Why My Brain is an A**hole — Part 1: Living With Mental Illness After a Stroke

This is the episode most people wouldn’t have the courage to record. Kristen Toepfer has never been most people.In this raw and deeply personal episode, Kristen pulls back the curtain on something that doesn’t get talked about enough in the stroke recovery world — the mental health battle that can come after surviving a brain injury. For Kristen, that battle hit hard. Earlier this year she found herself in and out of inpatient psychiatric care, experiencing paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations so vivid she couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. She called the police on herself. She called ambulances. She was that scared.Kristen opens up about being diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder — a condition that affects only 0.3% of the population — and how the scar tissue from her eight brain surgeries, combined with her longstanding bipolar disorder and a period of painful isolation, created a perfect storm that led to a full nervous breakdown. She explains what schizoaffective disorder actually means, what hallucinations and delusions really feel like from the inside — nothing like the movies — and why the medication that helps her stay stable is something she will never stop taking.She also talks about bipolar disorder — she was first diagnosed at 14 years old — and what it actually looks like to live with Bipolar 1. Not the dramatic mood-swing version people imagine, but the reality of cycling through months of highs and months of lows, and learning to watch your own routine as an early warning system before things go sideways.This episode is for every stroke survivor who has felt their mental health unraveling and didn’t know why. It’s for every family member who watched someone they love disappear into paranoia and had no idea what to do. And it’s for anyone who has ever been too ashamed to ask for help.Kristen asked for help. And she’s here to tell you that you can too.Subscribe, share, and follow Kristen’s journey at kristentoepfer.comJoin Kristen and cohost Billy Montana for monthly episodes filled with advocacy, education, and inspiring conversations.Together, let's raise awareness for stroke and aphasia and support each other on the journey to recovery.http://kristentoepfer.com