Case Study: The Story of Bridgid Ruden "Overcoming a Severe Traumatic Brain Injury"
Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, EPISODE #130 with a fascinating case study/story of Bridgid Ruden[i], a traumatic brain injury survivor, whose life changed on May 24, 2008 with a bicycle accident that would begin her new life inspiring her book Discovering Your Life’s Purpose: From Tragedy to Triumph[ii], as she now inspires people nationally and internationally with her story of resilience. To watch the interview on YouTube click here. To see the images in the show notes if you are listening on iTunes click here. Welcome back, I'm Andrea Samadi, a former educator who has been fascinated with understanding the science behind high performance strategies in schools, sports, and the workplace for the past 20 years. If you have been listening to our podcast, you will know that we’ve uncovered that if we want to improve our social and emotional skills, and experience success in our work and personal lives, it all begins with an understanding of our brain. Before I give the backstory of Bridgid, and why I think her story is important to share, I want to read you a testimonial from the doctor who saw her first CT scan after her bike accident in 2008. “Bridgid, you are a miracle. I remember as your physician telling you these words as I reviewed your brain CT scan from your initial head injury. I believe that you are unique in your positive approach to your recovery, your dedication to sharing your experience, and your commitment to helping and motivating others to overcome their own life obstacles and adversity. I deeply and sincerely admire your efforts and your positive attitude in dealing with a truly difficult and challenging personal experience so that they can benefit from your experience, wisdom, and wit. Although we sometimes are witness to events that are miraculous, sometime the real miracles are people like you.” -Dr. Andrew G. Lee, MD In this episode, you will learn: ✔︎How a Traumatic Brain Injury can happen (statistics) and Bridgid Ruden’s Story. ✔︎ Who was Bridgid Ruden before the accident and how she used pure determination to re-build her brain and life after her accident on May 24, 2008. ✔︎ What her CT brain scans showed after the injury that led to 4 surgeries. ✔︎How Bridgid rebuilt her brain and life with exercise, nutrition, art, music therapy and laughter. I came to meet Brigid Ruden when she reached out to me through our website[iii] to share her story, and at the time her email came in, I was in the middle of writing the review of Dr. Daniel Amen’s book, The End of Mental Illness on EPISODE #128 where we spoke about Traumatic Brain Injury as one of the brain risk factors of head trauma that Dr. Amen considers to be “the silent epidemic that underlies mental illness.” When I saw her email, I was reading it quickly, and saw the following words-severe traumatic brain injury survivor, healing, education, miracles, author, speaker and reiki therapist, and that’s all I needed to see. It’s not often that you see severe traumatic brain injury survivor and author in the same paragraph. Writing a book has to be the most daunting task, requiring brain focus, and here was someone who had survived a severe brain injury with a book about it. I was amazed, curious to learn more and emailed her back immediately. The rest is history. I can’t wait for you to meet this woman whose determination to heal herself has opened her to a whole new life’s purpose. Just to review, we did cover the statistics behind head trauma on episode #128 with a review of Dr. Daniel Amen’s “The End of Mental Illness” book where he called Head Trauma: “The silent epidemic that underlies many mental illnesses.” (Dr. Amen). According to the CDC, “more than 2 million new head injuries occur in the US every year” ranging from falls, to motor vehicle collisions, to sports injuries and Dr. Amen treats many of these injuries at his clinics across the country, saying that his database of “tens of thousan