Former Chiefs running back Larry Johnson is only 38-years-old, but he believes that he’s living with the “demons” of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which is the degenerative brain disease connected to over 100 ex-football players. Caused by repeated blows to the head, Johnson says he sees the CTE in the cycle of his moods — from enraged and withdrawn — and his desire to hurt himself or others, always just a moment away. There’s issues with memory, too. Though his 7-year-old daughter Jaylen keeps him grounded, she can’t bring back his increasingly fuzzy recollections, that in some cases have disappeared entirely.
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