She became very quiet and withdrawn, while my brother went into saviour mode and wanted to do many things but yet, did not know how. I would record messages for friends, and they would record messages and send them back to me. The day of the stroke was fairly typical for me - a Sunday in November 2011. A year has passed and Lotje is at a Cognitive Communication conference, speaking to anaudience of therapists, sharing with them her experience. JOIN NOW Executive producer David Lynch played a pivotal role in Lotje Sodderland's recovery, as explained in this documentary. It is run by a team of dedicated speech therapist volunteers. I do really live in the present, which is something that a lot of people aspire to, but for me, has happened as a result of the brain damage. She is able to understand others and, for the most part, she can speak but she is often unable to find the right words, although they are often on the tip of her tongue. A formidable Baltic nurse ripped the metal staples from my blood-caked scar. Telling the story of a Hollywood fixer struggling to keep A-listers in line, it has a movie within a movie, an amazing cast, and, judging by the first trailer, some luxurious visuals, Comic book superhero movies have been getting slowly more self-referential and self-parodic lately, and Deadpool looks to be taking itself even less seriously than Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man. A white name tag was strapped around my wrist. My Beautiful Broken Brain is an intensely personal story of a 34 year old woman, Lotje Sodderland, who documented through film her 1-year journey of recovery from hemorrhagic stroke, which resulted in Aphasia. He basically said how excited he was by my brain. Sky High: The Series After suffering a stroke at age 34, a woman documents her struggles, setbacks and eventual breakthrough as she relearns to speak, read and write. I was really moved. Lotje: Im really fortunate to be born with an optimistic personality, and that really helped me as I kept thinking that everything was going to be OK and that the illness is actually not terrible. Things change constantly for everybody. This year, I told my husband that I have a new goal I want to be able to argue with him. I'd lost the ability to retain information so I wanted to record this new and terrifying place I'd found myself in. Lotje is asked to read words from a screen while the TMS is stimulating regions of her brain throughher skull in the hope that the brain would be able to find new pathways between her visual and language areas. Iyearned for solitude. This is a touchingpersonal story of learning to live with a new self, makinga newlife plan, and the enormous strength and optimism that it takes to achieve this feat. My family and friends knew that I was going to be different after the stroke and they accepted me. Speech therapist Goh Huai Zhi shares his understanding of the brain and insights on aphasia recovery. Her friends describe her as someone impassioned, who was busy multitasking, writing films, writing in general, always readingthick books, someone very articulate. When we first see Sodderland in the riveting new Netflix documentary My Beautiful Broken Brain (premiering Friday after a run at SXSW), shes recording herself on her iPhone in the hospital shortly after regaining consciousness. This might well be Jason Bourne's last outing, so I hope they send him off in style, Harley Quinn was one of the most popular Halloween costumes this year, despite the holiday falling months before the release of the film she's in. Here she meets scientists using technology to repair "broken" brains. You see what happens in the film. I gazed at the night sky and remembered my old life of freedom and adventure. To make sense of what had happened, the former film producer documented her feelings and experiences with her therapies, physiological changes and a newly acquired communication disorder called aphasia through video clips that were turned into a full-length feature film called My Beautiful Broken Brain. Tom Hanks is your guy. After two days in an induced coma, with emergency surgery to my parietal and temporal lobes, the parts of my brain wherelanguage and perception are housed, I woke up in aworld I didnt recognise. Even doing supposedly normal tasks like making a cup of tea or using a cash machine just seemed to have no coherent structure, or logic, for me. She woke up in her east London flat with a blinding headache and in a state of frightening confusion. I really enjoy words, and I always loved writing. Lotje improves, she can now speak fairly fluently. Photo: Eric Charbonneau / Courtesy of Netflix. I spent a long time constructing a message, and recording what I felt. I looked around and saw patients in various states of disablement: some were comatose, some were talking to themselves; one, a GuillainBarr syndrome survivor, lay in bed reading. They had set themselves a goal: by Christmas, they would have taught me to write a shopping list, and to read Simpkin, by Quentin Blake, my three-year-old niece Matildas favourite book. We sent that link through his agent, and other means of contact. We'll find out in September with Antoine Fuqua's remake of 1960's The Magnificent Seven. Aphasia SG is a not-for-profit organisation supporting persons with aphasia and their caregivers. First of all, something terrible has happened. He started explaining that Lotje had started filming herself and would I come and meet her? Currently working with Film4, Lotje is in development on her first feature. She is struggling more with finding words again. Youve expanded, he said. Then one night she woke up with a pounding headache; stumbled out of her apartment, where she lived alone; and came to days later in the hospital. There's also thought to be a very meta all-male version in the works from the creators of Jump Street, set in the same universe as Men In Black no less, If you thought Abrams' Star Trek films were bad, feast your eyes on the trailer for the next one from the director of the Fast & Furious franchise. I did something that I normally never do, which is: I took a camera with me. Filmmaker Lotje Sodderland documents her recovery process from the hemorrhagic stroke she had at 34 and the new life she builds in the aftermath. And then he came on board as our executive producer, which was obviously brilliant. The extraordinary documentary takes you on a journey inside Sodderland's mind, using special effects to recreate the distorted vision she experienced as a side-effect of the stroke and the pulsating colours and strange visuals that became her new normal. I began to use Siri on my iPhone, to listen to what I was writing, and it felt great. Now, he says, I dont interact with people in the same way, that I have become introspective. The comfort of unconsciousness threatened to pull me under, but instead I took my handbag and walked out of the door. Imanaged to call him and he found mefive minutes later, crouching on the floor outside myflat. When the stroke happened, I forgot his name. Used to solving problems and travelling the world, she suddenly couldnt understand how to get out of her flat to ask for help. I am very fortunate that my friends and family are very loving and supportive. The last three years have seen a series of milestones the first holiday, the first solo trip. This prompts her to enroll in an experimental therapy that uses Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) a non-invasive methodto stimulate a small part of the brain through magnetically induced electric currents. Nothing made any sense, everything was beautiful but it was frightening, it was backward, there was no kind of linear logic to it. "He knows about the non-linear narratives and the subtle relationship between the mundane and the surreal." HAPPINESS INITIATIVE SINGAPORE. It was a dreary Sunday in November 2011. She collapses in the hotel bathroom and her memories of the evening end there. At Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Mr Tan was further dismayed to learn that his wifes condition was diagnosed as a drug overdose and possible suicide attempt. In the middle of the night, I had a crushing headache that took over my entire body and mind. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Im grateful to have learnt so much more about the challenges of being human - so early on. David Lynch plays an interesting role in this narrative. The therapy isnt easy, it seems to her that it will take forever to improve. Lotje: When I fell ill, it was a huge shock to everybody as it was such a radical and massive transformation overnight. Thedrugs numbed my brain, but I was paranoid and panicked. JOIN NOW Executive producer David Lynch played a pivotal role in Lotje Sodderland's recovery, as explained in this documentary. Two months after the stroke, my brother took me to a nearby hospital to be assessed for eligibility. It is run by a team of dedicated speech therapist volunteers. The latest fashion news, beauty coverage, celebrity style, fashion week updates, culture reviews, and videos on Vogue.com. A language therapist asked me to write down a story idea, and then to tell her the story using my written notes to guide me. I struggled to find the logic in a toothbrush, or the system that goes with the washing of hair, even though I knew (without really understanding) that these behaviours were a necessary part of human life. The hospitals language therapist had promised to get me discharged as soon as possible, assuming I was eager to go home. Q: What kind of negative feelings arose during your recovery, and how did you manage or overcome them? This was a very dramatic change and it happened very suddenly, but you have to accept that change is part of life. Lotje Sodderland is known for My Beautiful Broken Brain (2014), Limbo (2021) and Can You Rebuild My Brain? But I used diagrams and drawings and eventually he understood. Its about having to rethink your life halfway through, and that can happen to any of us. The timetable was strictly regimented: psychotherapy, neuropsychology, occupational therapy, language therapy and physiotherapy. My Beautiful Broken Brain aired on Netflix on March 18, 2016. Its like, Okay, Im never going to be the same as I was before, but then nobody is. I was filled with faith that this was going to work, and was prepared to overlook the gruelling downsides, including the discomfort of the daily currents andthe punishing, repetitive boredom. She had finished that bottle some time ago and kept it as a reminder to get a new one on our next trip to Malaysia.. At first, my writing looked like a childs. And so began my new life. In her black hoodie with scraped-back hair, winking to her cameraphone and giving a thumbs up, Lotje Sodderland looks like any young woman making a video of herself to send to a friend. Wed had one meeting, and she really stuck in my mind. He knows putting his name on it would help us in terms of getting the film recognized. I wondered if these women might be able to help me with the more pressing issue of my sanity. I'm not able to work to the same level, and multi-task,as I did before. And shes an engaging, lovely, warm person. But underneath the hoodie is a blood-caked scar from brain surgery. Five years ago, one of those people. My occupational therapist, a kind and patient woman and self-proclaimed luddite, helped me relearn how to use my laptop, and suddenly, to my surprise, my body remembered how to touch-type. And some risks are worth it. I knew who I was, and I recognised my mother and brother -but I didnt know anything else. A WORLD WITHOUT WORDS. Sodderland still struggles to read and write and has had to accept the differences in her new life. Then reality hits. Please, Lotje Sodderland thought her brain damage meant the end of her love life. When youre in hospital and youre being constantly assessed and measured by how youre limited, what you can no longer do, who you no longer are, its very painful. The turning point came when she began to discover what she calls her core identity: a deep-rooted sense of self that persists even when all external markerscareer, romance, friendshipsare under siege. 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