I want to start with trigger warning. This trigger warning is for anxiety, depression, and self harm.
Now with that out of the way and my mother sufficiently shocked – I promise I am okay! I want to tell my story so that athletes know that they are not alone when dealing with the most lonely injury out there – concussions. I struggled… hard. But I made it out on the other side and I truly believe that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, even in the darkness that a concussion can bring, it just takes an amazing teammate, coach, or trainer to shine that light for you.
—
An Open Letter To Athletes Dealing with Concussions and the Teammates Who Believed Me;
I believe the best way to learn how to be a good teammate and leader is to learn how to listen and to hear what your teammates are really trying to say. Being a leader is about knowing what your teammate means on the field when they answer you “I’m fine” and you can recognize that they are actually not fine. I wish I knew how to explain this in an eloquent essay with a beginning, middle, and end and conclusion that hit everything home.
But I can’t. Instead I’ll just try and share my truth. I want to share my story of what was lying behind every reply of “I’m fine” on Scully-Fahey field.
Thank you for reading this and thank you to all of my teammates throughout the years who asked me “Are you okay?” and didn’t believe me when I said, “I’m fine.”
—
Freshman year of high school I suffered from my first concussion three days before my first high school tryout. It was at a captains practice and it was in the small practice basketball gym on a Saturday morning. During an 8-meter drill, a junior wound up and whipped the ball as hard as she could at me and nailed me on the top of my helmet. Immediately the seniors stopped everything and had me step out of the cage. They knew they had fucked up somehow. They told the team to continue whatever they were doing with no goalie while one senior took me out into the hall and helped me get a bag of ice. It was the weekend so there was no one else in the school to help. No trainers, no coaches, no janitors. At the time I had a slight headache and was a little dazed, but felt fine otherwise. I left practice and went home for the day. I didn’t think anything of it and thought I could just sleep it off.
The following Monday I immediately went to the trainer’s office. I had woken up each day with a pounding headache and little to no motivation to get out of bed or do anything. Pete, the school trainer, had me fill out the infamous “concussion test” sheet. The 1-10 pain scale that tells you if your brain is bruised or not. A Fault In Our Stars had come out recently and the infamous line of saving the “10” on the pain scale was important. So, I had a bunch of 1s and 2s all over the place and Pete diagnosed me with a “mild concussion.” I was devastated. The next day was supposed to be my first high school try out and the whole year my coach had been telling me I was going to be his starting goalie. It was so hard to believe that this small headache could hold me out of the most important tryout of my life. Every story I had heard about concussions were about ones that knocked people out cold or they threw up for hours, and this was almost the opposite of that.
This first concussion freshman year of high school changed my life forever. I didn’t know it at the time, but once you get one concussion, it just starts the snowball rolling down the hill to the perpetual avalanche of mental health destruction.
—
My second concussion was the most dramatic. In goal at a summer tournament, I was shoved to the ground by an attacker, hitting the dirt face first. The world was spinning and I couldn’t hear anything. Hands on my head, I already knew I had another concussion. The symptoms hit immediately – nausea, whiplash, neck pain, headaches, you name it – I had it. This was the first time I felt the emotional effects of a concussion. When given the news I couldn’t attend an important upcoming recruiting camp due to the diagnosis, I cried for a week straight. It felt like an all-consuming sadness stemming from missing one of the best chances I had to get a college scholarship just because of a “mild concussion.”
That’s when the doubts started to trickle into my mind. In my mind, my concussions were never enough. Emotional gaslighting from my father, during the time when he was divorcing my mother, manipulated me into believing that I was making up things, lying and mentally crazy. My concussions didn’t last 6 months. I didn’t lose consciousness. I remember every hit. So I must not actually be concussed. I must have tricked the trainers and the doctors into thinking that I was hurt for god knows what reason. Once those thoughts flooded my brain during my second concussion, they never stopped.
—
My sophomore year would have been a challenge for anyone with a healthy mind. The sad and vulnerable feelings stemming from the emotional abuse of my father, the recent cancer diagnoses of my mother, and the betrayal of a friend who responded poorly to my coming out to her, were all incredibly heightened, dominating my concussed brain every minute of the day.
I was just anxious, all the time. Not completely debilitated yet, but a layer of anxiety was always present. I also had smaller concussions that piled on throughout this time. Concussions that were even more mild than my diagnosed “mild” concussions. Ones that I never went to my trainers about and just hoped they’d go away. Ones that made those thoughts of “these injuries are just made up” set up a campsite inside of my mind.
These small concussions continued throughout my junior year. My mental health was deteriorating, but I became used to it and refused to acknowledge it getting worse.
—
There’s a part of the culture of being a goalie (no matter the sport) where you have to be the most mentally in control of the game. A good lacrosse goalie is only making saves 50% of the time and it’s the saves you make in the final minutes of the game that really matter. It’s a huge mental battle between you and the attacker on the 8m.
I took that to heart.
It’s my favorite part of the game. Staring down this girl as she runs straight toward you and making a save right in front of her face. One of the reasons the coaches who recruited me to play at Dartmouth said they loved the way I played because after every single goal, if my team was up by 10 or down by 10, I would throw my arms in the air and fist bump my teammates. I felt like it was my job as the goalie to be mentally tough and able to celebrate after every little victory. That job, my favorite part of the game, started to become difficult as the concussions built up and my anxiety and depression began to seep out of my head on and off the field. But my goal was always to stay positive on the field regardless of how I was actually feeling, and sticking to that goal got me to Dartmouth (thank god).
—
Senior year of high school is when my mental health took a deep dive off of a cliff. I began having debilitating anxiety attacks for seemingly no reason. I would get up and leave in the middle of class and go to the bathroom to hyperventilate. I’d shake out my hands and arms because my anxiety mounts itself in my shoulders. Then when it became too much and I couldn’t just shake the tension out, I’d punch the cinder block wall as hard as I possibly could. Again and again until I wasn’t thinking about the anxiety and just the pain in my hand. Then I’d run it under water so my hand would be less red from hitting the wall and red from the cold water. I’d hit my hand so hard against the wall during the day that I could barely hold my stick in the cage after school. There were so many thoughts of worthlessness and doubts about amounting to anything in life if my body was so overwhelmed by anxiety all the time. It began to be a really scary time being inside of my head. I’d be around my friends feeling happy and the second I was alone, I’d spiral into dark thoughts. The only way to relieve myself of these terrifying thoughts and crippling emotions was to force myself to sleep.
But I got through it. I had amazing friends who loved me, even though they only knew the iceberg tip of what was happening inside of my head, that was exactly what I felt I needed.
—
Then I went to college.
My freshman year at Dartmouth College was one of my hardest. I felt like I didn’t have any real friends. I wasn’t playing well on the field. Social settings played on my anxiety. I felt as though I couldn’t hang out or bond with my new team on nights out. It was hard. And, I got another concussion my freshman fall.
Lucky #6
This concussion was different from anything I experienced in high school. In high school, I was forced to see my friends everyday no matter what and just seeing them gave me some sense of happiness and reassurance no matter the pounding headache. But in college, as a freshman in a new world, I didn’t have those people who understood me yet that I could just see and who would wipe my depression away.
Then the thoughts returned of “maybe I’m just making it up” and “maybe my teammates are talking about how I’m being weak and should just be back on the field.” It’s a common conversation in the athletic world. You learn the in’s and out’s of your teammates – even their pain levels. It made me worried, as a freshman who had yet to share her history of concussions and mental health, that they would think I was weak or exaggerating. They didn’t know me as a freshman or as a person yet. The freshman with a concussion was their impression of me. The second string freshman goalie who could barely even complete the run test, let alone pass it. Even if that was not at all what they were thinking – and knowing who they are now it most likely was not – my mind brought me directly to that conclusion. Freshman fall I was lost and I was punching walls.
Then, I surprisingly went a full year without a concussion. It was a miracle! I was starting to find my groove and loved just supporting my teammates and even gained a couple real, true friends on the team! I was finally doing okay, or at least as okay as I thought I could be.
—
Then, Sophomore winter hit and another concussion came with it.
I went through the daily routine of impact tests and concussion sheets. I sat on the sideline and watched my teammates train for hours on end in the blistering cold under the stars on the beautiful Scully-Fahey field. It was snowing and was icy and there I was… watching… again.
It was frustrating. My mind challenged me. I couldn’t find a reason for me to be there if I was just constantly being concussed. A goalie who can’t make a stop off her helmet without getting hurt, how much use is she? My mind would challenge me about the people around me too. Whether or not they really cared about me. If they truly cared about the concussed, second-string goalie. DWL preaches so much about love and caring and about supporting each other no matter your position or play time, but my head wouldn’t let me fully believe that. This concussion was the first time the option of medical retirement was brought up to me. It wasn’t suggested, but I was told it was an option if I ever felt I needed it. I didn’t take the suggestion seriously. Quitting was never an option for me.
Somehow I got through it. I actually did have good friends who my head wouldn’t let me acknowledge, but who helped me through. I was finally cleared to play before our first game my sophomore season. That season we were Ivy Champions. It was one of the most amazing teams I’ve ever been a part of and I’m so proud of my contribution to it, even if it was as a backup. After the season ended, I struggled a lot again with my dark thoughts. This time, thankfully, my friends noticed and got me to Dicks house (Dartmouth’s Student Health Center) to get help and on medication.
Sophomore Summer came and I had a great time. So, once those meds ran out, I just didn’t get a refill #whoops.
Going into Junior Fall it was the first time I had to step up and be a leader on the team. We had a brand new coach and no clue how this new team was going to play together after graduating several starters. As a junior, you’re expected to take on a huge leadership role with the underclassman on the team, and I was ready to do it.
As a second string goalie, I knew my position on the team wasn’t to make the saves come game-time. It wasn’t to win the game stuffing a last minute shot in double overtime. My job was to push our starting goalie to be better every day and make sure I’m supporting the younger goalies and defenders regardless of their play time. I felt like I was doing that. I was actually becoming friends with my coach and helping my best friend through an awful breakup. It was a hard and busy time, but I was doing it.
—
One day we were only doing footwork, no gear on. It was a 1v1 drill for defenders to practice their footwork. The goalies were included in the drill, but feeling as though it didn’t pertain to us, went about it with a bit of a joking air. Unfortunately, 1v1 with another goalie, we ran right into each other. Hitting heads. Hard. And with my years and years of experience, I knew immediately I was concussed. The same mild concussion I had gotten year after year after year. The invisible monster that moves in and does a full home renovation of my brain.
I went on to finish the practice and during drills my teammates saw me in pain and told me to take it easy.
“Forman it’s not worth it.”
“I’m okay.”
“Seriously, Forman your brain is so much more important.”
“I’m just a little symptomatic, it happens all the time it means nothing”.
I knew that sometimes it did mean nothing. I’d nap and wake up in an hour feeling fine, but I also knew this wasn’t just my head being “a little symptomatic”.
This was special #9 (Give or take a couple).
I went back to my dorm and sent my lovely athletic trainer, Amanda, an email I’d sent her so many times before:
“Hey Mandy!
I hope you’re having an amazing weekend! I got hit today in practice and I’m having symptoms like a 1 on headache. I’ll let you know if I wake up and still feel it.
Best,
Forman”
About an hour after that email I felt nauseous and awful. I was stuck in my dorm room in the dark for the next two days until I could actually check in with my trainer. It became one of the longest and worst concussions that I had ever experienced. It lasted longer than the normal 4ish weeks I was used to and the mental symptoms were at an all time high. My head dug me into deep dark holes that I never thought I could dig myself out of. Around me, I had friends dealing with friends who were suicidal. And I never considered myself suicidal, but it hurt when it felt like my sadness was never enough to be acknowledged like they were acknowledging these other people. Thoughts of hurting myself, hitting walls, creeped deeper into my head because the way my depression presented itself felt as though it was never “bad enough”.
I also had a lot of teammates around me saying things like:
“Wow Forman that’s a lot of concussions,” and
“Wow I didn’t know they let you play after that many,” and
“You should really retire Forman. I’m serious.”
“They were all mild,” I would respond and turn back into the dark shadow of my concussion.
Then one day before practice our trainer happened to be in (she usually wasn’t at our practices in the fall). I sat there and cried and told her a lot of people were talking about my brain health and if I should continue playing the sport I loved. The sport and team that kept me from hurting myself on a daily basis. Amanda looked at me with such compassion and love and with the sadness she knew I held in my head. Amanda was one of the reasons I was able to make it through all three official concussions at Dartmouth. We always say she is the backbone of our team and I’ve never heard something so accurate in my life. She’s a calming presence necessary for our team to function on a daily basis.
She sighed and nodded, then replied, “Ya know Forman, I’m not recommending you retire. I’m not making you do that. But with every concussion, the recovery gets longer and the symptoms impact you more. I see how it affects you every day and your teammates see how it affects you. We just want you to be happy and if you feel like you can’t go through this process again, then maybe stepping away is the right thing to do. The team will respect you for that and I will be by your side every single second of it.” (Or something to that effect I’m kidding myself if me and my concussion brain can remember a direct quote from anyone ever.)
After that I cried in the training room with Amanda, while everyone went out to practice, she told me to think about it for a bit and to think about what I wanted.
I had no freakin clue what I wanted. I wanted to not be sad anymore. I wanted to not feel like the world was falling apart around me. I wanted not to cry myself to sleep for no reason. But I also didn’t want to lose lacrosse. I didn’t want to lose the sport that got me to the little college on the hill that I loved with my whole heart. On the other hand, I wanted to not be anxious for no reason anymore. I wanted to be able to remember all of the little things that my friends told me.
—
During this concussion, I sat on the sideline by myself, keeping the scoreboard time for our practices every day. Whenever anyone was injured, they’d join me for the day but usually get better quickly and return to practice. So, I had hours of practice time to sit and think, or unfortunately, most days sit and try to calm my pounding headache.
I did a lot of thinking about my life, my mental health, and my future with lacrosse. This concussion was just like the others, but also not at all the same. My head hurt all the time, it was hard for me to form sentences, and I felt sad 24/7, but I was also nauseous and that scared me. That was an extra symptom that I didn’t usually feel and was very consistent now. It scared me because it was exactly what Amanda was warning me about. With every consecutive concussion, they just got worse and worse and I was scared they’d eventually never go away.
I went to my best friend and told her the option that Amanda had given me. This was finally when I understood how badly these concussions had affected my mental health. My mind let me believe that this invisible injury was always invisible to every single person around me and they didn’t believe me when I said I was injured and that I was hurting.
But my teammate and friend told me, “Forman, this is the third concussion I’ve seen you suffer through and Every. Single. Time. I see it affecting your mental health more and more. I see you. I see how it affects you.”
And I broke.
I sobbed openly in the middle of Collis. In front of all those poor students just doing their P-sets and eating their pasta or sushi. It was just what Amanda said, but coming from a friend who I was worried didn’t know how sad I really was; but they knew and they saw.
—
I finally got to a place where I felt I was in a lose-lose situation. My mind told me there were two options:
Option 1: I continue playing lacrosse. I wait the next month or so out and get back onto the field. Except the next time I get a concussion (not if but when) it will make me so depressed and anxious that I will want to kill myself.
Option 2: I quit lacrosse and step away from the game that I’ve loved my whole life and that has given me some of the most important people in my life. With this option I’d lose all of my friends, my team, and any structure or purpose I had what so ever and become so depressed and end up trying to kill myself anyways.
Lose-Lose.
I’m either playing scared or I’m a quitter. Both things a goalie could never be.
And I sat with that for about a week because I didn’t want to bother anyone. My friends were dealing with a couple of mutual friends who were actively suicidal, while also dealing with their own mental health. I did not want to add to the heaping pile of humans in need.
Then one day I was sitting in my EARS 1 (Rocks for Jocks) class and felt an overwhelming heap of sadness wash over me. I thought about my car I had on campus and I thought about how easily it would be to “accidentally” run into a tree in Hanover. I thought about how no one would care because look at how much they’re helping everyone else and I’m just here. I thought about how that would be more of a help to my team than me just being around because it would give them inspiration, someone to play for.
I’ve had many many anxiety attacks in high school and in college. I’ve driven my car around and thought about how easy it would be to just swerve and wreck, but would never ever actually act on it. But at that moment, I was genuinely fearful for my life.
I immediately texted my friend to meet me after class and there I threw my keys at her and said in a rush “my head really hurts please keep these from me I have to run to class bye”. And sat in a jacket of depression for the rest of the day. I finally felt like I was coming face to face with my decision. To lose lacrosse and my people or to be in fear of losing myself every single day at practice.
Finally, after talking about my potential retirement to a couple teammates and a lot of crying with Amanda and my incredibly supportive head coach Alex, I decided to step away from the game that has given me everything.
This was one of the scariest decisions of my life. Lacrosse has always been my safe space. Our team has a motto of “check the baggage at the gate”. Meaning, forget about all of the BS of real life (class, boys, girls, jobs) and be present, focusing on DWL for a full 60 minutes. And that motto is something that helped me out of my depressive, anxious mind every single day because it felt as though if I was having a bad day, that something more important mattered and that gave me a sense of purpose. No one was shooting the ball slower because Forman was anxious. I had to check that dark hole at the gate and be present for a full 60 minutes everyday to make sure I was playing my best to help my teammates get better. And then when I left the field I didn’t pick that drama back up. A lot of the time I was able to keep walking and just be happy that I got to fuck around with my friends for 60 minutes.
Stepping away from the game was stepping away from my sanctuary. It was stepping away from the safety net that I had built that was keeping me from jumping over the edge. I was scared it meant that none of my teammates would be friends with me anymore. If I don’t go to practice, I won’t see them every day and they won’t care to reach out to me. I was scared.
But my teammates thankfully are smarter than my mentally ill mind and reminded me that I was being a complete and utter idiot.
My trainer gave my coach a warning and I went into her office. With the support of Amanda, taking time out of her day to hold my hand and cement this decision, I told Alex that I had to step away from lacrosse. Thankfully, Alex and the rest of the amazing DWL coaching staff, ensured me they would do everything possible to help me stay in the program. I told her I wanted to stay a part of the team and help any way I could. Alex immediately looked at every single option for me. Taking the time to look down every possible road for me to a part of the team made me feel so heard. She made me feel like I was one of the most important players on this team to her. A player who she had only known for two and half months. A back up goalie who truly could’ve been easily passed over for the next year with no skin off her back. She heard me and did everything in her power to keep me connected to the sport I love with the team that I love.
Everyday I miss lacrosse. I miss all of the good times, the happy moments, the emotions that every athlete feels that comes with winning, even being yelled at to get on the line. I miss taking a shot right to the thigh. I miss feeling the gut wrenching low of a loss as a team together. I miss fighting side by side with my teammates every single day for one common goal.
On the flip side, I loved graduating into the next stage of athletics. I’ve always wanted to be a coach. Our staff created a position for me specifically to support them on the sideline during games. I miss the pump of anxiety and adrenaline rushing through my body as we warm up on the field staring down our opponents. But, I learned to love the rush of adrenaline I got when myself and my other teammates taking stats were able to predict the next play for our coaches, or give them step by step detail of every shot and every save of each player on the field. I loved feeling useful and feeling like I was making an impact.
In our only Ivy League game we got to play this past season, my teammate and I correctly predicted how a draw would happen in the beginning of overtime. That specific draw led to us scoring against Brown in overtime to win.
Everyday I miss lacrosse. But I’m happy that I will never lose myself again like I did during my last concussion, and I’m proud that I can stand on the sideline and take stats and still have freshmen look up to me as a leader on the team.
And that’s that.
There really isn’t an ending to all of this. Yes, I’ve ended my athletic career, but the mental health issues that my 9ish concussions triggered will follow me forever. Even though lacrosse gave me all of my concussions, it also gave me the best friends and teammates in the entire world who proved to be there for me to help me through the lowest of times.
Every athlete out there who struggles with this invisible injury should know that what you feel is real. It may be hard to see and for others to understand. You can’t show your teammates an x-ray of a cracked bone or a picture of blood and scars, but you are just as injured. It is okay to take the time to step away from the field and heal your brain. Your injury, at any level, is “enough” to allow others to help you through those dark times. You are worth it.
—
I just want to thank those people in my life who helped me through one of the hardest things an athlete can ever choose to do.
Amanda. Our trainer and the backbone of our team. You are someone who has always made me feel loved, heard, and important.
Alex. You took over a team who needed so much leadership and compassion and you taught us how to truly care about each other while still being badass athletes. Thank you for hearing me.
Sarah. Thank you for calling me on my shit and making me cry in the middle of Collis. You’re a gem.
Noobs. You guys are my people. Thanks for staying my people.
With Love,
Forman
