EP 130: When Concussion Takes Your People: The Relationship Cost Nobody Talks About

Okay? So relationship strain, it's not a social problem, right? It-- like this hap-- like there's things happening [chuckles] that people need to understand.

People aren't choosing to have memory issues.

They're not choosing to struggle.

They're not choosing to feel like they need rest.

So really, what are some of the key things that can happen after concussion that absolutely domino in-into the impact on a spouse or a partner or a child or that piece of things? Okay? So personality and emotional changes.

Yeah, this is real, right? Uh, that could show up as irritability.

So someone just gets irritable way faster.

This could show up as emotional dysregulation.

So one moment they're happy, and the next one they're sad.

The e- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you just don't know who you're gonna get on what day, and you don't know why, right? For yourself and the family member.

Uh, decreased frustration tolerance.

So kind of link this one in with irritability is that the frustration just happens sooner.

Uh, may not have anything to do with you, but if you're present in the room, sometimes that frustration and that energy doubles over, right? Symptoms that the person with concussion often cannot fully control or explain or understand for themselves why they're happening.

Okay? Reduced social capacity.

So especially if you're someone who used to have a lot of family gatherings, or you used to do date night out in the community once a week or, you know, you were very social beings, and now all of a sudden, your partner, the person with the concussion, is like, "Nope, like, babe, I just can't.

Like, I can't go watch the soccer game.

I can't sit in a gym full of people and cheer my kiddo on while they're doing volleyball.

I can't go to the concert.

I can't do this.

We can't have...

Like, I can't have twenty people in our house and us entertain." Why, right? Why is that reduced social capacity happening? And it could be anything from noise sensitivity, sound sensitivity, cognitive fatigue, that overstimulation, which as that overstimulation just compounds, symptoms get worse, and they just shut down.

For some people, that means, like, they can't speak.

I've, I've literally had clients when that overstimulation becomes so much, projecting words is the hardest thing possible, and they just-- they don't.

They don't.

Um, right? So the ability, if you were someone that had a very, very social life and now you have reduced it, depending on that social circle, that's gonna put strain on the things that you built your activities around, the things that you built friendships around, the activities you built those connections around, dinners, events.