The Hidden Toll of Concussions: One Reporter’s Fight with Depression and Suicidal Thoughts

After a routine high school sports assignment ended in a hard fall, one reporter’s hidden battle with headaches, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts reveals the silent danger of concussion injuries

Ryan Isley gets ready to cover the girls soccer game between Brunswick and Walsh Jesuit on August 25, 2025. / Ryan Isley, SBLive Sport

‘I’d be curious to see if he has a concussion history.’

That was the text I sent in a group chat to three friends when we heard the news of the suicide death of Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland.

The reason I asked the question was simple – a concussion I suffered on August 25 led to me having suicidal thoughts and eventually being diagnosed with moderate depression.

That last line is something only a handful of people know, and most are just now finding out about it as they read it (and probably read it again to make sure they saw it right). Those who were unaware include a lot of my family and the three friends from said group chat.

The Beginning

It started off as any other Monday night during the fall high school sports season as I was assigned to cover a girls soccer game between Brunswick and Walsh Jesuit for the Medina Gazette.

When the game was over, I did my interviews, gathered my things and headed to a local spot to work on the story, something I have done numerous times when I know time is limited at the site of the game.

Once I arrived, I wrote my story and sent it off to the editors and headed to the restroom before closing up the laptop and heading home. The only problem was that the floor was soaked from having been mopped and I fell backwards and hit my head on the metal bottom of a stool.

When I first hit, the manager on duty came to check on me. I couldn't talk and I had no control of my limbs. It took about a minute or so before I could finally form words and then another few minutes before I could get to my feet. I was still wobbly and could barely walk and it took a couple minutes to get to the bathroom.

The manager on duty sat with me when I returned to my table and had me fill out a report and then he convinced me to let him call for help.

Once on scene, the medics decided it best to take me to the emergency room for testing, where they ran a CT scan and determined that the diagnosis was a concussion.

The Immediate Aftermath

I called to make a follow-up appointment with my primary care physician, Heather Spuhler, APRN.CNP at Cleveland Clinic, but was only able to see someone else in the office with whom I had no history.

I saw them on August 28, just a few days post-incident where I was given the general information about concussions and how there is no linear timetable for recovery. I was also given a referral to see a neurologist, which I did on September 9.

The next couple of weeks were marred by daily headaches, blurred vision, dizziness and lightheadedness.

And then the night I had the neurologist appointment, I woke up with a panic attack, which forced me to again reach out to Spuhler, setting up an appointment to see her in two weeks.

Work Limitations

Due to my symptoms, I was limited as far as work is concerned.

With my two jobs being as a rideshare driver and as a freelance reporter/writer, I have to work to get paid and I do not have any paid time off or vacation time. But with the concussion, I completely took time away from covering games and I severely limited my time driving.

As for driving, I cut my shifts from 8-12 hours each time I worked down to about four hours because that was all I could handle.

After meeting with the neurologist, I returned to cover games on September 11, when I covered a girls volleyball game between Valley Forge and Buckeye.

I walked into the Buckeye High School gym during the JV game and within about 10 minutes, I was completely overwhelmed. I walked out of the gym and into the adjoining cafeteria, where I found a quiet corner to cry and regather myself.

As time went on, I decided to buy earplugs and wear those until I felt completely comfortable with the noise at games, which took a few more weeks.

Better Off Dead?

At my follow-up with my Spuhler, I expressed the concerns I had not only physically, but how it was starting to impact my mental health.

With this information, she began to ask the normal mental health question panel that she has asked me each of the last five years at my annual physical and check-up.

Only this time, she couldn’t stop after the first two questions.

Once I answered, “more than half the days” to the question of how often I had been “Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless,” she then moved onto to the rest of the panel, including how often have you had “Thoughts that you would be better off dead, or of hurting yourself in some way.”

With tears forming in my eyes, I had to be completely open and honest with her when I somehow got the words “several days” out of my mouth.  

That’s when I told her that I had wondered many times over the past month if I would be better off dead than dealing with this on a daily basis. I wondered if it would not only be better for me, but for those around me who had been dealing with me and my recovery process.

It was something I had never even considered at any point of my life, even in the worst times. But somehow, this just felt different.

That’s when she told me that she could tell there was something off with me just from looking at me when I was sitting in the waiting room prior to the appointment. After all, she has five years of experience handling my primary care.

At the end of the day, I knew I could not get the care I needed had I not been honest. It was something I learned about concussions from reading the book "Racing to the Finish: My Story" by Dale Earnhardt, Jr. with Ryan McGee.

“I Would Never Follow Through”

This is when I also informed her that despite having the thoughts of suicide, it is something I would never follow through on, for a couple of reasons.

One of those is because I have seen the impact on loved ones of someone who takes their life, as one of my best friends growing up did so in 2008 when we were both 27 years old. I went to the house of his parents on the day it happened and saw the emotions of his entire family. It is something that has stuck with me for the last 18 years.

The other reason is the conversation I had with Babe Kwasniak in 2022, where he detailed his attempted suicide even when he was at a point in his life where everyone would have thought he was in a good mindset.

Diagnosed with Moderate Depression

At this point, I was diagnosed with moderate depression and given a prescription for an anti-depressant as well as a referral to see psychiatry for a follow-up.

Unfortunately, we have such a mental health crisis in this country that setting up appointments for psychiatry are on a backlog of up to several months, meaning I could not get into to see someone until December 1.

In the time leading up to that appointment, I asked to be taken off the anti-depressant (the side effects weren’t worth the possible help) and had a follow-up with Practitioner Spuhler in which I told her that while I still have the suicidal thoughts from time to time, they are nowhere near as frequent, something I attribute to just finally talking about it with her in that prior appointment as well as telling a couple of family members and close friends what was happening.

The appointment with psychiatry was a first for me and I was not sure what to expect.

It went well, as she got to know me and the situation, as well as just let me talk about how I was feeling and trying to find a path to help me recover my mental health.

It is still an ongoing situation, and while my mental health is still not great and I have days where I am worse than others, I finally feel like I am a little better than I was when first telling Spuhler that I wondered if I would be better off dead.

Lasting Effects

As I sit here writing this more than three months after the fall and concussion diagnosis, I am doing so after taking a headache medication that was prescribed, as I still have headaches on a daily basis.

And yes, I still have negative thoughts.  

As Kwasniak says, the invisible enemy never rests.

And that’s why my first thought upon hearing the news of Kneeland was to wonder about a concussion history.

As I have been saying since August – concussions suck.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or the Crisis Text Line by texting 4HOPE to 741741.

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