In this video, David Brimacombe, a long‑time PCS sufferer, explains how chronic post‑concussion syndrome (PCS) can subtly rewrite a person’s identity, turning professionals, parents, and friends into “someone with PCS.” He argues that this identity shift becomes a self‑fulfilling reality that amplifies symptoms and stalls recovery. Brimacombe then offers a practical, mindset‑focused roadmap to reverse this lens: (1) shift attention outward by spending time in nature and deliberately noticing visual and auditory details; (2) practice an externally‑focused meditation—staring at a fixed point or a horizon—rather than internal silence; (3) create a tangible list of five personal identity elements that exist apart from PCS (e.g., father, teacher, mentor) and review them daily. By consistently redirecting focus away from internal symptom monitoring and toward external reality and a broader self‑concept, viewers can reduce the perceived dominance of PCS symptoms, live with them more peacefully, and foster a recovery‑oriented mindset. The video ends with encouragement to adopt these habits and reclaim a life defined by more than the condition.
Chapters
When someone deals with PCS long enough, something subtle happens to their identity. They go from being a professional, a parent, a father, a friend, to someone with PCS. Hi and welcome to the PCS Resilience Collective. My name is David Brimacombe, and after 7 concussions over 20 years, I learned a lot about how your identity shapes future recovery. Let's begin. When you've had post-concussion syndrome long enough, it starts to consume every aspect of your life— the symptoms, the setbacks, the malaise that you get when you wake up. So it's hard to really think of anything but those things, and it's hard to really think of anything but yourself as someone who is struggling with with this condition. You can no longer see your friends. You maybe work on a modified schedule. You struggle to parent and to clean the house. And so your identity is now shaped as someone struggling with PCS. Here's the problem with that. That identity that you have formed becomes your new reality. Everything you see in life, everything you feel in life comes through that In this video, I want to talk about how we can switch that lens from someone who is struggling with PCS to someone who's currently experiencing and working on their recovery. When someone is constantly consumed by the symptoms that come from post-concussion syndrome, they stop dreaming, they stop thinking about themselves in different lights and their future and all those hopes and dreams, and they just live in the moment. And I don't mean that they're present in the moment. They live in the moment of lingering with those feelings, that feeling of heaviness, of brain fog and anxiety and struggle. It's like you're walking through muck. Everyone else is walking on clean pavement and you're walking through the mud. Now, I understand this. This was my existence for years. It was basically like the world was spinning around you. You were in this haze, in this vortex. Everyone seemed to be enjoying life, you giggling and laughing, and you were just there in this sullen body, struggling to cope, struggling to live, struggling to just get through the day. That was the goal many days for me. It was just, you know, I just want to get through the day. I want to be able to get home, lie down, go to bed. When your hopes and dreams lie in lying in your bed That's a problem, and that's something that we need to fix. So I want to talk about in this video how you have the power to reshape how you view yourself, and by changing how you view yourself, your recovery itself can change. How do we do it? First thing I would like to suggest is to not focus on yourself, but to focus on being present with the world around you. Now, my favorite thing to do for this is to go outside, to go enjoy nature. Now, why nature? Because when I'm in nature, my focus shifts. It shifts from the internal dialogue, the internal symptom clarification— what's going on in my body, why this now, why are my eyes, why is my head spinning— to I'm just going to be outside. I'm going to listen to the birds, look at the clouds, just be present in Nature. Okay, not easy, but you'll find that the more that you do this, the easier it becomes. Now, the easy thing that you can do is you can go ahead and sit on a bench and you can pick up— look for things. I want to notice 1, 2 blue things. I want to notice 3 heart-shaped items. I want to listen to 2 different animals. Whatever you're doing, but you're taking the focus from here to there. And when you take the focus out of yourself and you put it on the world around you, you notice something. Those symptoms that were so loud, they were consuming every part of your day, they don't seem so loud anymore. They're not overpowering. What they are is they're just part of who you are. You can start to live with them. So maybe I sit on the bench and I look for things and I listen for things, and then I go home. When I go home, maybe those symptoms don't feel so substantial. They don't feel so powerful, so encompassing. Okay, that's step one. The other thing I found, and I know many people have heard, you got to meditate, meditate for 15 minutes, 20 minutes. That didn't work for me. That was really tough. But I'll tell you, there is great power in meditating because you're focusing again on something in the present. Now, there's internal meditation where you have an internal focus. You can also focus on something externally. And I think I found that was more beneficial when I struggled with all the stuff inside. I didn't wanna stay inside and meditate. I didn't wanna close my eyes and just sit in that body. I wanted to focus on something else. So again, you can do this in nature. You can go sit on that park bench. You can go gaze off into the horizon, look at the world around you, okay? Or at home, pick a spot on the wall, stare at that spot as long as you physically can. Stare at that spot and don't— try not to think about anything. Things will come through your mind like a conveyor belt. That's okay. That's okay. Accept that's going to happen, but try to focus on simply staring at that item. How long can you last? Maybe it's only a minute today, 2 minutes tomorrow, 5 minutes next week. But what you're doing is you're focusing on something beyond yourself. The last thing I want you to do is I want you to go ahead and get out a piece of paper right now, and I want you to come up with 5 things that define you outside of post- Concussion Syndrome. So what are 5 things that define you? And this, this can't be struggles and setbacks. This has to be something that defines you as a person, as a whole. And again, there has to be— for me, maybe it's a father, it's a teacher, it's a coach, it's a mentor, it's a guide, it's a friend. Whatever it is, 5 things, you're going to write those down. Those are going to be your focus every day when you wake up. You're going to look at those things, remind yourself of examples of how You are actually defined by those 5 things, not by this condition. This condition is part of who you are, but it doesn't define you as a whole. Because as soon as it starts defining you as a whole, it takes over your life. When it takes over your life, nothing else matters, nothing else is possible, and recovery becomes difficult. You can live with those symptoms, and those symptoms become a little more quiet when you look outside yourself, when you see yourself beyond someone who is struggling, but someone who is currently recovering but has many more things to live for. I hope this video landed, and thank you for listening to the end. Have yourself a great day.
