Monthly Archives: October 2019

Finally! After three long years of classes I was entering my senior year of college. I was excited to only have a few classes left to complete my degree in Psychology and Social Behavior. However, for some reason I couldn’t fully enjoy my new “senior” status. Suddenly I felt overwhelmed by the fact that I had no idea what I was going to do after I graduated. I had spent most of my life as a student so I always knew what to expect. Finish one grade…move on to the next. Graduate from high school…go on to college. For the first time I was faced with making a major life decision and I wasn’t sure what to do.  

I started to look for various jobs online. I just couldn’t imagine going to work day after day just to get a paycheck. I had to do something that felt meaningful…that made a difference in someone’s life. I began to reflect on what I liked to do and what I felt passionate about. I thought, “I guess I like kids. Maybe I should do something with kids”. If I was really honest with myself though, I cared about children’s wellbeing but I didn’t really like working with them. I was at a loss.  

It just happened that I had the opportunity to enroll in a Social Work class the next semester. I looked over the course description and it seemed like an easy “A” so I signed up. Each week in that course something started to click. The more I learned about what social work was and what social workers did I started thinking “this sounds like me”. The values and ethics felt like my own. The focus on fighting for the underdog was refreshing and the explicit mention of topics like discrimination, oppression, and marginalization spoke to my heart.  

Sometime around the middle of the semester two recruiters from Masters Social Work programs came to pitch their programs to the class. “A Master’s degree?” I thought. I’d never considered going to graduate school. No one in my family had ever gone and I wasn’t quite sure I could be the first. Was I smart enough? Could I afford it? What would my friends and family think? After all only 9.5% of Americans pursue graduate degrees, and even fewer African Americans (less than 7%). Yet, I felt like God was speaking to me through this Social Work class but I couldn’t be sure. I prayed and asked God to make it clear if social work was what He wanted me to do. I picked a couple of graduate programs, put my applications together, and left it in His hands. I prayed “Lord, let your will be done” and trusted that if He wanted me to go, He’d get me in, and help me get through it.  

My answer came around March. I was in! I would be pursuing a Master’s degree in Social Work. I was excited, anxious, and terrified all at once. It would be the most challenging (and expensive) thing I’d ever done. I was confident that this is what God was calling me to do.  

My entry into the field of social work was unlike anything I could have imagined. I found myself taking classes about substance abuse, mental illness, and racism. I was absorbing the values of service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, human relationships, integrity, and competence. I loved it!  

After about a month of interning I felt like I was home. A sense of gratitude overwhelmed me. I would have never guessed that I would be a social worker in a mental health setting. But by God’s sovereign grace and omniscience He led me right where He needed me to be…and it felt good. Over the course of the two year MSW program I would continue to be challenged and develop the necessary skills and insight to function as a professional social worker. What I didn’t know was that my journey home was just beginning. 

I was assigned to an internship in an adult mental health clinic. This was definitely not my choice since I had serious fears and biases of those classified as mentally ill. In fact, most Americans believe that people with mental illnesses are dangerous although data suggests otherwise. Nevertheless, I was sure the Field Instructor must have made a mistake because I was supposed to help kids. I decided to trust the process and go where I was sent. At the clinic I learned from a great supervisor and awesome staff who helped to transform people’s lives every day. I met with clients who were a lot like me. They were average folks who had suffered a bad experience, trauma, or were just feeling depressed. I became more aware of the stigma I held about this population. I was especially touched by my African American clients who reminded me so much of my cousins, aunt, mother, and father and I wanted so badly to see them made whole. 

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Stay tuned for Part II….and in the meantime, leave a comment below letting us know if any of this resonated with you today! All CBU student comments are eligible for a raffle giveaway within one week of posting!

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Stuart, H. (2003). Violence and mental illness: an overview. World Psychiatry, 2(2), 121. 

Educational Attainment in the United States: 2018. February 2019. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2018/demo/education-attainment/cps-detailed-tables.html 

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A football player getting tackled to the ground by an opponent. A hockey player being bashed into the boards. A soccer player heading the ball into the goal. All of these scenarios could possibly lead to the athlete sustaining a concussion. A concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury caused by rapid acceleration or deceleration that causes the brain to rock against the inner walls of the skull. Concussions can happen to anyone however they are most prominent in the athlete population. Symptoms of a concussion can have effects on the physical and psychological states of an athlete which in turn can affect different portions of their life.

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Diagnosis of a concussion is typically based on the nature of the incident and the presence of specific symptoms. This injury is unlike the typical physical and visual injury some athletes incur and it is invisible to the naked eye. With rapid acceleration or deceleration that causes the brain to hit the inner walls of the skull, there is potential for tearing of blood vessels, bruising or swelling of the brain. These injuries to the brain create a multitude of symptoms for an athlete. Typical signs and symptoms of a concussion are headache, temporary loss of consciousness, confusion, amnesia surrounding the incident in which the concussion was sustained, dizziness, vomiting, fatigue, delayed response to questions, slurred speech, amongst many other signs and symptoms as well.

When recovering from a concussion, athletes are only cleared for return to learn and return to play when their symptoms have completely subsided. If an athlete returns to learn or play before there is a chance for the individual to suffer from Second Impact Syndrome (SIS) if a second concussion is sustained before the first concussion is healed. SIS can diffuse the cerebral swelling within the brain, brain herniation, or even death can occur. Even if an athlete heals completely from the first concussion, it makes them more susceptible to incur more concussions later on in their athletic career.

With the risk of being more susceptible to sustaining multiple concussions throughout the rest of their athletic career, athletes run the risk of having long-term, lifelong symptoms. One major long-term, even fatal, danger of multiple concussions is an athlete developing Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is a neurodegenerative disease that is caused by an individual accumulating numerous head injuries. The only way to diagnose an athlete with CTE though is post-mortem. However, from cases such as Mike Webster or Junior Seau, two famous NFL stars who passed away due to CTE, it gives an idea of what the symptomology may look like. Typically, an athlete with CTE may express feelings of depression, paranoia, agitation, impaired judgement, aggressive behavior and even suicidal behavior as well, as these two athletes did. These symptoms, connected with the symptoms of your basic concussion, also lead into the psychological emotional aspect of these head injuries, how an athlete feels and what experiences they have through recovering from the injury.

A concussion being an “invisible injury” means that just by looking at an athlete you would not know anything is wrong with them. It takes some digging to figure out if an athlete has received a concussion, but once it has been determined they are taken out from all activities. As an athlete, these individuals thrive off of comradery and teamwork. Having a concussion prevents them from practicing, playing, and engaging with their team, the sources of comradery and teamwork they thrive off of. Their teammates or coaches may not understand what they are going through and experiencing during this process either since the injury is not visible like a broken arm. This can create feelings of isolation which can lead to feelings of depression if the recovery process takes longer than average. Concussions also create cognitive impairments, such as memory, slowing of the cognitive processes, or concentration difficulties. These symptoms may create feelings of frustration or anger within an athlete because they may not be remembering little things such as a passing pattern or when an assignment is due.

There has been little research on the experiences of athletes during their recovery from a concussion. It is pivotal that more is done in order to better understand the effects of concussions on an athlete and the emotional aspects of recovery as well. Luckily, CBU’s Sport, Performance, and Exercise Psychology (SPEP) lab is currently working on adding to the research. In researching the experiences of NCAA athletes with one or multiple concussions, the research team hopes to provide the public a better understanding of the experiences of these elite athletes and how their concussion(s) affected their athletic career, academics, personal relationships, and quality of life.

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Have you ever experienced the effects of a concussion or do you know someone who has? Let us know what that was like–or let us know what you found interesting above–in the comments below. All CBU student comments are eligible for a raffle giveaway within one week of posting!

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