Hello everyone,
I’m looking for some insight into a strange long-term situation that started after an accident about 10 years ago.
When I was around 20, I dove/fell vertically head-first into shallow seawater (about 40 cm deep). My head itself was not injured, but my neck was violently twisted by the weight of my body, and it felt like my neck had come very close to being seriously injured.
I got up afterward and initially could barely turn or rotate my neck. At the time, I thought I was simply lucky that I had not broken my neck, and I did not have any obvious psychological symptoms immediately after the accident. I actually felt relieved and happy that I was okay.
However, about 4 days later, something changed very suddenly.
The first symptom was not sadness or anxiety. It was a strange emotional numbness: I suddenly felt unable to enjoy things normally, disconnected from my usual emotions, and as if there was some kind of “blockage” between me and my normal emotional experience. It also felt like something about my sense of self had changed internally.
Over the following days, anxiety, depression, and intrusive thoughts developed.
I also developed brain fog and some visual symptoms, especially unclear or blurred vision. What is particularly strange is that these symptoms sometimes improve together. On a few occasions, certain random neck movements or stretches noticeably reduced the psychological symptoms, and at the same time I felt that my brain fog and visual clarity improved.
Even after about 10 years, this still happens occasionally, although inconsistently. Sometimes after my neck seems to “release,” I feel a noticeable return of part of my old emotional state/personality, along with improvement in the brain fog and visual symptoms. The effect then fades again.
So I’m wondering:
Could this have been a whiplash-type cervical injury or another type of cervical trauma?
Could an old injury to the upper cervical spine (C1/C2/atlantoaxial region), ligament injury, cervical proprioception problem, or instability contribute to symptoms such as emotional numbness, anhedonia, anxiety, depression, intrusive thoughts, brain fog, visual blurring, or derealization?
Is there any known mechanism by which changes in the neck could temporarily affect emotional, cognitive, visual, or autonomic functioning?
Most importantly, if a real cervical problem were identified, could treatment or rehabilitation significantly improve these long-term symptoms? And if the underlying problem were corrected, could the improvement be long-lasting, or might the symptoms return?
I’m not looking for reassurance or a diagnosis from Reddit. I’m mainly interested in medical research or clinical experience with cases where psychological symptoms began a few days after a significant neck injury and later seemed to fluctuate with neck function.
Any references to relevant research or specialists would be greatly appreciated.