In this solo talk for the PCS Resilience Collective, David Brimacombe shares the insight that a concussion survivor’s environment—people, places, and mental inputs—has a decisive impact on recovery. He explains how the autonomic nervous system constantly scans for safety, and after a concussion it becomes hyper‑vigilant, turning everyday stressors into symptom‑triggering alarms. Brimacombe contrasts a "stuck" environment (online complaint groups, over‑protective loved ones, constant symptom focus) with a growth‑oriented one that uplifts and encourages graded exposure. He warns that well‑meaning support can unintentionally reinforce avoidance and fear, and urges sufferers to have tough conversations with friends and family to set boundaries and provide positive reinforcement. He recommends finding a mentor who has already navigated the recovery journey, using them as a "North Star" for hope and practical guidance. Finally, he outlines a strategy of small, graded wins—learning to live with symptoms, exposing the nervous system safely, and allowing progress to compound over time—culminating in a transformed self‑identity after a year of consistent environmental adjustments.
Chapters
If you're doing everything in your recovery but you still feel trapped in a body that doesn't feel like you, look at the people around you. Look at the environment. And that environment might be the reason that you're not moving forward. Understand that your environment has a huge impact on your recovery. The people you hang out with, the places you go, the thoughts that you put into your mind. Okay, all those things can dictate, okay, how long your recovery takes, if you're able to recover. Okay, and I know this all too well. Okay, this took me years to figure out what I'm going to tell you in the next few minutes. Okay. Hi and welcome to the PCS Resilience Collective. My name is David Brimacombe, and after 7 concussions over 20 years, I learned that I can't do this alone, that the people I hang around with, the environment that I put myself into, plays a huge role in my recovery. Let's begin. The first thing we need to know about our environment is that your nervous system is always scanning it. Is this area safe? Is it dangerous? Now, again, I've said this once, I'll say it many more times on this channel, okay? How your nervous system perceives something is not how you perceive it. So, after concussion, a lot of your systems in your body become dysregulated. One of the most important is your autonomic nervous system. Your autonomic nervous system is constantly trying to scan the environment. Is this safe? Is this a danger? If it's a danger, I need to send out the alarms. Now, we think of the alarms like symptoms, your anxiety, your nausea, your irritability, your stress. All those things is your nervous system telling you, look out. So, your environment is either reinforcing your recovery or it's slowing you down. It's as simple as that. Because you can try all you want, you can have the best routines, the best protocols, the best mindset, but if you're surrounding yourself with people who are bringing you down, who are limiting your recovery, it's, it's not going to matter. Okay, what matters, okay, is that you surround yourself with an environment, with a situation, with people who are going to uplift and going to bring the best out of you. Okay, and what does that look like? Okay, we're going to talk about that later. So I want to contrast what is stuck versus what a growth environment looks like. I'm sure you've all been on Reddit boards, Facebook groups, where all people do is complain. Ah, again, I woke up, I feel terrible. I, I can't drink anything, I can't eat anything, I can't go anywhere, I can't be the person I want to be. All that's well and true. That was me too. Trust me, I said that a million times. But is this serving you by constantly watching people's stories? Is this serving your recovery? No. Okay, that environment that you're putting yourself in, that perpetual thought— maybe that's me too, that sounds like me, oh, that's— I'm struggling with that too— you type out a comment, a response, yeah, I, I have that same problem. Okay, what is the problem with saying that you have the same problem? Okay, because it is obvious you are having that same problem, but now you're reinforcing that to your body, to your brain. What are you going to start to see? I'm going to start to see that more often. Oh wow, there's that symptom I was thinking about. There's another one. There's a third. Because your body will look for what is consciously top of mind. So if I'm thinking about all the symptoms, I'm reading, I'm watching everything around me, is all about what's wrong with me, okay, about how hard recovery is, you're going to see that in your recovery too. Now, this is the hardest thing for people to grasp. You have to look through a lens that sees the micro wins as opposed to the major losses. Again, easier said than done. If you're at the valley of your recovery, you're at the bottom, the light's not coming through, it's pitch black, okay? All you can see is a pinhole, a little light. That is the light you're walking towards. You're not worried about the rest of the dark cave. You're worrying about that light and you're walking towards it. That is your guiding light. Same thing when we go online. You're looking at people who have recovered, not people who are in the pitfalls. They're at the bottom of their recovery journey. Because as much as it feels good in this system to surround yourself with other people who are in the same state, When those people in the same state are only there to bemoan their situation, to tell you everything that's going wrong, will not help you get right. So a stuck environment also looks like the people you surround yourself with. And this was for me the hardest thing to kind of tell people that I loved. Okay? And they do this out of love. They do this out of compassion. So you'd get up and they knew your symptoms. They knew what would kind of provoke and what wouldn't provoke. So you'd get up, you'd want— I'm going to go walk to the mailbox. I'm going to go get the mail. No, don't do that. That's going to cause— you're going to get dizzy. You're going to fall over. Then you think, yeah, you're probably right. I will get dizzy. Maybe I should just sit down today. So what do you do? You sit down, you do nothing, you rest. That rest deconditions your body, and that's what you normalize. I'm a resting person. I only feel decent when I rest, and I'm only okay when I feel decent. I cannot live with symptoms. Symptoms are not something I want, so I'm just going to avoid them at all costs. And again, these loved ones who are trying to help you— don't do that, I'll lift it for you, you sit down— in their heart of hearts, they're doing what they think is best, but they are actually turning you into someone who fears everything, who fears the world around them. Okay? And again, that conversation that you need to have is that symptoms are not going to hurt me. It is not a sign that my brain is permanently broken. It is a sign that my nervous system is now dysregulated and I need to fix it. And the only way I'm going to fix this is by doing the things that I think are going to cause me harm. So again, talk to them. Tell them you need to set this up. I need the help. Your help is not going to be doing everything for me. It's going to be providing me with that positive Reinforcement that I'm going to be okay. This is a hard conversation to have, but it is a must-have conversation because if you're— if the reinforcement that you're getting is constantly, stop doing that, you're going to get hurt, you're going to make yourself worse, that is the thought loop that is circulating in your mind. And if that's circulating in your mind, that is what you're going to be conscious of. You're going to be thinking of symptoms all the time. Thinking of your body, thinking of what hurts, what is getting worse, and that is not helping you. Learning to live with your symptoms and helping people understand that that doesn't mean that I'm going to get worse and it actually means I'm going to get better is something you need to do. The last thing I want to talk about with a stuck environment is you need to find a mentor. Okay, the best thing I did in my recovery was I found someone who was where I wanted to get to, someone who was 5 years, 10 years ahead of where I was. So it was almost like they were that North Star, they were that why of my recovery. I could see where they got to, and it gave me hope, it gave me purpose, it gave me a, a lifeline because it was possible. It also gave me intel— what to do, when to do it, stuff like I'm telling you right now. So if you want to use me as your guide By all means. But understand that if you find someone who's gone through what you're going through, that can walk you through and talk you through the situation, it's going to normalize these behaviors. What you think is causing you harm, they'll talk— it's not necessarily causing you harm, okay? But find someone who's been where you want to go, okay? And they'll talk about how you can get there. You're not going to take that roundabout way. They're going to tell you that straight path to get up the top of the mountain. To get your recovery done quicker. Okay, so understand you don't need more discipline, you don't need more motivation, you don't even necessarily need better protocols. You need to set up an environment that will allow you to recover. Now, a lot of this is going to have tough conversations with loved ones. Okay, you need to stop belittling me, you need to stop doing everything for me, you need to just let me be, because if you let me be My nervous system will then see it's okay to live in those symptoms. The best moment of your recovery is when you can live in those symptoms and be okay. You can walk outside the door. You know what, I might be symptomatic today, but that's okay because I have the understanding, the education that that doesn't mean that I'm getting worse. It means that I'm teaching my nervous system I can be safe and I can live with those symptoms. So you need to have that conversation with your friends and your loved ones. Okay, you need to be around people. Okay, and find a mentor that's going to pull you along because in those roughest days, those days where you're like, I just can't get up. I just don't have that internal drive. Okay, use them as your lifeline, someone you can talk to, you can reach out to. Okay, and again, this is not a simple. route. It is going to take some time. Okay? But once you start to make those small wins, you see those small gains, it'll compound. And over time, you'll start to see, and you'll look back in the rearview mirror a year later and say, I don't even recognize the person I was. I can't believe a year ago I was lying in bed doing nothing. But I needed to set up my environment. I needed to surround myself with people with a situation that was going to be conducive to my recovery. Start small and scale. I know you can do it. Have yourself a great day.
