Cruel Summer
As a teacher, I used to count down the days to the school summer holidays. I would spend months planning, dreaming of hot sunshine, lazy mornings, and incredible food. I used to think of summer as the gentle break when my world finally slowed down, and my body and brain could finally rest.
But ever since I developed Post-Concussion Syndrome, summer holidays look different. It no longer feels like a reset. Instead, it’s when the kids are home full-time, I get absolutely no rest, and my brain is overloaded most of the time. Sometimes, it feels more like a brutal rather than a gentle break, or, to put it in Taylor’s words, it feels more like a:
“Cruel Summer.”
With each passing summer, things are getting a little easier, and that’s because with each passing year, I know how to handle things better. The first summer after my accident, the mere thought of having the kids at home full-time filled me with dread. Last year, I knew how to handle things better, so I was actually looking forward to it a little.
By the time schools broke up this year, I was genuinely looking forward to spending time with my family and reconnecting with myself. I desperately needed the time and space to heal from burnout. While I wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable physical crash, the emotional healing that my soul needed felt like the right thing.
Yet, even though I have learned to deal with the summer holidays better, managing two small kids alongside everything that comes with PCS healing is a constant battle. This is exactly why I haven’t been posting recently. I have been pouring all my energy into my family, trying to survive each day without completely crashing. And let’s be honest, most days I have massively failed.
Because of this, something had to give, and ultimately, my vestibular rehab therapy (VRT) exercises did.
During term time, I do these exercises religiously. Feet hip-distance. Eyes open. Turn head to the left. Now to the right. Nod up. Nod down. Now, eyes closed. Repeat. Control the nausea. Ground yourself. Foot in front of foot. Repeat turns. Repeat nods. Eyes open. Eyes closed. Stand up. Sit down. Spiky ball underfoot. Roll it. Switch. Two minutes staring at dizzying, moving lines on a screen. Brock string to the nose. Focus on beads until they double. Disco lights flashing. Five reps. Ten reps. Rest. Track the symptoms. Keep them under a 3 out of 5. Don’t push past the threshold. Do it all again.
It is easy to fit these hectic exercises into my day when everyone is out of the house, and I can complete them during my quiet morning routine. But during the summer holidays, we don’t have a routine. I have no guaranteed quiet time for myself, and I definitely have zero days when I can genuinely rest. So whenever I actually stop to rest, it is because I have hit at least the amber zone, meaning the absolute last thing I want to do is these crazy exercises.
Last summer, I felt immense guilt for letting these exercises slip. This year, however, the guilt waned as I finally accepted that I physically couldn’t do them because I lacked the time, energy, or mental strength.
Instead, I tried something new. I call it “VRT – The Concussion Girl’s Version“.
Rather than tackling these artificial exercises alone in my kitchen, I integrated the repetitions naturally into my daily family life. For instance, rather than rolling a spiky ball under my bare foot on a hard kitchen floor, I grounded myself in the sand at the beach. I looked up and down to watch my kids jump into the pool, and tracked the ball from right to left while playing tennis with my son. I watched them playing in the sea, forcing my brain to track their small movements against the background of the waves. I added other exercises while they played on the trampoline, played on the swings, or blew bubbles. I practised watching them cycle past, or even played musical statues with them, completing the same balance training I do at home.
When I came up with this swap, I kept asking myself the same question Taylor asks herself in Guilty As Sin:
“Am I bad or mad or wise?”
As with everything in chronic illness recovery, I am probably all three of them.
Am I bad for failing my recovery by neglecting the precision of my home routine? Or worse, am I mad to make my brain face the real world?
In many ways, tracking these real-world movements is far more unpredictable and overwhelming than staring at a static kitchen white wall. With the noise, the visual background, motion, and shifting weather, it becomes much harder, triggering my symptoms faster than when I do them at home.
However, moving my rehab outdoors into the sunshine and making it a part of our lives actually made it feel less like a medical chore and more like normal life. It let me be a present mother instead of a patient. And in many ways, choosing to adapt rather than forcing myself to the point of breaking feels like its own kind of healing.
Maybe, just maybe, I am actually being wise.
Navigating a brain injury while being a mum remains exhausting. But as I look back at how much has changed since that first terrifying summer after my accident, I can finally see my own growth. I am no longer filled with dread, and I am no longer consumed by guilt. Instead, I am finding ways to bend, adapt, live, and find joy.
Even if, on many days, it still feels like:
“a cruel summer with you.”
The Concussion Girl
- Swift, Taylor.“Cruel Summer.” Lover. Taylor Swfit, 2019. ↩︎
- Swift, Taylor. “Guilty As Sin,” TTPD. Taylor Swift. 2024. ↩︎
- Swift, Taylor.“Cruel Summer.” Lover. Taylor Swfit, 2019. ↩︎