Transcription
I'm a two-time stroke survivor who had very unexpected strokes at the age of 46 and 47. Otherwise, a very healthy woman in the prime of her career. My career was going like gang busters. I was in corporate communications and PR, and everything was going swimmingly until I woke up one morning and couldn't get out of bed. It was such a huge surprise to me. I, I didn't expect to be having a stroke because I'd never had a health issue in my life, really. And so I had to deal with having surgery to remove the clots that were in my brain, and then recovering from a stroke, and having to battle post-stroke anxiety and post-stroke depression.
Welcome to the Wheel With It podcast with your host, Devin. Let's get into the episode.
Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of Wheel With It. I am your host, Devin readers, and today we have Angie Reed on the podcast. Angie Reed was such a delight to talk to. She's a two-time stroke survivor and had a lot of mental health issues that went along with that. I'll let her tell you about it in the episode. She was a delight to talk to, and oh my gosh, you guys are going to love this one. We geek out about Prince near the end. You guys are going to love this one. So here's my conversation with Angie Weed.
Hello, welcome to another episode of Wheel With It. Today we have Angie Weed on the podcast today. How are you today, Angie?
I'm doing great today. Thanks for asking. How are you?
Good. So tell us about yourself, and then we'll get started.
I'm a two-time stroke survivor who had very unexpected strokes at the age of 46 and 47. Otherwise, a very healthy woman in the prime of her career. My career was going like gang busters. I was in corporate communications and PR, and everything was going swimmingly until I woke up one morning and couldn't get out of bed. It was such a huge surprise to me. I, I didn't expect to be having a stroke because I'd never had a health issue in my life, really. And so I had to deal with having surgery to remove the clots that were in my brain, and then recovering from a stroke, and having to battle post-stroke anxiety and post-stroke depression.
Which are two very common conditions among stroke survivors, but there's not a lot of help or resources out there about having post-stroke anxiety or post-stroke depression. So when they hit me, they really hit me like a ton of bricks and set me way back in my recovery because I wasn't expecting it. I had recovered physically very quickly, but mentally, I was just hitting rock bottom when I tried to go back to work and I was pushing myself to the point of exhaustion, to the point of really questioning who I was, not being able to understand what was happening to me, and really losing all sense of control over my life. To where I had to be hospitalized for post-stroke anxiety and post-stroke depression. They became very disruptive to my life and completely debilitating to where one night I almost actually took my own life.
Oh gosh, I'm, I'm sorry to hear that. Can you tell us, like, what that was like, the night that you, as much as you're comfortable with, the night that you almost took your life?
Yeah, it was a very scary, very dark night. I've always been a very positive person, like glass half full, very bubbly, like positive, happy personality. And once I had my stroke, all of that vanished and something changed in my brain. My brain was no longer the same. And the night that I considered taking my life, I really was in so much pain, physical pain, mental pain and anguish, and I didn't know how to stop it. I didn't know, really, what was next for me, if anything, because I felt like this was going to be my life from then on.
I also, when you're at that moment where your brain is lying to you and telling you that the world would be better off without you and that you're a burden, it makes you think about everything. It makes you think about your kids. I have three kids. They weren't grown at the time because this was like seven years ago, but they were not babies either. My youngest was, I think, going into seventh grade, and my oldest was going into college. So I, of course, I thought about them that night. I thought about my family, my parents, my husband, my sisters, everybody, my friends. But honestly, at the time, your brain is lying to you, telling you everyone would be better off without you, that you are a pain, you are a burden, everyone would be better off without you. But there was just this little nagging voice in the back of my head that just kept saying, "This is not your legacy. This is not the legacy you're supposed to leave behind, Angie." And I think that's what stopped me from taking all my pills because I was going to just take all my medication and be done with it. I just wanted the pain to end. But luckily, something stopped me and I didn't go through with that. And now I can live to tell the tale of how to overcome that and what it took me to get through and rise above that.
So, yeah, that's really like scary. And I went through a really scary time where I don't want to get too into it here, but I went through a really scary time where basically I didn't cut myself, but we had these like one scares in our kitchen drawer. And I was like drawing on my skin with the wind skewers. And I don't want to get too much into like, clet, whatever. But my mom was like, "What are you doing?" And I told, like, and I think I told her what I was doing. She even asked. And my mom, "You need to talk to your therapist about that." And so then we had to like work through all the stuff. And yeah, it was, it's terrifying when you do that. But and I'm still working through stuff now, but it's terrifying when you're in those moments.
Yes, very scary. Nothing more terrifying than that, honestly. Yeah, I wish I could describe to people who've never been that low mentally, what that was like, but I don't think you can.
Do you know what caused the stroke?
It was, for me, it was a little bit of a mystery because I did not have the main risk factors, which are high cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, family history of stroke. I didn't have any of that stuff. So it came to a process of elimination. They think it was probably a combination of birth control pill, and I have high factor 8, which is a clotting protein in the blood. When you're low in factor 8, you can be a hemophiliac, which means you can bleed out very easily. I guess if you're high in factor 8, you can get clots. But typically, those clots are like, remain in the legs. But for me, I don't know. They think it was a combination of birth control pills, maybe the high factor 8, and then probably also because I've always been a migraine sufferer my whole life. And if you have migraine with aura, and with aura means there's some kind of telltale sign that a stroke is coming on. With me, my aura was a blind spot. I'd get my eyes.
What's that? A migraine, you mean? Not a stroke?
A migraine. They, I've always had migraines my whole life. So they think that the fact that I was a migraine with aura sufferer, plus on birth control pills, plus having high factor 8, that those things combined probably caused the stroke. Sometimes you never know exactly what caused a stroke. I just know I had two clots in my, one in my brain and one in my neck, and that's what they think probably caused it, the combination of those three.
Yeah. So tell me, like, what your recovery process was like?
I was really lucky. And that's another message I like to share is the sooner you spot a stroke, the sooner the sufferer can get in and get treatment. And the sooner you get treatment, the more likely you will be to recover. So because it was my husband acted so quickly and called 911 so quickly, I didn't have very far to go physically to recover. I had lost everything on the left side of my body. This was all paralyzed for about an hour or so. And then once I had clot removal surgery, I could start to move again. But it took a couple of months. I would say it was like seven straight weeks of almost daily rehab. There was physical rehab, occupational rehab, and speech rehab to get everything back. And to really, I focused a lot on my face and getting my face back to normal because I had the drooping left side of the face.
For those of us who haven't been in it since we were six months and whatever old and that haven't been in it at all, tell, tell the audience. I know I too well, but tell the audience what we have. For me, it was outpatient rehab. So I wasn't inpatient in a hospital, but a lot of people after a stroke have to be inpatient for rehab at the hospital. In the very early days, what that looked like was a physical therapist coming to my hospital room when I was still in the hospital, wrapping a gait belt around me, putting a belt around me that she would hold onto. So, um, that's so they put it around your waist and that's so in case you start to fall, they can just yank the belt and get you. Because I, I walked, I veered to the left for a while when I was learning how to walk again. It was a lot of, mine was occupational therapy. So once I got into that, it was like fine motor skills development, almost like playing children's games, like with the little pegs that you put the board and take in and take out.
That is my favorite test of every time I go to a therapy because it's like a whole game I play with myself. Can I beat my tongue? Yeah. It's, it's funny because I had to do this Dino Vision light board. I don't know if you ever had to do that. But the lights will flash and they're all, they're up and down and into the side, and you have to touch on the board when the lights flash. So it shows your peripheral vision, it shows your quickness to respond. And then it's all computerized. So I would always go in there and try to beat my last score every time. And it was motivating. When you're in rehab, your number one job, your number one goal is to graduate from rehab, to be well enough to go back to your life, to your daily life. And it was humbling because it wasn't as quick as I thought it should be. I was still very quick for seven and a half weeks. And I felt like I was physically recovered. I didn't have to walk with a cane anymore. I didn't have to, I could use my hand, my left hand, I could talk, I could walk. I was very lucky.
Yeah, that's incredible that you did that. So you got out so physically unscathed. But tell me about your post-stroke anxiety and depression.
So when I'd been back to, I went back to work very quickly in a high-pressured advertising marketing agency. And I was expected to immediately jump back in and be at 100%. I didn't look like I'd had a stroke. So it was hard for me to even recognize that I'd had a stroke. It's okay, I'm back to work, time to be back to 100% Angie and kick ass, you know, at what I did in my career. Because I did pride myself a lot on my success in my career. I, in fact, right before my stroke, I had just written my first book and sent it off to the publisher. It was called Marketing to Gen Z. And when I got back from having the stroke, the book had come back from the publisher with some minor edits that they wanted me to make. And then I had to go back and proof a bunch of things through the book and make sure all the footnotes and endnotes were correct. And honestly, it was because I was starting to have anxiety and depression and didn't know it at the time. I was unable to really concentrate on the book and really focus in on the changes that needed to be made. And like, even the words on the page would sometimes become jumbled. And I blamed it on the stroke. I thought I had, I thought I had irreversible like brain damage and something was wrong with my brain. But and then I would wake up in the morning just feeling this horrible pressure on my chest, like I was going to have a heart attack. That's what anxiety feels like. It's like you're on the brink of a heart attack every second of every day. And I didn't realize it. I thought I was putting the pressure on myself because I went back to work and I was trying to, I was trying to edit my book and I was trying to go back to work at 100% and I just couldn't. And then the depression, in the beginning, I, I blamed my depressed mood on the fact that my oldest son had just gone off to college. Every mother feels that when their oldest or when any of their children go away to college, even though my son was only a 30-minute drive from home.
Yes, even though my dad jokes on me, I can't wait till you get out of the house because I still live with my parents because of my disability. Like I cannot imagine like how they're going to like worry to death about me when I get my own apartment. But I'm like, got to happen sometimes. Yeah. And the depression for me, I know a lot of people when they're depressed, they cry all the time or can't seem to find joy in anything. For me, it really felt like just nothing. It felt like I was nothing. I had no emotional response, period. I was just flat. It felt like I was flatlined emotionally. I didn't have any inflection in my voice. I didn't care one way or the other what happened to me. I couldn't find joy in anything. And to me, having been a very happy, very upbeat person my whole life, to go from that to basically nothing, like flatlined personality, was just such a night and day experience. And it made no sense. It made no sense at all. I didn't know who I was or what was happening to me. But I knew the stroke had caused it because it immediately changed. Like after my stroke, and my first neurologist after my stroke told me was psychological, not neurological, and that he couldn't help me. But I was so desperate at that time. I needed answers. I needed to know what was happening to me. And I finally, I found a neurologist after a series of events. I found another neurologist who basically told me, "Absolutely, Angie. Of course, 100% your stroke caused your anxiety and depression. In fact, up to 50% of stroke survivors will have post-stroke anxiety and post-stroke depression. So it is not your fault. It is caused by the stroke. It's not just psychological." And it didn't take the issues away, but it gave me an answer. And once I have an answer, then I can find the solution to figure out how to move forward. And so it was just hearing that, "Yes, your stroke caused that," helped me get over the hump and stop blaming myself because I just felt like I was too weak to handle life and too weak to handle my issues. And for me, that was like unacceptable. I couldn't accept that about myself. I couldn't accept weakness in myself, which is sad.
What made you decide to seek inpatient help? And what was it like being in the facility?
So in the beginning, I wasn't seeking inpatient help. I was seeking just whatever mental health help I could get to get out of crisis. My psychiatrist recommended I go in and be evaluated for a potential intensive outpatient program. It's called IOP. And most mental health facilities or therapy therapists will recommend or have IOPs that they offer to patients. So I went in one day to be evaluated. And apparently, I flunked the evaluation. Said, "We need to admit you to, we need to admit you right away." Because I was in crisis mode. When you're in crisis mode, meaning you are suicidal, you have thought about it, you have a plan for it, they have to take immediate action. So they admitted me. At the time, I thought because I wasn't sleeping and I wasn't eating, which were also two byproducts of my stroke, horrible insomnia and just nothing tasted right. And those two, I thought those two things were what were causing my anxiety and depression, especially when you can't sleep at all, that's a form of torture. And so I thought going, I, I was like relieved that they were going to admit me to an inpatient program because I thought, "They'll be able to give me medication to help me sleep fine." And I thought I would get the rest I needed. But I was wrong.
Yeah, because I had a period where I didn't sleep. And I've been diagnosed with anxiety since I was 16. And when it was really bad, like right before I got our medication when I was 16, like I was not sleeping at all. And then that made it worse. Yeah. Oh, I'll get on some medication, get some sleep, it'll be over. And no. Yeah, medication, I ended up finally getting medication to help me sleep. But it wasn't an inpatient. It wasn't when I was an inpatient. They started prescribing things, but nothing could really knock out my insomnia right away. And that's what I was seeking most. I just wanted to sleep. I just wanted to sleep away the pain. Luckily, we found a medicine, like, first shot that works for my insomnia. And it's an as-needed medication. And I literally haven't taken it in years. And even when I do need something to sleep, I prefer Benadryl because that other medic has gives you crazy headaches. I'm like, I don't feel like dealing with all that. But yeah, it, it was.
How was your first full night's sleep?
It was glorious. I think my first full night's sleep, I slept 12 hours. And I thought, "Oh my God, I'm a new person." I felt like a brand new person. I felt, I remember that morning waking up, going, "Oh my God, sleep. Thank God." I felt like I was like, I felt a newborn baby, like having just come out of my my mother. There's wo or something. It was so good. It was like, yeah, there's nothing better than a great night's sleep, especially when you've had insomnia for months. And it's just, there was nothing like it. I could barely explain it. It was so awesome.
Yeah. And what was it like being in the facility? What kind of things? They, yeah.
And I don't want, I didn't have the best experience. I don't want to put anybody off of it because most of the people that are in inpatient facilities need to be there. It's crisis mitigation. But being inpatient at a mental health facility is not meant to cure you. You're not going to leave there having all the answers, being completely cured of your issues. It's really to get you through the crisis, to get you through the immediate crisis, and then to try to set you up for success when once you leave. So they try to help you find a psychiatrist or a therapist that you can meet with regularly. They try to make sure you're set up with any medications you might need. And then most of them try to transition you into their intensive outpatient program, so that they see you at least three days a week with some pretty intensive therapy. I ended up doing a, a different intensive outpatient therapy program. My sisters had done a bunch of research and found this place in town that they thought I would like. And they were right. It was fantastic for me. I really wanted to get away from the hospital setting or the mental facility setting and being more of just like a therapist's office office. For something I didn't like feeling like I was a mental patient. And I think I struggled with the, I struggled with some of the stigma that's included in it. But now I tell everyone, "Yes, I will probably need psych meds for the rest of my life, and that's okay. I don't care. I will take them gladly if they keep me from having mental health issues again, because there's nothing worse. There's nothing worse."
Do you mind me asking what you're on? And we can cut it out of the pod if you're not comfortable.
I'm happy to tell you. I just want any of your listeners to realize that every medic, you will respond differently to every medication, and it has to be prescribed by your psychiatrist in conjunction with working through what your issues are. Mine, it finally took Rron, which is the generic is called Mirtazapine. It's also a medication that helps you sleep and helps you eat because at the time I wasn't eating and sleeping. When I, when he first prescribed that to me, and then it backfired because it worked so well that I started sleeping so well, and then I started eating everything in sight, and I ended up gaining like 80 pounds. It was horrible. I lost that eventually or have been losing that. I'm going on that again because when I gain weight, I can't lose it because I don't move around as much. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. And then I'm also on Trazodone. And so that's for sleep and depression. And I, it wasn't the Rron alone was not going to get me to sleep. And it was Trazodone. First, I started at 50 milligrams, then they bumped me up to 100, and then 150. And even at 150 milligrams, I wasn't sleeping. So they bumped me up to 200 milligrams of Trazodone. And that's what I, yeah, yeah, it knocks me out. And then I'm also on Zoloft. Because at one point, I'd been on Xanax for as needed anxiety. But I felt like I needed it every day. And then my neurologist said, "Hey, Xanax is not great for stroke survivors. It can impede stroke recovery in the brain." She said, "So I recommend that you have your psychiatrist switch you to something in the Zoloft family."
You learned so many just crazy strange things. Yeah. I didn't even know that it could impede stroke recovery.
I didn't either. And my psychiatrist, who was fabulous, didn't know that either and was eager to move me over to Zoloft once my neurologist recommended it. But I'll tell you, during that time of experimentation, trying to figure out the right medications for me, I tried Wellbutrin, I tried Trintellix. I had been on Celexa before my stroke, and it became irrelevant after my stroke. It didn't do a damn thing for me because my brain chemistry had changed. And I also tried Cymbalta. It felt like I had tried just so many different things that kept giving me horrible side effects and were not knocking down the anxiety and depression because once you start getting side effects, it can increase your anxiety and depression that you have because you're having side effects. And then so I felt like a pin cushion for a while. Felt like a medical experiment for a while. It, it's not always a one and done. It takes some trial and error to get the right medication for you because I think my psychiatrist re, um, has said, really, each medication will probably only work in 30% of the population. So it's really a kind of a trial and error until you can get the one that works for you. And also, it's not just medication. It's not just the medication that will help you get better. You also have to put in the work. The medication will get you so far, but your determination and your state of mind, your, sorry, your mental and emotional state and resilience will get you the rest of the way. So that your, your medication can only do so much. You can't just only rely on taking a pill to feel better.
Yeah. And that's, uh, what you talk about in the book. You talk so much about why we need to be resilient and different mindsets. And I'm really enjoying the book so far.
Oh, good. Great. I'm glad. It's called Rise: Mastering the Art of Resilience. And it's my fourth book that I've written since my stroke. It's, it's funny because everybody kept saying how resilient I was and saying, "Oh, you're the most resilient person I've ever met," and things like that. And it used to really make me mad because you're only resilient because you're forced to be. Resilience became a buzzword during the pandemic, how resilient we all were in the face of this pandemic. And that's true. And that's true. And I think for me, I finally just had to embrace the word and say, "It's meant as a compliment." Yes, I had to go through some crap to get here, but yes, I am resilient because I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm moving forward with purpose. I'm out of the dark place. I was able to help myself get out of that dark place. And I know that it's possible for others as well. And so I, I don't want other stroke survivors to ever feel like they have to take their own life because stroke survivors are at a higher risk of suicide than the general population. And that's just devastating, honestly. You go through this horrible health crisis, and many times it leaves you majorly with a major disability, and that's going to affect your mindset and obviously affect your mental health. But we have to get out in front of it and start talking about these issues and making sure stroke survivors know there are resources out there to help them and that they're not alone.
Yeah, that's really powerful. You said, so when you were released from the mental health facility, what kind of steps did you take to make sure that, like, your mental health was good?
Yeah, very good question. I had to start seeking pretty, like I told you, I enrolled in an intensive outpatient program that was designed for anxiety and depression, mostly anxiety. But and then I was also going to one-on-one therapy. And through the, the IOP as well as my individual therapy, I learned what I call my mental health hacks, which is just easy things that you can do, anybody can do to manage their mental health. And it's crazy now when I look back that I fought against some of these things. Like my therapist told me I should start journaling. And I just have never been.
Oh my God, this is a good segue. Have you heard of Kurt Thompson?
Not, it's not ringing a bell.
We have to look him up. He's basically a Christian psychiatrist, Christian physician that studies the intersection of the Bible and how the brain works. And I know we have people of all faiths that listen to this, but no matter what you believe, he is a brilliant man. I just discovered him like a few months ago. And he has a podcast called The Being Known Podcast. And they have you do an, every therapist, said everything therapist that I've ever had said, "Why don't you journal?" Why? I'm like, "I'm not a journaler. I'm not a journalist. Like, I don't do it." And I guess because I'm definitely afraid somebody's gonna find it. I don't know. I told my parents everything, so I'm like, why would they be afraid to find it? But I'm definitely scared it's going to fall into the wrong hands and I don't know, it's going to end up like, alll somewhere or something. So, um, I know that's an irrational fear, but that's, but anyway, they have these at the end of every episode, they have these applications that you can do. And it's basically, ask, give you prompts or ask you questions, like, "Think of a time when this," or like, "Write about a time with this," or "What did this teach you?" or whatever. And I've been doing it. A little bit of a difference. I've been doing them for the past few weeks. And I noticed a little bit of a difference. I'm like, "Okay, maybe I should, maybe there is something to this." But anyway, there definitely.
And I was the same way. I've never been one to journal. And because part of the problem is that I'm a perfectionist. And I've been in writing for my entire career, so I'm very particular about spelling and punctuation and grammar. And when I just freestyle write, sometimes I'm like, "Ah, I didn't say that." And I, I self-edit and I get very, get very judgmental of myself and how I'm writing my thoughts. But I don't just freestyle write. I like that you have these prompts that you're talking about. The prompts that get you going, that get you thinking.
Prompts are very helpful. The way I journal is I write down what I'm grateful for. So it's not, I don't necessarily call it my gratitude journal, but I do write down 10 things I'm grateful for every single day. And then I also write down 10 self-affirmation statements or "I am" statements to help my brain, just to train my brain to get more, more positivity and positive reinforcement. And for me, journaling, sometimes I'll write about my concerns or what's troubling me, but most of the time, I just write my gratitudes and my, my "I am" statements. And, um, that's about enough for me. But there's something about slowing down and taking the time to write something down in a book. And I'm not talking about digital journaling, which some people love. But there's something scientifically proven about the hand-to-paper action that slows down your brain, slows your brain from the constant hamster wheel of anxiety and depression. There's just something about it that's helpful. I resisted journaling for a very long time until I finally was forced to and realized in very short order that it was super helpful. And that as long as I don't judge myself, as long as I'm not self-editing. So now I have to make it so that I don't edit myself. I can't go back and cross out words. I'm stop, just get it written. Don't get it right, just get it out of your head. That's the whole point. Get it out of your head on the paper. And don't think about somebody else reading it.
I, the thing is, a lot of people like to go back to their journals and you can start to see some patterns and get some cues as to what your triggers are based on what you're journaling. I don't like to go back and read my journals because I don't like to see what I was thinking when it was negative. But it's helpful. No, and I usually only write for the prompt, two sentences for each thing. They're not because I hate journaling so much. I'm more of a verbal processor than a written processor. That's where I have a podcast.
Yeah, that makes sense. And so I was like going back and reading an old one and there was nothing like, I'd be fine with anybody reading that. There's something like, "Ugh, but oh my God, what was doing like?" Yeah. And then a couple of the other ones that I learned ways to manage my own mental health are exercise for sure. Getting out and getting as much exercise as you're able to do. Some people after a stroke are not able to do a lot of physical exercise, but anything that you can do to move your body is important. Also, getting outside, fresh air and sunshine are nature's medicine, really. Are, and grounding. Put your bare feet in the sand or put your bare feet in the grass, really connect your body to the Earth. And there's something so magical about that. It's probably why we feel so good when we go to the beach and we're walking through sand, or just makes you feel like a little kid again if you're barefoot in the grass. It's so helpful for your mental health. Couple of other things are getting into a routine. Getting and keeping a routine are so critical, especially for the anxious mind. Seeks routine because it feels safer. It feels a little bit more predictable. If you, if you stick to your routine, less is up for grabs, less is questionable during your day. It just really helps your mental health.
So long story short, I got laid off from my marketing job last September. And the thing I was most worried about, because I was mindful of the fact that, yeah, I could, my mental health is going to probably falter a little bit here because that's a big blow. But I was most concerned about losing my routine, my daily routine of getting up and going to work. And that 9 to 5 thing just went. I knew that routine is very important for me. So one of the very first things I did was to establish my routine of what I would do during the day versus going to work. Because it's so important. And then I listen to uplifting music every day as I'm getting ready in the morning. It really lifts your frequency and lifts your mood. I, I always tell people, if you're depressed, if you're feeling down in the dumps, don't listen to sad music. It'll bring you down even further. It's clear, we know sad music will make us cry harder. And after a breakup or something like that, sad music makes us feel even sadder. But if we listen to something uplifting, something that makes you happy, it will help start your day off on the right foot and really help lift your mental health.
So I've written a little book. I thought I had a copy of it post by, but I don't. It's called Mental Health Hacks: 10 Easy Hacks to Help Manage Anxiety and Depression. And some of the things I've just mentioned are included in this book. And they're not rocket science. They're pretty easy things. And I'm sure most of us have heard them before, but it's nice to have them in a handy-dandy little booklet that's very easy to read, short. And I did that on purpose because when you're in the middle of a mental health crisis, you do not have the capacity to read a full-length self-help book. Everyone wants to give you self-help books and be, they because they love you and they want you to get through the crisis. But you don't have the capacity to absorb all of that information when you're in crisis.
And oh my gosh, yes, like you don't have. No, please don't hand somebody like a 400-page book. Thank you very much for loving us, but that's not going to help.
Probably not. I can guarantee you it's not. I'm reading one of those now, but I'm not in crisis mode either.
Okay. So can I ask what's on your playlist?
Oh, my music playlist. Yeah. I don't even have a set playlist. But I just, I turn my, um, Spotify to anything Prince related. Because I am a child of the 80s. I grew up in the 80s. And I was a huge, and I still am, a huge Prince fan. So oh my gosh, my dad likes Prince and I love Prince. And yeah, we need to geek out.
Yeah, it's my uplifting. I listen to Raspberry Beret, which is such a like a b-boy song. It's so silly and so not that deep, but it's just, it always has made me feel good ever since I was like 14 years old. I've loved that song. No, I was probably a little bit older than that, but yeah. Yeah, like Prince is so good. Gosh, I'm a music and entertainment buff. I want to be in the industry, obviously, or at least do it as a side hustle. And Prince is just, Prince is just Prince. There's no other Prince. I have never cried over a celebrity death until Prince, before or after him. But I did. I had a big balling session at work the day that I found out he died. And it's still a day that, like, comes around once a year, the anniversary of it, and it still always makes me so sad. Actually, it's so funny, the, it's the 40th anniversary of Purple Rain this year. And The Revolution, so Prince's band, The Revolution, are getting back together to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Purple Rain. And they're performing at First Avenue in Minneapolis, the place where Prince and The Revolution got their start, and where Purple Rain was, where all the concert scenes in Purple Rain is. Incredible. And I got tickets. I got tickets. Yes, I'm going. It's next month. I'm going.
Okay, you have to send like, me. I will give you my, you have my email, right? You have to like, email me pictures. I can give you my number. You have to like, everything must, everything you're comfortable showing me from that. I want to see that. That is crazy.
Yes, absolutely. I'm happy to share. It's gonna be, I can't wait. I just cannot wait. Cannot wait. It won't be the same without Prince headlining or frontlining. But and I hope they don't bring in somebody else to try to sing Prince's parts because nobody could ever compare. But I think it's just going to be an amazing concert.
Do you know who's going to be, like, is there going to be a lead singer or is it just going to be instrumentals or?
Yeah, I don't know. I haven't dug too deep into it. I know Wendy and Lisa are going to be there, part of the band. So it's all the original, I think all the original band members from The Revolution. And a lot of them sang backups. So I think they can probably still sing the songs without Prince and still perform without him. He'll definitely be missed. But I'm not as, I don't follow Prince as much as I do modern artists, obviously. So I don't know, like all of his songs. I only know some of his songs, like Little Red Corvette, Baby I'm a Star, and all those songs. And I don't know all the members of the band. But that sounds amazing. I couldn't pass up the chance. I couldn't pass, had to do it. So worth whatever those tickets cost. So worth it.
So on that note, is there anything else that you want to add before we get off? Is there anything else I want to talk about? Said, is there anything else you want to talk about?
Since I got laid off last September, I've really been focusing on helping other stroke survivors, mostly female stroke survivors, recover and move forward with confidence. Because.
Tell, tell us about that. I'm sorry. Tell us about that.
So I lost all confidence in myself after my stroke. I thought, "There's no way I'll be able to work again. There's no way I'll be successful again. And my brain just doesn't work the same. And so I'm damaged." And I don't know, I just, I had no confidence, especially because I went through so much mental health turmoil. And I lost all my confidence. And going back to work was hard. Going back to work, I was able to do it, but I just didn't find the fulfillment. And it, and I just, it was, it was just not giving me what I, this fulfillment that I used to get out of my career before the stroke. So when I got laid off, I took that as a sign that it's time for me to do something else. It's time for me to use my voice and really help as many other stroke survivors as I can. So I have been writing my books. I think I may be finished with writing books after Rise, but I never say never. But what I've decided to do, I've put my time and effort into becoming a certified life coach so that I can coach other stroke survivors, especially female stroke survivors, through the confidence crisis and the identity crisis that comes along with losing your career and losing who you are in the prime of your life because you had a stroke. And there's no reason why our strokes need to sideline us or rob us of our confidence. And so I've started Legacy Life Coaching, which is coaching primarily, like I said, primarily for female stroke survivors to help them recover their confidence and move forward with purpose.
That's the other thing is I didn't know what my purpose was after my stroke. I felt like I didn't have a purpose. And finding a new purpose is not something that just happens overnight. It's that, what's that passion within you that's going to keep you moving forward and keep you motivated? And it took a very long time for me to find that, probably several years. But really, it was getting laid off from my marketing position back in September that was the, the aha moment for me that, "All right, something is not in alignment in my life right now. So this is a sign from God that I need to do something different." And I've been doing that. And I love that I'm able to help other stroke survivors get through this, um, because they're not alone. And I wish I'd had a guide. I would have paid, I don't know what I would have paid, but it would have been a lot of money to have somebody help me through those dark days. I didn't know, I didn't know where to go for help. I didn't know who to reach out to. There just weren't as many resources. And there still aren't enough resources, but I'm trying to be one of those resources, at least, so stroke survivors know they're not alone.
Yeah, and that's so cool. And where can people find out about that?
So the website is Legacy and it's for her.com. Legacy Coaching For Her.com. And we will put all those links in the show notes so you guys can get to them.
And where can people follow you on social media and do all, all that stuff? And we'll have those links in the show notes as well.
Yeah, I'm not active on Instagram. I know I should be. I just haven't gotten there yet. I feel like I'm overwhelmed trying to keep up with Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. But I have channels on all three. I actually also have a private Facebook group just for female stroke survivors. But that's not where I'll send people. But if you do know a stroke survivor, especially a female stroke survivor, I would love to invite her to my private Facebook group because we talk about the challenges that we're all having and struggling with. And it's just a great community. We keep it very positive and upbeat so that we don't go down a rabbit hole of despair because that's easy to do on your own. You don't need a group to help you do that. Yeah.
So that is cool. We will have all those links in the show notes. And thank you so much for being here. And we will see you guys next episode. Bye guys.
Bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed the show. Remember to follow the show and our guests on social media and subscribe. Be sure to hit the bell so you'll get notified when we upload new episodes. See you next time.