September 17th 2009 the day that changed everything in my life. It was the 3rd week of my senior football season. I was coming off of leading my team in tackles the week before and we were going against an opponent that was ranked in the state of Colorado. I was having a really good game and we were up. It was the 4th quarter and we kicked off the ball and I ran down and challenged there star running back and we collided meeting each other to see who was tougher and neither one of us moved. It was a hard hit but I didn’t move and he didn’t move so we were even. 1st time I’d ever met a dude straight up and didn’t knock him down. After the hit though my helmet felt like it was getting tighter and I couldn’t see and all I was thinking was why is my helmet feeling so tight and then it clicked to me “its not my helmet it’s my brain” it just expanded so much that it made me go blind for about 5-10 seconds. I was about to call to the sideline to take myself out but I didn’t cuz I was afraid I wouldn’t get back in so I stayed on the field and started to see a little bit and was able to get lined up and as soon as the other team snapped the ball my vision came back and I was ready to go. They threw a pass so I wasn’t in danger or anything. The very next play they threw another pass in my area and they completed it but my teammate made them fumbled and I ran seeing the receiver trying to recover it and instead of going for the ball I laid out the receiver so that my teammate could recover the fumble and we did and that was that. By then that fumble sealed are win. That was my last good game of the year. I wasn’t the same after that. My play was suffering and my grades too were suffering. I wasn’t supposed to play in the homecoming game but a couple of my teachers didn’t turn in my grade which made me eligible but not eligible. It was the 1st time that during the football season I wasn’t averaging a 3.0 gpa or higher. It was only when football season was over where my grades would slip. I could also tell that I just didn’t have the same the drive to play football. My demeanor for the 1st 3 games of the season was completely different from the rest of my season. I wanted to prove how good I was and after those 3 games I didn’t care anymore. After that game my life afterwards has been sealed and shut. 11 years later I’m where I was going to be after that hit. Even if I would’ve had a family as early as I wanted to I would still feel empty and lifeless. So it’s a good thing I didn’t have one cuz I’m going to fail regardless. I can do all the therapy I want to and I will still feel empty. I’ll have good days or good couple of hrs in a day but for the most part I’ll be sad and alone. I can take all the medication I want to take and it wouldn’t make a difference in my life. I know this now cuz after 2 yrs of therapy I still only have moments of being good but not everlasting. I’ve been sometimes diagnosed with bipolar disorder, psychosis, ocd, depression, and anxiety but nothing really conclusive or my therapist’s never want to fully give me a proper diagnosis or tell me since they can’t figure it out either or don’t want to tell me cuz they don’t want me to feel as if I’m some crazy person and do something stupid or whatever. All these symptoms all indicate to me one thing but I won’t actually know till I die cuz you can’t diagnose someone with CTE until they’re dead. I’ll know for sure in the next couple of years of how bad my mental health gets and if it gets worse then I’ll know I have CTE. If I get better than I don’t. But as I’ve seen throughout out my life my mental health just keeps getting worse and worse even with therapy my mental health is still worse. I just know how to cope with it better now than I did before but it still doesn’t change the fact of what I have to go through on a daily basis. Maybe that’s why the last time I had a therapy session with my previous therapist she couldn’t keep a straight face of telling me that she thinks that I will at least enjoy a life of independence and be somewhat ok. Who knows maybe she was trying to trigger me or something. But like I said I’ll know in the next couple of years of what’s really wrong with me and then decide then on what to do with my life.