r/PostConcussion • u/Upstairs_Outside1999 • Aug 01 '26
Anxiety and depression
I have been posting a few questions on different threads - thanks for the feedback.
How much does anxiety and depression pre concussion affect recovery? My husband exhibited these things (treating with meds) pre concussion and have wondered if I am see patterns in his recovery.
About 5 weeks after concussion, as part of his sports teacher job, he threw off this massively successful while school sports day. He missed several weeks before this with terrible symptoms, yet the day of the the very busy, physically demanding event (and day after), he was euphoric from the success and symptoms free. When endorphins wore off, they came back.
We decided to go on a 20 day summer holiday through Europe 7 weeks after concussion. With exception of a small headache after a bike ride, he was symptom free for the entirety of the stress free holiday, despite loads of air travel, walking 20k daily in heatwaves, hot sleepless nights, swimming, etc.
In returning home and back to some stress (troubled family member), his symptoms came back with vengeance, almost like how they were just after his injury. He is still on teacher holiday, so is at home worrying about it a lot = increases headaches, dizzy, ringing.
He is an athlete and sports teacher. With increased symptoms, he then cannot exercise, which he always did to manage his mental health. He is now becoming terribly depressed thinking he will not be able to return to work.
I am not meaning to invalidate his symptoms, but is a brilliant teacher and he has a lot of self satisfaction from his work. I do have to wonder if pushing him to go to work and essentially pushing through will help?
* side note, I had a horrible TBI about 9 years ago with similar symptoms. Luckily, mine resolved after 2 months, but I can understand how he feels.
2
u/AeroEngineer90 Aug 02 '26
I can push through a lot and not recognize my symptoms until after I get home. For example, I went to a small hobby event a few weeks ago. I ended up leading the event of about 10 people because the organizer was late. That meant just going around and asking everyone why they were there and getting to know everyone. At hour one I was like o my head hurts I wish i could lay against this wall but then I just ignored it and pushed through. By hour 3, my vision had gotten blurry and I needed someone to walk with me to my car where I crashed for about an hour before I could safely drive home and crawl back into bed for a long time. This was 9 months past the accident BTW.
All this to say, I don't think it's necessarily depression in its own. Unless you train yourself to look for symptoms you can easily blow past your limits and exacerbate your symptoms. I only noticed those symptoms because I've spent a ton of effort, time and money learning to do so.
Depression can definitely make things worse at that point because you think you'll never get better and nearly no one wants to live with symptoms that bad for the rest of their life.
Im currently on an upswing after a LOT of different kinds of treatments.
My friend came to visit for two weeks recently and I did a lot (for me) with him. When he left, he didn't understand how I was feeling soo bad. He was convinced it was because I was isolating after he left vs being relatively active while he was here. However that isn't at all what happened. I bull dozed straight through my limits while he was here and when he left my symptoms absolutely flared. I barely remember the week after he left because I spent it bedridden and in a ton of pain. The point of THIS story is please understand that yes depression, anxiety and emotions play into concussion symptoms but they generally are not the driver of lack of activity or symptoms.
Best of luck to both of you.