My Beautiful Broken Brain

A trip through a lost mind trying to find oneself, would be David Lynch also a lost mind, I just know that his films make me look lost, definitely, the documentary is beautiful and makes us realize that we can lose everything from one hour to the next, without explanation , without reason... Exciting...

This film is an amazing and positive glimpse into the area of brain dysfunction. Although it is specific to a stroke, I found the symptoms very similar to those I suffered with Lyme and a separate incident of oxygen loss. I recommend it to anyone who knows someone with Alzheimers, Lyme, stroke or any brain disabling illness. The subject of the film is young, intelligent, beautiful and most importantly positive as she struggles to find her way through the situation she's in, pockmarked with the fear and loss of herself and her future from her disability. It's her positive traits and the telling of this as a human story, not a medical document that makes this a revealing glimpse into this world.

It seems people who have had experience with strokes or other brain injuries are the first to be weighing in about this film. I thought it was an excellent, commendably honest look at the confusion and frustration which are common components of the injured brain. (In my case, I experienced a fractured skull with subdural hematoma when I was just entering my teen years. It took a full year of therapy for me to fully recover.) I was spared aphasia, yet I experienced hemi-paralysis and remember vividly the cognitive distortions and unreal-seeming surprises that occurred, much as they to do the brave Lotje in the film.

All in all, I thought this was an outstanding film, and wish nothing but the very best for the brave young lady who documented her experience.

Wow! I was mesmerized by her story and her beautiful mind... I am a nurse, and worked for many years in a acute care unit, so I dealt with this look-a-like situations on a daily basis. I always wondered about the implications of this situations, specifically in aphasic syndromes... and, somehow, always felt helpless. I mean, it's really challenging: the depersonalization, the lack of freedom that the unit routines impose, people not recognizing/redefining themselves, the uncertainty towards the future and life-goals/projects, the "re-construction" of the self and pursuing/finding a meaning. It's a really emotive journey! If you can, please read: "De Profundis - Valsa Lenta", from José Cardoso Pires (a top Portuguese writer), that describes his experience when he had a stroke. I kept remembering his writings throughout the film, he had a really similar point of view...

It must have take some bravery from Lotje Sodderland to make this documentary, or better to be the guinea pig for this documentary about her brain after she suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. It must not have been easy to do that as she must have thousands of other more important things to do, learning basic things that we take for granted from scratch again. The documentary is well made, with some emotional passages that make you think it could happen to all of us. In one second your life could take a complete turn so we should enjoy every moment we have here. That's the lesson I learned after watching My Beautiful Broken Brain.