself.
My symptoms were insane, I spent a week not being able to get out of bed and just shows how your symptoms can just – you’re kind of taken over when that stress is heightened for sure. What do you do in those few hours of work? You’re helping athletes, how is that especially with your concussion experience?
[0:12:50.0] SW: When I work as a coach, helping other athletes, I think that for one, I have an athletic brain and so I understand what they’re going through and I also attract athletes who have had concussions because I understand what they’re going through. I can talk the talk if you will, and understand if they can’t make an appointment because the day is not a good day, right?
Honestly, I have one-on-one sessions like an hour at a time. I just spread them out in my day and then I think what is the hardest for me is posting on the social media, because then I have to think a lot about what I’m going to put and that one is more taxing than just talking with somebody and trying to go over a plan and helping them learn that they’re more than the sport they play because once they have an injury and they can’t play anymore, their life is just almost like what mine was when I wasn’t able to play.
Yeah, I think communicating with people is still okay. I think the computer part of it and documentation and all that, that’s the part that takes – it’s more taxing on my brain.
[0:14:05.4] BP: Yeah, I think it’s great what you’re doing because that was one of my biggest issues when suffering from my concussions was the – taking a step back from riding, it was the biggest – the chronic pain in comparison seems like nothing, even though it was huge. Because I just couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else. It was my whole life, it was my life plan, so then all of a sudden all of it gets like kind of halted and then you’re like, “Now what? Now, what do I do with my time? What do I do with my plans?” and it kind of just threw me off-guard and threw me off-guard a couple of times because I was like, “my symptoms are better. I am going to be able to do this, everything is great” and then you know, that often wasn’t the case.
Then I have to re-accept that this wasn’t in the plan anymore and I get the social media, it was actually explained in episode 17 by Dr. Komarnicky because he was explaining to me, I said social media is getting better after doing his eye therapy and because of even just the scrolling and looking back between photos and answering messages and answering comments and all of that, eventually I’m just like, “Whoa, I need a break.” I just can’t like you try to be active because it’s important but at the same time, it’s very energy-taking.
[0:15:28.0] SW: Yeah, it takes a lot out of you for sure. Yeah, I’ve done some of those eye therapies as well for different concussions and oh boy, I just went into – I just went to the aquarium this last weekend and I couldn’t stay in there because you could go in there and you can see the tubes that you are looking through and the fish and whatnot. I walk in and within two minutes of looking in these tanks, I’m ready to throw up and out the door I go. You know, you never know what’s going to set your symptoms off again.
[0:16:05.5] BP: No, you really don’t and it just kind of you get better at it and then all of a sudden, you kind of forget because you’re enjoying yourself doing something or you’re just like, “Well, it would be fine” and then it is not fine and that happens a lot. Everyone, you can connect with Sarah on her own website, borntoendure.com as well as @borntoendure.coaching on Instagram both will be found in our episode description and show notes but with that, let’s take a break.
[BREAK]
[0:16:39.3] BP: Want to create awareness for concussions? Want to support our podcast and website? Buy awareness clothing today on postconcussioninc.com and get 10% off using “listenin.” That’s “listenin” and be sure to take Post Concussion Inc. in your photos. We’d love to see them.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:17:07.2] BP: Welcome back to The Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige and today’s guest, Sarah Williams. Something I wanted to ask as you have mentioned, your incident was with swimming and you also deal with athletes. Are you able to be active today at all?
[0:17:22.4] SW: That is such a great question. Not in the way that I wanted to be, that’s for sure. I don’t know the last time that I’ve been swimming. I rode my bike maybe a couple of times just very not on the road, I don’t trust myself on the road with my balance or anything anymore and running of course, the pounding is not amazing but I have done a few because you never know if you could do it if you don’t try and so I’ve been cleared to exercise.
It’s just it definitely heightens symptoms sometimes, based on what I’m doing, so I’m not as active as I once was or what I like to be but I do plan that I hopefully will get back to some level of daily activity again.
[0:18:12.4] BP: For sure. I know I was also – I’ve been cleared a lot of times at separate occasions and then certain activities are still – they’re just not on the table. I can’t do a burpee because that up and down doesn’t work, running doesn’t really work for me but a stair climber does. It just depends on the movement, of like, on my head, right? It’s what I found the most like that affect me the most but it also took me a long time to be able to do anything without my head just kind of exploding at me.
[0:18:47.8] SW: Yeah and the pressure, right? I think that if anybody can understand it’s like all of a sudden, if you start feeling this pressure like a vice, your head is in a vice and then you’re like, “Okay, here comes the headache, here comes the nausea” so yeah, it’s just really unfortunate.
[0:19:05.3] BP: Yeah and I found either dizziness like that was a big issue for me, so being dizzy and having balance issues and trying to exercise is not a great combination.
[0:19:14.9] SW: No, I already was clumsy, you know what I mean?
[0:19:19.0] BP: Yeah, actually hence the multiple concussion symptoms is what I think.
[0:19:23.1] SW: Right.
[0:19:24.3] BP: Yeah, something we talked about when we talked before recording was relationships. Relationships in our lives change a lot after a concussion often with family, partners, children, all of it because you change as a person. How have you found your relationships in your life have changed?
[0:19:45.5] SW: Such a great question. Honestly, I think that all of my relationships have changed. I was in a relationship, a long-term relationship at that time and I ended up not being with that person anymore. I think just the frustration of not knowing how to help me for one and me not knowing how to articulate what I needed because I don’t know that I even knew. I think that I withdrew from a lot of people because then – and of course, then I’m not able.
I wasn’t able to attend things. I was basically, you’re staying home in a controlled environment, noise, sound, lights, right? Where everything is not triggering because I knew if I’d go and go visit a friend or whatnot, it would cause symptoms again and I would be nauseous and here we go again. I think unfortunately, having the concussion affected all of my relationships and so I really then had to learn to have a better relationship with myself and learn how to get through these things and learn my voice, right?
I had to learn how to say no to things because they weren’t good for me and not giving into that people pleasing option that you have because you want to – you definitely don’t want to make your friends upset or your family but you know you just can’t do it. I think just learning to be empowered and learning to love myself for who I am and I was going through to all of these things and it really was lonely. I think, unfortunately, I think it affected every relationship that I had in life.
[0:21:32.9] BP: Yeah, I know and then it really can and the communication was really hard for me. I just didn’t tell anyone anything for a long time and I kept things bottled up so then it was a really big issue when it came out because there was so much going on that I hadn’t said. Do you have any tips for our listeners in regards to relationships in their lives? Because it is really – it is something a lot of people struggle with for sure.
[0:22:00.9] SW: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is just to be honest, right? Just be very honest and authentic and I think that it is difficult for people to relate because you don’t – you can’t see the injury and when we really are going through it and all we know is. “Okay, I don’t feel well. I got a really bad headache” I don’t know how to explain this to somebody who can understand because they think, “Just take some Tylenol and you’ll be fine” right?
It’s not that, it isn’t. There are so many more layers to what’s happening inside your brain and it controls the rest of your body and so, the best thing I can do is just say, just be honest and be open to receiving help. Another thing for me was eating. I had a really hard time actually just even eating because I was just so sick all the time and so having somebody to – I had to admit first of all that I needed help and then – yeah and then allowing somebody to care for you.
When you’re an adult living on your own and all of a sudden you have to depend on somebody that’s really a wake up call. I think honestly again, just meet yourself where you’re at. Really evaluate what you are needing, what you are not getting and just being very honest I think is the best thing. Just communicate.
[0:23:27.3] BP: Yeah, that’s really great advice and it’s not easy to do but it is easy to talk about and you know, you just have to keep trying and asking for help is really hard. I found that my biggest issue is that I didn’t like being a burden. I didn’t like the look when I told someone I was struggling and then their whole entire face would shift and then I would be like, “Oh no, I feel bad.” Now, I don’t want to say that I am not feeling well when you are not feeling well every single day. It becomes a lot.
[0:24:01.7] SW: It is a lot and I can totally get onboard with that, like, feeling like a burden so then you would just suffer, right? You think that you are actually doing a favor by not engaging with somebody else to help but actually, it is really harming you.
[0:24:19.4] BP: And them, really because they want to help, right? Now, you are preventing it and then you are creating more problems, which is what I did.
[0:24:27.9] SW: Sure, I mean I definitely did as well, definitely. Yeah, I’ve learned the hard way and you know, hopefully if anybody is listening that can use this advice is really just be honest and accept help. That’s really hard but it is definitely necessary. It will help you heal better, faster.
[0:24:48.8] BP: For sure and yeah, that’s the point of the podcast because I did this wrong if I go through kind of prevent people from making the same mistakes that I did because there was a lot of them and as we’ve been talking, I’m actually well recording right now, we are in one of the strictest lockdowns we’ve ever been in because I mean Ontario and I don’t live where the insane cases are but part of the province is suffering and we’re in lockdown. How have you found the life changes from COVID affected you? Have they affected you at all?
[0:25:29.2] SW: You know, I actually – this sounds interesting but honestly, it has really helped me because I can’t go out and do things, nobody can. I haven’t felt like I’m letting anybody down or any of this and I really just been able to be in a controlled environment, work from home. I actually find a lot of good things that have happened from being in lockdown and you know, just more work, more reflection on my personal needs and my mental health and so being a hermit, I think I have come to enjoy.
[0:26:10.5] BP: It is something a lot of people have been mentioning that they’re – if you were suffering already the lockdown, your life didn’t change that much because you weren’t going out. You know like, you’re already creating a quiet life so the quiet life was already normal for you.
[0:26:27.9] SW: Yeah, true. I think that then you had a better explanation, right? We don’t have to say like, “Oh I don’t feel well” it’s like, “Oh well, we can’t do anything anyways.” I guess it felt like a little bit of a relief.
[0:26:42.5] BP: Yeah, no I never thought of it that way. I don’t have an excuse anymore not to hang out with someone, yeah. Is there anything else you would like to add today before ending today’s episode?
[0:26:55.3] SW: You know, I would just try to have people learn to give themselves grace. I think that is a really important aspect because I think you can get so frustrated of everything you can’t do but if we can turn that around and focus on everything that we still can do, I think when you start having that mind shift, more possibilities become apparent and in front of you but it is easy to get sucked into everything you can’t do because that is what our brain is wired to do.
It is wired to seek negativity or if you think you can’t do everything, your brain is going to go and look for all the evidence to support that theory and so then it will keep you down, so the sooner you can make a shift to thinking about all the things you still can do, I think that will help your outlook a little bit more and you’ll be able to plow through a little easier.
[0:27:55.3] BP: Well, for sure and thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your insights on living post-concussion.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:28:04.4] 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 concussion by giving us a share and to learn more, don’t forget to subscribe.
[END]
OTHER CONTENT YOU MAY LIKE
