EP 133: The Identity Thief: Who Are You When Concussion Takes What Defined You

And today we're talking about something that sits underneath all clinical management and the symptom tracking and the recovery protocols.

And it's the identity rupture that can happen when a concussion takes away the things that made you who you were.

And what it takes to find yourself again on the other side of it.

not as the person who you are, who you were, sorry, but as the person that you're becoming.

Let's go a little slowly and kindly and patiently through this episode, okay? When we talk about identity, and we have talked about identity before, but I think we've never really spent an entire episode on it.

And so we're going to go a little bit deeper into that context today.

And I hope that if you're listening to this and you hear, maybe you hear yourself.

And maybe you hear... someone similar or maybe you hear your loved one and then i hope you can think about some steps forward from here and really this kind of came up a little bit too because i had one of my clients message me uh i want to say last week or the week before And she's in when we're going to talk about some different stages of kind of finding and rebuilding your identity after something like this.

And she's very so clearly in one of those stages.

And it made me realize that this is the messy, hard part of concussion recovery that is not a clinical piece, but that can be one of the hardest pieces on this journey.

It's that piece when your symptoms aren't consuming you.

and you have some space to think, and you have a clearer mind, and then you start to question everything.

And I don't think we give this space enough time or credit.

So I think it's important to recognize that identity is not a fixed thing, right? It is a dynamic, I Googled this definition so that I could say this properly.

It is a dynamic narrative construction built from roles, relationships, capacities, and values.

It is ever evolving and shifting as we move through life.

Concussion impacts multiple pillars of identity simultaneously.

Right? So when we talk about it impacts every aspect of our life, it also impacts every aspect of identity.

So our sense of self is built from this accumulative narrative of what we do, who we are to other people and to ourselves, what we value and what we're capable of.

Like we said, it's constantly updating, right? You would probably, if you take a moment and like think about yourself today, versus who you were five years ago.

Would you say you're the same person? Would you put your identity? Would you say that same piece? I know I've shifted and evolved hugely in those five years.

And I feel like if you're listening to this, you're probably very similar.

Concussion can impact your identity from multiple angles, right? So it removes the athlete from the sport.

It impacts the professional's cognitive function and capacity.

It impacts the parent's ability and availability to be there and show up.