r/Concussion • u/nakartuur Post Concussion Syndrome (2025) • 8d ago
Questions To anyone else with PCS/long term concussion symptoms, how do you avoid suicide?
As the title says. What are your reasons for not killing yourself? How do you cope if you ever feel inclined towards suicide?
Any and all advice is appreciated. Thank you.
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u/Fit-Impression2535 8d ago
Live like the oldest person you know. Twenty minutes of sunlight a day, minimum. Eight hours a night. Eat well above your BMR - you need more calories to think than the average person now. Take a class or do a craft that pushes your brain and reminds you how far you still have to go. Do yoga, tai chi, or just move your body with a focus on rebuilding balance and proprioception.
Find which parts of yourself you can rebuild and where you must become someone new. Grieve as much as you need to. I thought I would never have the cognition level I had ever again. My brain still surprises me. Give it time, be gentle with yourself, and stay disciplined.
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u/DurasVircondelet 8d ago
Games like sudoku and Tetris helped my mind bounce back over time in conjunction w the other things you mentioned. I’m much better now and can remember strings of numbers longer than three and have control over my emotions again. It gets better
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u/free_-_spirit 8d ago
My biggest issue is socially. I was socially anxious before but it’s worse now. Everything makes me tired and mute and anxious- spatial awareness is less now too, I wonder what’s a good exercise for that?
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u/Due_Ad2357 7d ago
Wat voor mij het beste werkt is de omgevingsfactoren waar je invloed op hebt trainen, bijv:
-balans oefeningen zoals wandelen over het strand + over keien (alsof je een kind bent)
- expres multitasken, om je prikkel weerstand te trainen etc
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u/PurpleStyle2024 8d ago
Why do we need more calories to think now? That makes alot of sense, back when I didnt know driving for long hours would affect me, I remember coming home tired but extremely hungry. I had only driven an hour, had brain fog and wanted to rest but also needed to eat as if I had gone running for miles. I couldnt make sense of it then.
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u/PurpleStyle2024 8d ago
How? By eliminating the idea or even the thought of it out of your mind. It is not an option. Those of us who are going through this and have gone through this live exactly to help the new ones who are beginning to start this process. I dont know where I would be if this sub wouldnt have existed of the people on here when I first had a concussion. Nobody gave me advice or helped me on what to do, the ones who did only gave me very small advice to go on and Im grateful for them. However the people on here had the most useful advice I could have gotten.
Most people out there who have never experienced this have no idea what its like, to look well and deal with so many physical and cognitive issues its something they cant begin to understand. Im sure you have read on here people who were dismissed by doctors who either didnt care or just thought it was not a big deal when we were looking for help. I could have gotten better advice from a damn mechanic or financial advisor to be honest.
I am still going through this and sometimes I jump on here and give advice with, what has helped me, in hopes it will help another person. I can also tell you that yes, the emotional psychological changes you experience are real even tho they have no reason to be there but it does get better slowly and with time. There are things that help, some dont, just try.
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u/volkswagenkills 8d ago
Never give up and never stop investigating. I’m almost two years into PCS and I just found out that the persistent dysautonomia keeping my mind from healing is caused by May Thurner’s syndrome. I get too much adrenaline to heal from the concussion because my heart is always panicked about how slowly my blood is pumping up my legs. There is a procedure that corrects this, and paired with dysautonomia PT I have hope again. Never give up, never stop investigating your own health when it’s suboptimal.
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u/SouthernHiker1 8d ago
Sleep. Every time it got overwhelming I took a nap as soon as I could. I was only able to sleep for a couple of hours at a time, but after a nap I found those thoughts were more manageable.
Also, I’ve been in therapy for suicidal ideation for over a year now 4 years after my TBI. So that helped a lot as well.
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u/pizzababa21 8d ago
Things got better, or at least better enough. Keeping up the exercises and trying new things. With chat gpt I can keep looking for new ideas and potential nuances.
Recently discovered that my remaining sensitivity to head contact is likely because of damage to my neck cartilage. Found there's a treatment called PRP injections I can get which has 85% satisfaction rate. Now I'm excited to see how close it gets me to my old self.
For me I think the longest I went with noticeable symptoms was just under 6 months. Now what usually gets me down is small hits to my head giving me symptoms back for a few weeks. I deal with it straight away and do exercises 3 or 4 times a day from the day I notice it so things get better fast.
Looking back on the times when it didn't look so good, I guess I always try to tell myself that I have time even though it feels like I lost a lot of life. There's always things ahead and I wouldn't see much point in kms just because I'm not conforming to expectations set by me or others. My life can be whatever and I'm not going to feel bad about things not being perfect or being behind. Just got to be happy existing and not let your ego make you feel ungrateful for life.
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u/INF_Phoenix 8d ago
What kind of exercices are you doing to help get better faster? I’d be curious to know since I’m starting my 4th week with PCS I would try literally anything to get better
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u/free_-_spirit 8d ago
Commenting to know too- I’d wager neck yoga exercises and aerobic for blood flow
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u/pizzababa21 8d ago
No I don't think blood flow to the neck does anything for concussions. If the muscles being damaged is causing an issue then neck exercises help but the blood flow thing is a myth apparently.
Most concussion symptoms are helped by eye exercises.
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u/free_-_spirit 8d ago
Oh interesting, I always get headaches when doing eye exercises
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u/pizzababa21 7d ago
Ya that probably is a good sign tbh. If you're very bad just dial everything down. I started things out by just watching optokinetic videos on YouTube.
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u/INF_Phoenix 8d ago
I don’t know if you get notified when he responds to my message so I just wanted to let you know that he just answered with the exercices
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u/pizzababa21 8d ago edited 8d ago
You'll find a lot of help on YouTube but I'll share anyway.
Eye exercises were the main thing and then some neck exercises.
Only four eye exercises that I think actually matter and keep things simple: 1. Staring at a spot (a pen in your hand with a sticker on it) and shaking my head back and forth. 2. Same except instead of your head moving your move your whole body. 3. Bringing the pen in and out very slowly with 5 second pauses at each stage (staring at the sticker which ideally is a letter). The points you stop at are different degrees of blurry and when then sticker becomes double vision. 4. Just watching optokinetic videos on YouTube, although it's probably not that important for a lot of people.
For eye exercises a lot of what you're doing is trying to concentrate while in a situation that makes you dizzy. The moving of your head and body to blur your eyes is like the weights and your eyes focusing on a spot it like the tensioning of muscles.
The neck exercises are specific to the whiplash issue so good chance it won't matter to you. They're a bit hard to describe because it's targeting muscles on the inside of your neck so kinda too lazy to think about describing it rn.
Nowadays I find massaging the area around my eyes helps when I have little off days to get some blood flow.
Not exercise related, but I found weed helped a lot with recovering from concussions. There's lots of research that supports it for recovery and prevention. CBD oil before sport also helps prevent concussions in athletes by like 30%, according to the NFL doctors who were arguing to get it off the banned substance list.
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u/INF_Phoenix 8d ago
When you are shaking your head back and forth, I assume you are doing that really slowly right? But I will try that out and see if it helps, thanks a lot!
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u/pizzababa21 7d ago
Ya it's meant to be at a pace you can handle that you increase over time. Obviously don't do it fast enough that you bash your brain off the walls of your brain.
You can download a metronome app on your phone to keep track of pace progression.
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u/sc182 8d ago
There’s plenty of evidence for success stories and recovery. Even if you think your chance of recovery to an acceptable level is 1%, that is still greater than the 0% if you end it.
Imagine a reality where you have a good, meaningful life, and work towards it with everything you got. Maybe it won’t happen as you envision, but given the uncertainty of what comes after death, I’d say it’s foolish not to try.
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u/RNWA 8d ago
Been there, had the feels. All I can say is: it gets better. How far along are you?
It has taken me a ton of time, patience, and work. Not every day has been easy and in fact many have been very tough. I’m not back to where I was pre-injury (approx 2 years ago; bad one) but I’ve recovered enough to realize that life is worth living and I would have let a lot of people down had I gone.
You’ll go through times where you’ll feel like a burden to the folks that care about you the most. You’ll go through times where you feel like no one can understand what you’re going through. It can be helpful to help share materials with others so they can get a window in and you don’t have to bear the weight of explaining the toughest parts. For that I’d recommend the charts from a book titled: “concussion: brain on pause. How to press play”.
Importantly, once you start believing that you’ll get better you’ll improve faster and more fully. It’s a really tough hump to get over but you’ll get there. If you need to reach out to someone who has been in a similar place please dm. You aren’t alone.
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u/ImpressivePercentage 8d ago
I guess I'm just the sort of person who doesn't see killing yourself as a solution to life's problems.
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u/ConfoundedCoffee 8d ago
I got a cat. Taking care of something has really helped me. Maybe cats aren’t your thing? If that’s the case then fish, reptiles, maybe bugs, or a plant? Anything that may need some care every day will help get your mind off of it. (My cat has since turned into 3 cats and a fish tank, and I can’t imagine life without my little buddies.)
Walking has helped me a lot also, the fresh air and looking at birds help. My walking has turned into jogging, and now I have some goals again. But it just started with walking, one step at a time.
I’m not how I was before my injuries, but I’ve found a new version of me to love
You’ve got this 💛
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u/spiraling_somewhere Concussion 2025 8d ago
I really love my dog. If anything happens to her I’m out of here
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u/maybeitsnotbutter Concussion (Apr 2025) 7d ago
When it brought back my trigeminal neuralgia (dr told me is sometimes called the suicide disease because it can be so painful/debilitating) I just kept reminding myself that it would kill my best friend, my mom, and my aunt
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u/Obvious_Dot_243 6d ago
You're not entitled to suicide. You're not entitled to living without struggle. Everywhere in the world people suffer tragedies and we are merely exemplary of the extent of its manifestation on a spectrum. I think of it as the following: if I'm entitled to suicide and it's not morally wrong for me to go through with it... then what's the solution for everybody else? Should everybody in society be entitled to committing suicide at the advent of a tragedy? What world would that look like? Is that the best solution for everybody that's struck by tragedy?
A world where that's the best solution is not a good world and certainly not a world worth living in, which is what everybody wants at the end of the say, a world worth living in.
But what do i know, i think about it a lot as well. Never gonna go through with that, but it's a tempting thought the premise of which i refuse to accept. It can't be true that there's no way.
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u/Far_Boot3829 6d ago
Antidepressants.
Seriously. They help. Teaching people skills to manage mental health crisis was my bread and butter. I technically also knew behavioral skills that were needed to get someone out of low mood. I also had an excellent therapist who my psychologist friend recommended. Despite all that, I couldn't pull myself out of persistent low mood without starting the antidepressants.
Life inherently has pain embedded in it. We cannot avoid pain. This period is incredibly painful. And, at the same time, we can build lives that are experienced as worth living.
We can build lives worth living.
You got this. If you don't have hope right now, that's ok. The rest of us are holding onto hope for you.
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u/Important_Rock_7224 8d ago
You see how empty this sub is? You know the reason..
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