Brooklyn E. Transcript

  My name is Brooklyn Enlow, I’m a 16-year-old wrestler, and I have had four concussions and gone through second impact syndrome in the past four months. And I really just wanna raise awareness for concussions in the sport of wrestling because they, I feel like they’re always undermined and overlooked because it’s such a contact sport, and they’re like, and coaches and everything are like, just get over it. Like it’s just, you just hit your head, but when you go through it and you come back– like, I had one concussion in practice and it was my first one and I came back eight days later later and wrestled in a wrestling tournament and I ended up hitting my head again and getting second impact syndrome, which if you don’t know, it causes your brain to swell and it’s fatal in 50% of the cases that it occurs.

So it can be really detrimental. And just going through that and living with the effects of it, it’s really hard. I can’t concentrate anymore. Uh, my balance is off. I can’t stand straight, and it’s just really rough living with it. And then no one really knows what you’re going through, especially with Second Impact Syndrome, because it’s so rare, and anyone who really does have it, they usually don’t make it through.

So no one just really knows what it’s like. And then I’ve gotten two concussions since then, wrestling again, I came back two months after second impact syndrome, and I ended up getting them in freshman–I got one in Indie Nationals and another one in Freshman/Sophomore state. And since then, I’ve had to see neurosurgeons. I twitch now, it’s just really hard, and I was a straight A student, and now I’m barely making B’s. 

And it’s just, it affects every aspect of your life. And there’s nothing you can really do. Like you try to take these medicines to help, but it just, it doesn’t cure it, and there is no cure. So it’s really rough trying to live, especially with your friends that don’t know what you’re going through and nothing changes for them, but you feel like your personality’s just completely different and you don’t really know who you are anymore because you look back on who you used to be and you’re nothing like that anymore.

So it’s really rough trying to do that. And in wrestling, like my coaches, they’ve wrestled for a long time. They used to wrestle, and now they coach. They’ve seen guys that have wrestled through concussions, and they end up passing away because of CTE, because of so many different things that happen, and it goes so overlooked.

There’s no stories written about it like you see in football or basketball, or any other sport. And wrestling just gets overlooked because it’s such a contact sport, and everyone’s like, just get over it. Like you signed up for wrestling. That’s how it is. But when you have people that have lifelong effects, and have to medically retire, and no one’s really doing research on it, no one’s really looking at it, It really affects wrestlers because we’re so scared that it’s gonna happen, and that it could happen to anyone. 

And I’m just really thankful that I’m still here after all the stuff I’ve had, and I’m not wrestling at the moment because of it. And, being away from wrestling, it’s really hard ’cause I am, me, myself, and I know so many other wrestlers can, um, agree. We base ourselves off our sport and so many athletes can even agree. It’s really bad, uh, how athletes value themselves without their sport. And just being away from it. I wanna do something for wrestling ’cause I can’t be in the wrestling community right now because, because of my head. And I wanna raise awareness for people that are like me or are going through the same thing, or even just wanna learn more about it. 

Um, and if you’re an athlete or even a wrestler or even a normal person, like, concussions can come anywhere. You can get ’em doing anything. But especially for athletes, it’s really hard seeing your teammates go and do the stuff you’ve wanted to do and miss out on the stuff you could have done. But I just think you really need to trust your doctors because your doctors know better, and you just really need to sit back and think the, uh, consequences if you go back too early because I did that and now I, my life’s completely different and I don’t even know if I’ll ever be able to return to wrestling.

I hope I can, but for athletes, uh, you just really need to sit back and look at the consequences and think about what can actually happen. And you need to sit back and realize that your sport is not you. You are so much more of your sport, and if you’re worried about losing your sport, you can go and still do stuff.

You can still coach, you can still talk like about injuries and, and I think like psychologists and therapists really need to study more of the effects of head injuries and sports because, um, head injury in sports is so different because you’re doing something you love. It’s not just a random accident. You’re doing something you love and the thing you love hurts you. It really takes a toll like on your mind, and people continue to go back. Like if you hit your head doing something at work, you’re probably not gonna do that thing at work anymore. But in a sport, you’re gonna keep going back, keep doing the exact same thing, and that’s really tough because it’s something you love.

And you can’t just really give it up. You don’t just wanna give it up because of an injury. I mean, it’s awful. And no one can control injuries. And I would just give advice to reach out for help. Don’t try to do it on your own. You need to reach out. Having a support system is great, and it may be tough at first, like saying you need help, but after a while it’ll do nothing but, um, make your life better. Maybe keep you alive so you don’t go back to your sport through head injuries. And really just people will understand. They might not know what you’re going through, but they will understand that you’re in pain and you’re hurting.