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Alison Stewart: Welcome back to WNYC and All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. Dr. D'Amico and Lennox Hill really worked wonders and took good care of me and my brain, but that was just the start. After surgery, I transferred out of the hospital and into NYU Langhorne Rusk rehab. I was weak. I couldn't walk unassisted. I had, have aphasia, a common communication disorder that happens upon brain trauma. It can take six months to a year to finally arrive at whatever speech I'll have going forward. How do we adjust to this new reality?

I thought I'd check in with psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb, a New York Times bestselling author, co-host of the popular Dear Therapists podcast, and Dear Therapists columnist for The Atlantic. Lori, frustration is a really new feeling for me. I want to talk very freely. I do have limits currently. How do you suggest handling frustration?

Lori Gottlieb: Yes, well, first of all, I just want to say welcome back. I'm so glad, and I know I speak for so many listeners, that you're back. First of all, just welcome back. I think the thing about frustration is that we don't have enough patience. It's really hard. We take our bodies for granted, and when something goes wrong, we are not prepared for it. I think one way to deal with that is to say, what are the small improvements that are happening? What can you do better today than you did yesterday or last week or last month? To really look at it through that frame.

Alison Stewart: Some things in life have had to change. Like it or not, I have to exactly map out where I want to go, what subway I'm taking, plan in advance. Somebody told me I have no autopilot. [laughs] What's important when navigating change, and how do you accept it?

Lori Gottlieb: I think people need to make space for the grieving process because there is a loss, and a lot of people want to just focus on the positive. All of the people who can't really deal with the pain that you're going through, the loss that you're going through, and so they try to cheer you up and not really give you space to say, "Wow, this has been a tremendous loss and this has been an incredibly painful experience." When you're going through the experience, you're so focused on the treatment, you're so focused on what do I need to do next?

There isn't a lot of room to say, "That has been really hard," or, "This is really sad. I need to take some time to really process what I've been through and what I'm going through," and it's really important to do that and to not just stuff down your emotions or say, "Well, at least I'm getting better, so I shouldn't feel sad or I shouldn't grieve," because, of course, there's been a lot of pain and loss.

Alison Stewart: I'm not proud to say this, but there have been times when I just wanted to give up when I just couldn't finish a sentence, when I just couldn't get it out. What do we do when we want to give up? Where do we find resilience?

Lori Gottlieb: That's so incredible that people have this kind of resilience. It's so interesting. I see this in my therapy patients when they feel like their whole lives are over at times, and then they wake up another day and they find the strength to go on. I think the same thing when you have a physical illness, is that somehow there's a part of you, maybe it's 0.01%, that is the quiet part of you that is drowned out by the whole part that wants to give up. It's really about accessing that small part of you that says, "I really, really want to go on." Sometimes you really have to search for it, but for most people, it's still there.

Alison Stewart: All right, Lori, I know you very kindly slipped us in, so you've got a minute left. Any advice you want to give me? [laughs]

Lori Gottlieb: Yes, I think some advice I want to give you, and anybody going through anything, is please ask for help. Ask for help from people around you. So many people don't want to burden the people around them. What I want to remind people is that people love it when you ask for their help because it shows them that they are important to you. I think that you find your strongest friendships and your strongest connection and the most important experiences of your life when you reach out to people at a time when you're really, really struggling and they show up for you.

Alison Stewart: My guest has been Lori Gottlieb. Lori, thank you so much for your time today.

Lori Gottlieb: My pleasure, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, I want to hear your stories of resilience. What have you faced that's been completely life changing, and how did you get through? Our phone lines are open, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can text to us at that number as well. I'd love to get as many calls in as possible. We're talking about big stuff, so we're going to ask you to keep it short, tell us what the event was, what was the most helpful thing you did, or the best piece of advice that you received. Call or text us. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We want to hear your stories. Here with me now to help field calls and to take texts is Kate Hinds, All Of It senior producer. Hi, Kate.

Kate Hinds: Hey, Alison. It is very nice to see you back in the studio. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: It is nice to see you as well.

Kate Hinds: Let me just turn this around for a second and ask you, you've been listening to Laurie Gottlieb, did anything she say strike a chord with you?

Alison Stewart: I think about asking for help, about telling people when I can do something, when I can't do something, when I need a little something. That really struck me, because I'm so wanting to do things on my own, and I'm sure other people are like that, where they want to do things on their own. Sometimes you need an assist. You were kind enough. You made me dinner when I was sad and couldn't talk and had a IV attached to my body in my house. You came to my house and made me dinner.

Kate Hinds: That was a group effort. I had some help, but, yes, everyone wanted to help. What Laurie Gottlieb said is so true, everyone wanted to pitch in. You want to go to the phones?

Alison Stewart: Sure. Let's go to the phones.

Kate Hinds: I think we have a call from Robin in Long Island City. Hi, Robin.

Alison Stewart: Hi, Robin.

Robin: Hi. How are you, Alison? I was so struck to hear what happened to you because I too had-- I had a traumatic brain injury in 2001. I was in the hospital for two months and five days. I was unconscious for the first 14 days. This was at St. Vincent's hospital, and they said they thought I was bit by a mosquito and ultimately had Eest Nile virus, but it is a brain injury, and it was called meningoencephalitis. I woke up, and with regard to aphasia, I thought I was talking, and people told me later I wasn't. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Oh, yes.

Robin: Just like you, I mean, I had a positive attitude. I had severe neuropathy and couldn't walk for a few months, but I went through all kinds of therapy. Are you getting occupational therapy and physical therapy and all that? Or maybe you don't need it. That was important for me to recover at the Rusk Institute.

Alison Stewart: Oh, yes. Thank you so much for calling in. Yes, when I was at Rusk Institute, I had occupational therapy and physical therapy. Shout out to Alex. He was great. They kept me going [laughs] a lot. I had a lot of therapy. I still take speech therapy. I had outpatient. I do my little exercises, my little [unintelligible 00:08:05] to get my words out, but, yes, I did have speech therapy, and it was quite extraordinary, the people who helped me out.

Kate Hinds: You had a whole notebook, a whole binder full of exercises. I think I want to tell people about visiting you at your apartment and seeing the giant binder of exercises you put yourself through. It was really something.

Alison Stewart: Text says, "Welcome back. How did I get through a difficult time? Listening to your show, read, COVID lockdown, and all that entailed. So very glad you recovered and continue to push through." Thanks for the example. That's from Carol. Thank you, Carol. I got another one that says, "I was at my most depressed after I started to get better, and I felt crazy and guilty for that. I've come to understand with time that was a normal reaction to having to live with a new normal." Thank you so much for texting in. Let's take a call from Sandra on line nine, and she's calling from Brooklyn. Hi, Sandra.

Sandra: Hi, Alison. So excited to see you back. Welcome back.

Alison Stewart: Thank you.

Sandra: I'm a longtime listener. This is my first-time call. I am calling as the mother of a 17 year old. Four years ago, right before the COVID shutdown, she too had an unexpected kind of stroke. She basically had an unknown AVM. It ruptured, and she had a craniotomy to remove a massive blood clot. She ended up at NYU Rusk rehab for about five to six weeks for intensive inpatient rehabilitation. What I've learned from that and what she has learned is to just take things slowly.

I used to be one of these people who had to plan out the year, and I'm like, "Okay, I'll plan out the week [chuckles] [unintelligible 00:09:57] and be as flexible as I can.

She was lucky to recover a lot. She had all forms of therapy at Rusk, OT, PT, speech, and continued, and only four years later this past spring has stopped, phased out of that. I find, in our culture, we really privilege speed, and we need to slow down. It's okay to slow down, and to tell a 13-year-old teen over the past four years, "It's okay to slow down," and teenagers aren't prone to that. I did want to raise an important point about Rusk Rehab, rehabilitation. They're amazing. The staff, nurses, all the physical therapists, speech therapists, just amazing.

She was there right before the shutdown, and Rusk Rehab had the only inpatient pediatric unit for rehabilitation for children who needed intensive rehabilitation, and they closed during COVID to make room for all the COVID patients. Since then, New York City has not reopened an inpatient rehab-- [crosstalk]

Alison Stewart: You know what? I'm going to take you-- Sandra, I appreciate the point you're making, and I appreciate the point that you're making about rehab and how it really helped your child. Thank you so much. We really, really appreciate it. You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Kate Hinds in studio.

Alison Stewart: By the way. I want to say thank you for hosting the show, Kate, along with Tiffany Hansen, David Furst, and Matt Katz, and the big McGill. [laughs]

Kate Hinds: Kousha Navidar, who's done a great job.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for sitting in. He's going to help us out throughout the summer because according to Sandra, I'm going to take it slow. I'm going to do the first half of the week, sleep the rest of the week, and Kousha is going to be back on Thursdays and Fridays. Also, thanks to team All of It.

Kate Hinds: They were invaluable. We just wanted to keep the show going in your absence, Alison. Big shoes to fill.

Alison Stewart: There you go. Should we try to take one more call?

Kate Hinds: Yes, let's go for it.

Alison Stewart: All right. Let's try Elizabeth from Hastings on line eight.

Elizabeth: Hi, this is Elizabeth. I just want to thank you, first of all, for your courage and frankness in speaking about what happened to you. I was in tears listening, and I was also afraid to listen. I respect you tremendously for the books you choose and the energy you bring to the show. I experienced something when my husband was 56. He died of bilateral pulmonary embolism-

Alison Stewart: I'm sorry.

Elizabeth: - from a fairly routine back surgery, and that changed my life. I always thought of us as a team. It was listening to people like you who told stories of things you just can't imagine that helped me through it. I'm a college english professor, so that helped too, like reading a lot, but just people just sitting and not saying much but just showing that they were there. It's unspeakable what you went through. My sister was born prematurely, and she has aphasia her whole life, so I understand a little bit of what that must be for a person.

I'm deeply, deeply moved by it. I'm so glad you're back, so thank you.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling in. Yes. The aphasia is going to be an issue. That's going to be interesting. It's going to sound like audio charades, like, "Oh, boy. Looks like she's trying to find a word. Can she find it?" I will just work my way around that.

Kate Hinds: Yes, and I wanted to ask you, is it helpful when someone supplies a word, like you're struggling for a word and we're like, castle, car, cat, canoe?

Alison Stewart: [laughs] The answer is no. The answer is also I have to learn to find the word myself.

Kate Hinds: Yes. That makes sense.

Alison Stewart: I have to learn to figure out my way around it. I appreciate the-- Here's a go. I can't think of the word. The instinct to step in.

Kate Hinds: Perfect.

Alison Stewart: Okay, good. Here's a text. "Thanks for covering the details on what happened. When I had a TBI, I had to learn to talk again, too. Using mirrors again was actually really hard. Kept hitting myself in the head with a brush, so keep covering all of this." Thanks so much. "In 2018, I had to have major brain surgery to remove--" I can't say this word. "It revived my whole life. I spent three weeks in the hospital doing recovery. Just want to say thank you for sharing your story. Every time I learn of someone else who has been through something comparable, I am grateful."

Yes, it is really great to hear people's stories, to hear other people going through the same sort of situation that I am. I mean, I'm lucky. I have insurance. I have a group of friends who are supportive. I mean, I know that. I know that, and I'm aware of that, but it is really nice to hear these stories.

Kate Hinds: It really is. It's how you get through.

Alison Stewart: All right, so we got 30 seconds. What should we talk about?

Kate Hinds: [laughs] What you missed while you were out?

Alison Stewart: Sure. What did I miss?

Kate Hinds: [laughs] Well, we took down some dining sheds.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's true. When I went outside, I was like, "Hello, where'd it go?"

Kate Hinds: President Biden's really old, and people are worried about it.

Alison Stewart: Yes, yes, I respect somebody who has a thought in their head and can't quite get it out. That's all I'm going to say there.

Kate Hinds: There you go. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Hey, I got a promo. Ready? Thanks for coming in, Kate. Coming up, author and journalist Sebastian Junger. A few years ago, he nearly died from a ruptured aneurysm. What happened to his body was shocking, but what happened to his mind really rocked his world. He writes about that experience in his new memoir, In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife. That's next, right after the news headlines.

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