July 10, 2025 • 23 mins
What happens when life throws everything at you - traumatic brain injury, severe mental illness, chronic pain, and profound loss? Kurt Wagner's answer might surprise you: you become stronger.
After a catastrophic assault left Kurt with a broken vertebral artery, blood poured onto his brain for approximately eight hours. Doctors gave him last rites, believing he wouldn't survive. The injury destroyed 40% of his neurons, including the left side of his cerebellum. When Kurt miraculously woke from his coma, he couldn't walk, talk, or even reach for a cup. His left vocal cord was paralyzed. Doctors told his family he would never function normally again.
But Kurt's story was just beginning. With unwavering support from his parents, he embarked on an arduous journey of rehabilitation. His mother, despite her own social anxiety, refused to leave his hospital bedside, creating makeshift sleeping arrangements from hard chairs. This constant presence became Kurt's motivation to fight.
Beyond the brain injury, Kurt battled obsessive-compulsive disorder since age five and bipolar disorder since fifteen - conditions that repeatedly brought him to the brink of suicide. The bipolar disorder created a Jekyll and Hyde existence, with depressive episodes causing dramatic weight loss and manic phases feeling "godlike" but often destructive.
Rather than being crushed by these challenges, Kurt transformed them into purpose. He became a licensed clinical social worker, channeling his experiences into helping others overcome their struggles. "If I'm going to have to go through all this, maybe I could at least make somebody else's journey less difficult," Kurt explains, citing Matthew 7:12 as his guiding principle.
Kurt's philosophy - "learning from our ailments rather than running from them" - forms the core of his book "Victory in Every Fall," which codifies methods for overcoming seemingly impossible odds. He likens his journey to the Greek myth of Antaeus, who grew stronger each time he was thrown to the ground.
Ready to transform your own challenges into strength? Kurt's extraordinary story reminds us that our deepest struggles often contain the seeds of our greatest growth. Share this episode with someone fighting their own battles who needs to hear that victory can be found in every fall.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello everyone and welcome to a very special
edition that we will be addingon to the Best of the Best
webinar.
We have an amazing, amazinghuman being with us.
Kurt Wagner is absolutely barnone, one of my top interviewees
ever.
I think the world of him.
He's amazing.
(00:22):
I had the privilege and honorof interviewing him here
recently and I got him to agreeto come on the webinar but
schedule conflicts, so we aredoing a recorded 20 minute and
I'm going to put this on foreverybody to hear because he is
not to be missed.
Kurt, thank you so much forcoming back again.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you so much for having me again.
This is an honor.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Oh I am, so I can't wait.
I ordered his books.
They're going to be heretomorrow.
I'm like a little kid atChristmas Open, open, open, open
.
So before we talk about theseamazing books, tell everybody
who will not hear your podcast,just as of yet about you and
your backstory a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
So my name is Kurt Warner, I'm a licensed clinical
social worker and in regard tothe books, but into Victory and
Every Fall in particular I'vegone through, one of the things
that brought me to social workwas the suffering I've been
through.
I have a traumatic brain injurythat took about roughly 40% of
(01:27):
the neurons in my brain.
I lost the left side of mycerebellum.
I had to relearn how to walkand talk and function in
virtually every way, and I'vesuffered from obsessive
compulsive disorder since I'm,as my first memory is, obsessive
compulsive disorder.
So at least five and I've hadjust about every manifestation
(01:50):
of OCD that one can have, everycompulsion, every obsession that
just about and I've had andthat takes me to this day, and I
have suffered with bipolardisorder since about age 15,
which brought me to theprecipice of suicide every year
(02:12):
in one way or another, butbecause of the severity of the
depression I would lose anywhereup to 60 pounds.
A lot of times, in the downs Iwould lose my.
In the downs I would lose my.
It'd be very difficult tomaintain any kind of sense of
self, and they brought me to asdark a place as I could conceive
(02:33):
of in human existence.
Each time so, and then themania would hit and I would feel
like a godlike, I could doanything and was very productive
, and I had the electricityrunning through me, as I
describe it, and that guy Jekyllwould get me into all kinds of
trouble that Hyde would have topull out of.
(02:54):
And that was my whole existencefrom a bipolar standpoint in a
nutshell.
But I've also suffered from avery significant back pain that
made my legs numb.
I couldn't type, even though Ihad social work jobs where I had
to type and I had to figure outways to do it around that.
(03:16):
I suffered the death of mysocial support network, which
was my mom and dad, who, afterthe brain injury, was like being
raised.
It was like being brought upagain.
It was like being born overbecause I can't do anything.
It was like being a child againand I had to watch as they both
passed away within a year and Ilost that connection and
(03:38):
support network.
So the concept the book centersaround the notion of adversity
and finding ways to overcome it,because there are the finding
the strengths to do so andbecoming stronger and, more than
stronger, better, for havingover encountered the adversity
is what is what I tried toexpress in the book.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Well, I first want to tell you how sorry I am for the
loss of both of your parents.
I'm so sorry.
I appreciate that.
Thank you, and if you don'tmind, let's just talk about just
for a minute.
First of all, you've overcomeso much, and to sit here and
look at you today is inspiringbeyond measure.
Can you tell us a little bitabout what happened that caused
(04:21):
your brain injury?
Tell?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
us a little bit about what happened that caused your
brain injury.
Sure, so, as noted in terms ofthe OCD started at a very young
age.
I have a family history of OCDand it becomes very severe very
quickly.
It also you tend to hide itfrom everyone.
You don't tell people whatyou're doing.
At least I'll speak for myself.
I didn't tell people what I wasdoing in any way, shape or form
(04:44):
.
I at least I'll speak formyself.
I didn't tell people what wasdoing in any way, shape or form.
That led, uh to me having tofind um escapes.
It got too overwhelming everyday to deal with that.
So I I saw it um in high school.
I I started to seek um ways toget around that, which it was in
the form of drinking.
That alleviated it.
When I was, when I wasinebriated a little bit, I
(05:06):
didn't have to the checking, thecounting, the hoarding, the
contamination none of that I was.
I had a lot easier time defyingit.
Then bipolar disorder hit around15 and that sent me over the
edge and I started usingwhatever I started getting into,
whatever I was doing, whateverI could to escape the pain that
I was feeling.
That brought me into a verynegative crowd.
(05:29):
I fell into a group who itwasn't ideal to be vulnerable in
front of.
So when I so one night I wentto, I was in very the very
beginning of college, firstsemester of college.
I went to a party on Fridaynight, which is what I always
did to escape.
(05:49):
It was my escape and I metsomeone there.
I was close to someone there.
There was long and the short ofit is.
I got put in.
I got assaulted very, verybadly.
My left vertebral artery, whichis one of four arteries in the
(06:10):
brain, was broken, snapped, andthe blood was all the blood bled
on my brain.
I was brought down onto a pieceof cardboard into a dark
basement where all my otherpeople who I hung out with were,
and I was left with the arterybleeding onto the brain for no
(06:33):
one.
I mean, there's no way for meto know for sure, but from
anywhere, something like one inthe morning to nine in the
morning, with after many, manycalls from my family, my dad was
able to come and get me becausehe was finally told I was there
.
So all that time of thebleeding in the brain, the left
side of my cerebellum diedbecause it wasn't getting
(06:53):
nourished.
The left vertebral artery wasbroken.
It was bleeding everywhere.
I had grand mal, seizures.
I had a vasospasm, which is aspasm of the brain that causes
brain damage all over.
I was in coma.
I was.
I woke up and I was given thelast rites.
(07:14):
I was told my parents, my family, were told that I was going to
die and if I didn't die I wouldprobably be nothing like who I
was and certainly not have anyof the capabilities.
There was no expectation for meto do anything ever, and I was
very fortunate in that I woke upwith some capabilities.
But I had to relearn everything.
(07:35):
I couldn't um my coordinationcerebellum guides coordination.
I couldn't um reach out infront and grab a cup that was
right in front of me.
I couldn't walk.
I couldn't uh, uh, certainlycouldn't hit a ball or catch a
ball like I used to from anathletic standpoint.
So it was from scratch, uh,like being a newborn, and that's
why I say it was like beingborn again with them, with my
(07:59):
parents, because it was just, Ihad to learn.
I was walked around the yardslowly for many, many, many,
many months, you know, until andit was just nightmarish I was
tied to a bed for a long time.
I had every tube in the worldyou could have in you and I have
pictures of it.
I look like machines dideverything for me for a long
(08:21):
time.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So, and you had to learn how to even speak again.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yes, my left vertebral from the assault, the
left vertebral, I'm sorry, leftvertebral my left vocal cord was
broken.
I was paralyzed between theassault and the intubation, uh,
because after 40 days of beingintubated it has, you know, and
I didn't, I didn't have anyability to use that.
I couldn't.
(08:46):
I could communicate, but it wasusually by writing things down
or speaking like I was told.
I spoke like the godfather.
It was a very, you know, a rasp, you know, and, uh, I had every
therapy imaginable.
Um, after the hospital period,uh, I went to a place called
john heinz, I had um uh inpennsylvania and I I had uh, uh,
(09:07):
to relearn everything fromscratch.
So, occupational therapy, uh,speech therapy, uh, cognitive
therapy, every uh, all kinds oftesting, all kinds of things in
my whole life was, was that?
And I don't remember.
I mean, memory is a key pieceof all, yeah, and so I don't
remember a lot of this, um, I Ihave, I would argue, the, the
(09:32):
fortune of not remembering,because I do remember a lot of
it, but it was, it's in patchesand it's, you know, just horror,
uh, between everything that wasthe, the tubes, the um, out of
everywhere there were alwayssome kind I had feeding tubes, I
had intubations, I hadcatheters, I had you know.
So it was uh overwhelming, tosay the least.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I'm so sorry for what you went through.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
It's nobody's fault.
I appreciate that, thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
But look at you now.
Now look at you.
Tell us what you're doing now.
Is this why you got to choosethe profession that you're in
now?
Is that why you've chosen tohelp others and pay it forward?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Absolutely One of the theses in in the books, a major
concept I mean.
Through the conflict of havingto go through it take the brain
injury alone I learned that lifewas a lot more suffering than I
had my high school self or my,you know, before.
The OCD was always, but thebefore the bipolar, I didn't
feel that life was justsuffering.
(10:35):
And then, after the bipolar,and then the brain injury on top
of it, and then I, for it's avery different philosophy and
view of life.
Faith and the concept thatdoing unto others you know
Matthew 7, 12, a concept ofdoing unto others, is the notion
(11:02):
that I clung to because it wasthe only thing that remained
meaningful to me.
If I'm going to have to gothrough all this, and maybe I
could at least make somebodyelse's, less was the point.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So tell everybody what it is you do today.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I'm a social worker, I'm a therapist and I work with
people from all walks of lifewho are suffering all manner of
things.
So it's, there's no, it dependson who wants to, who comes in
and who comes in and there's nota lot of things that I won't or
am unable to treat in thatregard.
So before that, I worked a lotin chemical dependency for a
(11:42):
very long time and with addictswho struggled to, and I find all
of it very meaningful and I'mI'm very excited, but I also.
That's on an individual level,and then the writing is on my at
least my hope for it is on amass level where I could reach
many with which almost all of it, in one way or another, is
(12:03):
geared toward amelioration,improving existence on some
level for others, Right.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Now let me.
Let me ask you this you stated,not only in our original
podcast that we recorded, buttoday, that your parents were,
were so influential in your,your healing, and I noticed with
our daughter even frominception, like when she's been
in the hospital we don't leave.
There's so many kids in therethat nobody's in there with
(12:32):
they're by themselves andthey're alone and they don't
have visitors.
They don't have family comevisit them, and I've always
explained to our daughter, Faith, that when she agrees that when
you have that drive to, youwill fight harder when you have
someone in your corner.
Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Absolutely that propels up.
Without my I can't sayemphatically enough without my
mom I'd be nothing, I'd be no.
You know, she gave me the drive.
One of the memories in thehospital my mom didn't want me
to be alone a minute in thehospital at all.
(13:11):
Woman who had social anxietyherself, a great deal of it
that's her family.
I'm much more, I'm very muchlike her family and that's where
a lot of that uh, she would putone hard chair on one side of
my bed and put another hardchair on the other side of bed
because the hospital would notgive her a cot.
And uh, and she would sit inthe one chair and and put her
(13:33):
legs out in the other and use itas a sort of hammock, uh, for a
self-made hammock for herself.
And I can sit in the one chairand put her legs out in the
other and use it as a sort ofhammock for a self-made hammock
for herself.
And I can remember in themiddle of the night, because
they'd wake me up and I'm notputting them down, they did so
much good for me in the hospitaland they say, you know, but,
but they'd wake me up constantlyduring the night, constantly.
I never get sleep because theywere always squeezing my hands
and squeezing my feet and saying, here, can you, you know, and
(13:56):
I'd have to get up and do thatand I felt just anger at the
time because that's after theTBI.
There was just a lot of angerand can always remember looking
over, and the most fulfilling,the most wonderful moment was
when I knew that she was thereand that the usually the
moonlight would be hitting herface and she'd be just sleeping
(14:19):
and it would be a comfort.
Just okay, I'm not aloneexistentially.
I'm not alone, you know, inthat and that's so so that that
support there is just immense,cause you do it.
For when I talk about from asuicidal standpoint she also,
you know how how could I?
Doing that act would leave herwithout, and that I couldn't
(14:43):
from.
Yeah that was just sooverwhelmingly.
You carry on for her in a way,in a large way, that's became
the mindset, so that that thatlink was immense.
I couldn't, I don't know whoI'd be without it.
I will not be happy.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
You know they are both so unbelievably proud of
you, right.
I hope so I can tell you theyare your mom and dad sound
amazing and I can tell you froma dedicated mom to to you, I can
tell you that they are very,very impressed and very, very-.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I appreciate that and I very much hope they are and I
hope they're at peace now.
Yeah, because they werewonderful people.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Well, so tell us about your books.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
So Victor Ian Eberfeld tries to codify it's my
attempt to codify overcomingimpossible odds with an actual
method which I present in thebook.
And just to quantify, ocd,national Institute of Mental
Health, ocd right now about 2.3%of the population is affected
(15:55):
by OCD, has OCD, 2.8% bipolar,so they're not an overly
prevalent, you know.
And when it comes to severe TBI, you're looking at about 14 out
of 100,000 people, which is farless than, obviously, the 2.3
percent.
So uh, those three alone.
(16:16):
And back pain is common, Iunderstand, you know, in terms
of uh more common and so on andso forth, but those three alone,
it seems like.
It seems like an almostimpossible odd to if you, if you
quantify uh people who can findways to make meaningful lives
with, it becomes less and lessstatistically.
And the concept is what I'mtrying to present in the book is
(16:39):
that no matter what the odds,no matter what you're up against
there is a lot of it and thisis where therapy comes in is the
thought process you bring to itand the way you encounter it
and the way you're conceiving ofyour suffering and going
through it.
It makes a big difference inhow you uh manage it and are
able to persevere.
(16:59):
And I give um?
Uh a trope of um antias ofgreek myth, who, who is a giant?
Uh, the son of um gaia andposeidon, who got the god of the
sea and the god of the goddessof the earth.
When he's thrown to the ground,the reason I use him is because
(17:19):
he challenges people to a fight, he loves to fight people, he
loves conflict.
When he gets thrown to theground, the ground makes him
stronger because it's his mom.
The notion that I'm trying todraw from that Greek myth is
that we can all become strongerby being thrown to the ground.
And I did, and and what ocd I'mfor all the uh torment that ocd
(17:46):
renders on me every day, uh, tothis day, I can name ways that
it's helped.
I've become stronger from it,I've become better from it by
using it to make me.
In other words, to give just aquick example there, the
perfectionist aspect of OCDenabled me to work with the lack
of the memory I had with theTBI.
In other words, I can'tremember.
(18:07):
I couldn't remember fiveminutes before what happened
before in the beginning with theTBI.
Four in the beginning with theTBI to know.
So if I can't remember it, Ihave to check it again and again
, and again, and again and again.
And that's what OCD says, andit capitalizes on things like
that.
But I also know that I'm aperfectionist and based on
obsessive-causative, so I usethat to say I don't have to
(18:28):
check it over and over because Iknow who I am and I know that I
constantly do things verymeticulously.
So my memory, yes, I can'tremember, but I don't have to
check it.
Ocd.
Its biggest donation to me, Iwould argue, was I learned to
rebel against unjust authority.
Because it is an unjustauthority.
It's constantly saying I haveto do things that are just not
(18:51):
true.
So I rebel and I have to dealwith the discomfort of the
rebelling and it abates becauseit's a bully.
So that's a concept.
With OCD, with bipolar disorder,You're Jekyll and you're Hyde.
You're this guy who can doanything and you're this guy who
can do nothing and sees nomeaning in life and is just
(19:12):
tortured in every way, shape andform, who can do nothing and
sees no meaning in life and isjust tortured in every way,
shape and form.
Uh and uh, the identity.
There's no identity when you'retwo different identities.
There.
It becomes almost impossible tohave think of yourself as one.
And with bipolar disorder, Ihad to learn to merge, to find a
way before I found lithium, uh,but I had to find a way to
(19:33):
merge and and and make oneidentity who could face the
world.
And uh, it was a Herculean task, which is ironic because that's
who actually ended up killingAntaeus, but, but, but it was a
Herculean task to do that and uh, uh.
But I learned who I was,because there are core things
(19:54):
that both persons had the manicguy and the depressed one.
And when it comes to thetraumatic brain injury, anybody
who's read Kafka knows that alot of his stories open with
someone in this absurdcircumstance where they have,
(20:14):
you know, they're on trial for acrime they didn't commit or
they they're a bug in themetamorphosis.
He wakes up, a bug and he hasto figure out how to how to
navigate this new world.
I woke up in exactly that typeof kafka-esque situation, which
was I woke up without having, inthis ridiculous situation where
and I was tied to a bed, I hadno way to do it, I had no way to
(20:37):
function or anything else, andI had to figure out a way to
start digging, building my wayout of it.
And that existential plight issomething that I feel like, in
one way or another, we're all inin in our lives and and that
gave me that gift, and I can goon and on.
The learning from our ailmentsrather than running from our
ailments is what I'm trying toportray and to advocate, in each
(21:02):
of his own way or her own way.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Tell everybody where all of your books are.
I'm going to make sure everypossible link that comes back to
you is out here for everybodyon the webinar.
Tell everybody where they canget these books and I will be
happy to review them when I getthem in my little one hand
tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Absolutely so.
Barnes and Noble, amazon, appleBooks in short, wherever any
retailer of books are sold.
All the used, a lot of the usedbook sites that I always
advocate, for you can find itanywhere.
Books are sold in one way oranother, and that's Victory in
(21:44):
Every Fall.
Which is about amelioratingothers, false Idols, how
Diversion is DestroyingDemocracy, is a philosophical
treatise that discusses theconcept of value in society and
what we tend to focus on in ourlives versus what might be most
important and what we want tomost focus on in our lives.
(22:06):
It talks about the bread andcircuses, how we're distracted
by things that are not asimportant to us a lot of time
and, and, lastly, that the otherbook I want to just note is um,
utopia realized, which is, uh,it's called utopia realized in
search of a just society andit's about uh, it's about a.
(22:26):
It's a fiction book and there'sa plot to it, but the the
concept and the base thesis ofit is how we can begin to form a
more just society by changingthe systems within it, because,
you know, we always useantiquated systems that we all
say are garbage, that we don'tlike but we don't change.
But the concept is to use ouracumen and our abilities to
(22:49):
change them and build somethingbetter for us all, so we could
be in a better existence societyI can't wait to read them.
I can't thank you enough formaking time in your incredibly
busy schedule to do this with usI can't thank you enough for
having me, and I I'm so gratefuland appreciative for all you do
as well thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Everybody, go check out the links, click, go get the
books, purchase and support him.
He is an amazing individual whois now part of our family and
we thank you so much thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Thank you so much for everything.
Hello everyone and welcome to a very special
edition that we will be addingon to the Best of the Best
webinar.
We have an amazing, amazinghuman being with us.
Kurt Wagner is absolutely barnone, one of my top interviewees
ever.
I think the world of him.
He's amazing.
(00:22):
I had the privilege and honorof interviewing him here
recently and I got him to agreeto come on the webinar but
schedule conflicts, so we aredoing a recorded 20 minute and
I'm going to put this on foreverybody to hear because he is
not to be missed.
Kurt, thank you so much forcoming back again.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you so much for having me again.
This is an honor.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Oh I am, so I can't wait.
I ordered his books.
They're going to be heretomorrow.
I'm like a little kid atChristmas Open, open, open, open
.
So before we talk about theseamazing books, tell everybody
who will not hear your podcast,just as of yet about you and
your backstory a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
So my name is Kurt Warner, I'm a licensed clinical
social worker and in regard tothe books, but into Victory and
Every Fall in particular I'vegone through, one of the things
that brought me to social workwas the suffering I've been
through.
I have a traumatic brain injurythat took about roughly 40% of
(01:27):
the neurons in my brain.
I lost the left side of mycerebellum.
I had to relearn how to walkand talk and function in
virtually every way, and I'vesuffered from obsessive
compulsive disorder since I'm,as my first memory is, obsessive
compulsive disorder.
So at least five and I've hadjust about every manifestation
(01:50):
of OCD that one can have, everycompulsion, every obsession that
just about and I've had andthat takes me to this day, and I
have suffered with bipolardisorder since about age 15,
which brought me to theprecipice of suicide every year
(02:12):
in one way or another, butbecause of the severity of the
depression I would lose anywhereup to 60 pounds.
A lot of times, in the downs Iwould lose my.
In the downs I would lose my.
It'd be very difficult tomaintain any kind of sense of
self, and they brought me to asdark a place as I could conceive
(02:33):
of in human existence.
Each time so, and then themania would hit and I would feel
like a godlike, I could doanything and was very productive
, and I had the electricityrunning through me, as I
describe it, and that guy Jekyllwould get me into all kinds of
trouble that Hyde would have topull out of.
(02:54):
And that was my whole existencefrom a bipolar standpoint in a
nutshell.
But I've also suffered from avery significant back pain that
made my legs numb.
I couldn't type, even though Ihad social work jobs where I had
to type and I had to figure outways to do it around that.
(03:16):
I suffered the death of mysocial support network, which
was my mom and dad, who, afterthe brain injury, was like being
raised.
It was like being brought upagain.
It was like being born overbecause I can't do anything.
It was like being a child againand I had to watch as they both
passed away within a year and Ilost that connection and
(03:38):
support network.
So the concept the book centersaround the notion of adversity
and finding ways to overcome it,because there are the finding
the strengths to do so andbecoming stronger and, more than
stronger, better, for havingover encountered the adversity
is what is what I tried toexpress in the book.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Well, I first want to tell you how sorry I am for the
loss of both of your parents.
I'm so sorry.
I appreciate that.
Thank you, and if you don'tmind, let's just talk about just
for a minute.
First of all, you've overcomeso much, and to sit here and
look at you today is inspiringbeyond measure.
Can you tell us a little bitabout what happened that caused
(04:21):
your brain injury?
Tell?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
us a little bit about what happened that caused your
brain injury.
Sure, so, as noted in terms ofthe OCD started at a very young
age.
I have a family history of OCDand it becomes very severe very
quickly.
It also you tend to hide itfrom everyone.
You don't tell people whatyou're doing.
At least I'll speak for myself.
I didn't tell people what I wasdoing in any way, shape or form
(04:44):
.
I at least I'll speak formyself.
I didn't tell people what wasdoing in any way, shape or form.
That led, uh to me having tofind um escapes.
It got too overwhelming everyday to deal with that.
So I I saw it um in high school.
I I started to seek um ways toget around that, which it was in
the form of drinking.
That alleviated it.
When I was, when I wasinebriated a little bit, I
(05:06):
didn't have to the checking, thecounting, the hoarding, the
contamination none of that I was.
I had a lot easier time defyingit.
Then bipolar disorder hit around15 and that sent me over the
edge and I started usingwhatever I started getting into,
whatever I was doing, whateverI could to escape the pain that
I was feeling.
That brought me into a verynegative crowd.
(05:29):
I fell into a group who itwasn't ideal to be vulnerable in
front of.
So when I so one night I wentto, I was in very the very
beginning of college, firstsemester of college.
I went to a party on Fridaynight, which is what I always
did to escape.
(05:49):
It was my escape and I metsomeone there.
I was close to someone there.
There was long and the short ofit is.
I got put in.
I got assaulted very, verybadly.
My left vertebral artery, whichis one of four arteries in the
(06:10):
brain, was broken, snapped, andthe blood was all the blood bled
on my brain.
I was brought down onto a pieceof cardboard into a dark
basement where all my otherpeople who I hung out with were,
and I was left with the arterybleeding onto the brain for no
(06:33):
one.
I mean, there's no way for meto know for sure, but from
anywhere, something like one inthe morning to nine in the
morning, with after many, manycalls from my family, my dad was
able to come and get me becausehe was finally told I was there
.
So all that time of thebleeding in the brain, the left
side of my cerebellum diedbecause it wasn't getting
(06:53):
nourished.
The left vertebral artery wasbroken.
It was bleeding everywhere.
I had grand mal, seizures.
I had a vasospasm, which is aspasm of the brain that causes
brain damage all over.
I was in coma.
I was.
I woke up and I was given thelast rites.
(07:14):
I was told my parents, my family, were told that I was going to
die and if I didn't die I wouldprobably be nothing like who I
was and certainly not have anyof the capabilities.
There was no expectation for meto do anything ever, and I was
very fortunate in that I woke upwith some capabilities.
But I had to relearn everything.
(07:35):
I couldn't um my coordinationcerebellum guides coordination.
I couldn't um reach out infront and grab a cup that was
right in front of me.
I couldn't walk.
I couldn't uh, uh, certainlycouldn't hit a ball or catch a
ball like I used to from anathletic standpoint.
So it was from scratch, uh,like being a newborn, and that's
why I say it was like beingborn again with them, with my
(07:59):
parents, because it was just, Ihad to learn.
I was walked around the yardslowly for many, many, many,
many months, you know, until andit was just nightmarish I was
tied to a bed for a long time.
I had every tube in the worldyou could have in you and I have
pictures of it.
I look like machines dideverything for me for a long
(08:21):
time.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So, and you had to learn how to even speak again.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yes, my left vertebral from the assault, the
left vertebral, I'm sorry, leftvertebral my left vocal cord was
broken.
I was paralyzed between theassault and the intubation, uh,
because after 40 days of beingintubated it has, you know, and
I didn't, I didn't have anyability to use that.
I couldn't.
(08:46):
I could communicate, but it wasusually by writing things down
or speaking like I was told.
I spoke like the godfather.
It was a very, you know, a rasp, you know, and, uh, I had every
therapy imaginable.
Um, after the hospital period,uh, I went to a place called
john heinz, I had um uh inpennsylvania and I I had uh, uh,
(09:07):
to relearn everything fromscratch.
So, occupational therapy, uh,speech therapy, uh, cognitive
therapy, every uh, all kinds oftesting, all kinds of things in
my whole life was, was that?
And I don't remember.
I mean, memory is a key pieceof all, yeah, and so I don't
remember a lot of this, um, I Ihave, I would argue, the, the
(09:32):
fortune of not remembering,because I do remember a lot of
it, but it was, it's in patchesand it's, you know, just horror,
uh, between everything that wasthe, the tubes, the um, out of
everywhere there were alwayssome kind I had feeding tubes, I
had intubations, I hadcatheters, I had you know.
So it was uh overwhelming, tosay the least.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I'm so sorry for what you went through.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
It's nobody's fault.
I appreciate that, thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
But look at you now.
Now look at you.
Tell us what you're doing now.
Is this why you got to choosethe profession that you're in
now?
Is that why you've chosen tohelp others and pay it forward?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Absolutely One of the theses in in the books, a major
concept I mean.
Through the conflict of havingto go through it take the brain
injury alone I learned that lifewas a lot more suffering than I
had my high school self or my,you know, before.
The OCD was always, but thebefore the bipolar, I didn't
feel that life was justsuffering.
(10:35):
And then, after the bipolar,and then the brain injury on top
of it, and then I, for it's avery different philosophy and
view of life.
Faith and the concept thatdoing unto others you know
Matthew 7, 12, a concept ofdoing unto others, is the notion
(11:02):
that I clung to because it wasthe only thing that remained
meaningful to me.
If I'm going to have to gothrough all this, and maybe I
could at least make somebodyelse's, less was the point.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So tell everybody what it is you do today.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I'm a social worker, I'm a therapist and I work with
people from all walks of lifewho are suffering all manner of
things.
So it's, there's no, it dependson who wants to, who comes in
and who comes in and there's nota lot of things that I won't or
am unable to treat in thatregard.
So before that, I worked a lotin chemical dependency for a
(11:42):
very long time and with addictswho struggled to, and I find all
of it very meaningful and I'mI'm very excited, but I also.
That's on an individual level,and then the writing is on my at
least my hope for it is on amass level where I could reach
many with which almost all of it, in one way or another, is
(12:03):
geared toward amelioration,improving existence on some
level for others, Right.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Now let me.
Let me ask you this you stated,not only in our original
podcast that we recorded, buttoday, that your parents were,
were so influential in your,your healing, and I noticed with
our daughter even frominception, like when she's been
in the hospital we don't leave.
There's so many kids in therethat nobody's in there with
(12:32):
they're by themselves andthey're alone and they don't
have visitors.
They don't have family comevisit them, and I've always
explained to our daughter, Faith, that when she agrees that when
you have that drive to, youwill fight harder when you have
someone in your corner.
Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Absolutely that propels up.
Without my I can't sayemphatically enough without my
mom I'd be nothing, I'd be no.
You know, she gave me the drive.
One of the memories in thehospital my mom didn't want me
to be alone a minute in thehospital at all.
(13:11):
Woman who had social anxietyherself, a great deal of it
that's her family.
I'm much more, I'm very muchlike her family and that's where
a lot of that uh, she would putone hard chair on one side of
my bed and put another hardchair on the other side of bed
because the hospital would notgive her a cot.
And uh, and she would sit inthe one chair and and put her
(13:33):
legs out in the other and use itas a sort of hammock, uh, for a
self-made hammock for herself.
And I can sit in the one chairand put her legs out in the
other and use it as a sort ofhammock for a self-made hammock
for herself.
And I can remember in themiddle of the night, because
they'd wake me up and I'm notputting them down, they did so
much good for me in the hospitaland they say, you know, but,
but they'd wake me up constantlyduring the night, constantly.
I never get sleep because theywere always squeezing my hands
and squeezing my feet and saying, here, can you, you know, and
(13:56):
I'd have to get up and do thatand I felt just anger at the
time because that's after theTBI.
There was just a lot of angerand can always remember looking
over, and the most fulfilling,the most wonderful moment was
when I knew that she was thereand that the usually the
moonlight would be hitting herface and she'd be just sleeping
(14:19):
and it would be a comfort.
Just okay, I'm not aloneexistentially.
I'm not alone, you know, inthat and that's so so that that
support there is just immense,cause you do it.
For when I talk about from asuicidal standpoint she also,
you know how how could I?
Doing that act would leave herwithout, and that I couldn't
(14:43):
from.
Yeah that was just sooverwhelmingly.
You carry on for her in a way,in a large way, that's became
the mindset, so that that thatlink was immense.
I couldn't, I don't know whoI'd be without it.
I will not be happy.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
You know they are both so unbelievably proud of
you, right.
I hope so I can tell you theyare your mom and dad sound
amazing and I can tell you froma dedicated mom to to you, I can
tell you that they are very,very impressed and very, very-.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I appreciate that and I very much hope they are and I
hope they're at peace now.
Yeah, because they werewonderful people.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Well, so tell us about your books.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
So Victor Ian Eberfeld tries to codify it's my
attempt to codify overcomingimpossible odds with an actual
method which I present in thebook.
And just to quantify, ocd,national Institute of Mental
Health, ocd right now about 2.3%of the population is affected
(15:55):
by OCD, has OCD, 2.8% bipolar,so they're not an overly
prevalent, you know.
And when it comes to severe TBI, you're looking at about 14 out
of 100,000 people, which is farless than, obviously, the 2.3
percent.
So uh, those three alone.
(16:16):
And back pain is common, Iunderstand, you know, in terms
of uh more common and so on andso forth, but those three alone,
it seems like.
It seems like an almostimpossible odd to if you, if you
quantify uh people who can findways to make meaningful lives
with, it becomes less and lessstatistically.
And the concept is what I'mtrying to present in the book is
(16:39):
that no matter what the odds,no matter what you're up against
there is a lot of it and thisis where therapy comes in is the
thought process you bring to itand the way you encounter it
and the way you're conceiving ofyour suffering and going
through it.
It makes a big difference inhow you uh manage it and are
able to persevere.
(16:59):
And I give um?
Uh a trope of um antias ofgreek myth, who, who is a giant?
Uh, the son of um gaia andposeidon, who got the god of the
sea and the god of the goddessof the earth.
When he's thrown to the ground,the reason I use him is because
(17:19):
he challenges people to a fight, he loves to fight people, he
loves conflict.
When he gets thrown to theground, the ground makes him
stronger because it's his mom.
The notion that I'm trying todraw from that Greek myth is
that we can all become strongerby being thrown to the ground.
And I did, and and what ocd I'mfor all the uh torment that ocd
(17:46):
renders on me every day, uh, tothis day, I can name ways that
it's helped.
I've become stronger from it,I've become better from it by
using it to make me.
In other words, to give just aquick example there, the
perfectionist aspect of OCDenabled me to work with the lack
of the memory I had with theTBI.
In other words, I can'tremember.
(18:07):
I couldn't remember fiveminutes before what happened
before in the beginning with theTBI.
Four in the beginning with theTBI to know.
So if I can't remember it, Ihave to check it again and again
, and again, and again and again.
And that's what OCD says, andit capitalizes on things like
that.
But I also know that I'm aperfectionist and based on
obsessive-causative, so I usethat to say I don't have to
(18:28):
check it over and over because Iknow who I am and I know that I
constantly do things verymeticulously.
So my memory, yes, I can'tremember, but I don't have to
check it.
Ocd.
Its biggest donation to me, Iwould argue, was I learned to
rebel against unjust authority.
Because it is an unjustauthority.
It's constantly saying I haveto do things that are just not
(18:51):
true.
So I rebel and I have to dealwith the discomfort of the
rebelling and it abates becauseit's a bully.
So that's a concept.
With OCD, with bipolar disorder,You're Jekyll and you're Hyde.
You're this guy who can doanything and you're this guy who
can do nothing and sees nomeaning in life and is just
(19:12):
tortured in every way, shape andform, who can do nothing and
sees no meaning in life and isjust tortured in every way,
shape and form.
Uh and uh, the identity.
There's no identity when you'retwo different identities.
There.
It becomes almost impossible tohave think of yourself as one.
And with bipolar disorder, Ihad to learn to merge, to find a
way before I found lithium, uh,but I had to find a way to
(19:33):
merge and and and make oneidentity who could face the
world.
And uh, it was a Herculean task, which is ironic because that's
who actually ended up killingAntaeus, but, but, but it was a
Herculean task to do that and uh, uh.
But I learned who I was,because there are core things
(19:54):
that both persons had the manicguy and the depressed one.
And when it comes to thetraumatic brain injury, anybody
who's read Kafka knows that alot of his stories open with
someone in this absurdcircumstance where they have,
(20:14):
you know, they're on trial for acrime they didn't commit or
they they're a bug in themetamorphosis.
He wakes up, a bug and he hasto figure out how to how to
navigate this new world.
I woke up in exactly that typeof kafka-esque situation, which
was I woke up without having, inthis ridiculous situation where
and I was tied to a bed, I hadno way to do it, I had no way to
(20:37):
function or anything else, andI had to figure out a way to
start digging, building my wayout of it.
And that existential plight issomething that I feel like, in
one way or another, we're all inin in our lives and and that
gave me that gift, and I can goon and on.
The learning from our ailmentsrather than running from our
ailments is what I'm trying toportray and to advocate, in each
(21:02):
of his own way or her own way.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Tell everybody where all of your books are.
I'm going to make sure everypossible link that comes back to
you is out here for everybodyon the webinar.
Tell everybody where they canget these books and I will be
happy to review them when I getthem in my little one hand
tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Absolutely so.
Barnes and Noble, amazon, appleBooks in short, wherever any
retailer of books are sold.
All the used, a lot of the usedbook sites that I always
advocate, for you can find itanywhere.
Books are sold in one way oranother, and that's Victory in
(21:44):
Every Fall.
Which is about amelioratingothers, false Idols, how
Diversion is DestroyingDemocracy, is a philosophical
treatise that discusses theconcept of value in society and
what we tend to focus on in ourlives versus what might be most
important and what we want tomost focus on in our lives.
(22:06):
It talks about the bread andcircuses, how we're distracted
by things that are not asimportant to us a lot of time
and, and, lastly, that the otherbook I want to just note is um,
utopia realized, which is, uh,it's called utopia realized in
search of a just society andit's about uh, it's about a.
(22:26):
It's a fiction book and there'sa plot to it, but the the
concept and the base thesis ofit is how we can begin to form a
more just society by changingthe systems within it, because,
you know, we always useantiquated systems that we all
say are garbage, that we don'tlike but we don't change.
But the concept is to use ouracumen and our abilities to
(22:49):
change them and build somethingbetter for us all, so we could
be in a better existence societyI can't wait to read them.
I can't thank you enough formaking time in your incredibly
busy schedule to do this with usI can't thank you enough for
having me, and I I'm so gratefuland appreciative for all you do
as well thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Everybody, go check out the links, click, go get the
books, purchase and support him.
He is an amazing individual whois now part of our family and
we thank you so much thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Thank you so much for everything.
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