A Contagious Smile Podcast
A Contagious Smile is a powerful platform dedicated to uplifting and empowering special needs families and survivors of domestic violence. Through heartfelt stories, we shine a light on the journeys of extraordinary individuals who have overcome unimaginable challenges. Their triumphs serve as a testament to resilience and strength, inspiring others to rediscover their own inner light. Each episode features candid interviews with survivors, advocates, and experts who provide valuable resources and insights to support those on their own paths to healing and empowerment. Join us as we celebrate the power of resilience, the beauty of shared stories, and the unstoppable spirit of those who turn adversity into hope. Let us guide you in rekindling your spirit, because every smile tells a story of courage and transformation.
A Contagious Smile Podcast
Turning Trauma into Triumph BEST OF THE BEST WEBINAR PROUDLY PRESENTS KURT WARNER
What happens when life throws everything at you - traumatic brain injury, severe mental illness, chronic pain, and profound loss? Kurt Wagner's answer might surprise you: you become stronger.
After a catastrophic assault left Kurt with a broken vertebral artery, blood poured onto his brain for approximately eight hours. Doctors gave him last rites, believing he wouldn't survive. The injury destroyed 40% of his neurons, including the left side of his cerebellum. When Kurt miraculously woke from his coma, he couldn't walk, talk, or even reach for a cup. His left vocal cord was paralyzed. Doctors told his family he would never function normally again.
But Kurt's story was just beginning. With unwavering support from his parents, he embarked on an arduous journey of rehabilitation. His mother, despite her own social anxiety, refused to leave his hospital bedside, creating makeshift sleeping arrangements from hard chairs. This constant presence became Kurt's motivation to fight.
Beyond the brain injury, Kurt battled obsessive-compulsive disorder since age five and bipolar disorder since fifteen - conditions that repeatedly brought him to the brink of suicide. The bipolar disorder created a Jekyll and Hyde existence, with depressive episodes causing dramatic weight loss and manic phases feeling "godlike" but often destructive.
Rather than being crushed by these challenges, Kurt transformed them into purpose. He became a licensed clinical social worker, channeling his experiences into helping others overcome their struggles. "If I'm going to have to go through all this, maybe I could at least make somebody else's journey less difficult," Kurt explains, citing Matthew 7:12 as his guiding principle.
Kurt's philosophy - "learning from our ailments rather than running from them" - forms the core of his book "Victory in Every Fall," which codifies methods for overcoming seemingly impossible odds. He likens his journey to the Greek myth of Antaeus, who grew stronger each time he was thrown to the ground.
Ready to transform your own challenges into strength? Kurt's extraordinary story reminds us that our deepest struggles often contain the seeds of our greatest growth. Share this episode with someone fighting their own battles who needs to hear that victory can be found in every fall.
Hello everyone and welcome to a very special edition that we will be adding on to the Best of the Best webinar. We have an amazing, amazing human being with us. Kurt Wagner is absolutely bar none, one of my top interviewees ever. I think the world of him. He's amazing. I had the privilege and honor of interviewing him here recently and I got him to agree to come on the webinar but schedule conflicts, so we are doing a recorded 20 minute and I'm going to put this on for everybody to hear because he is not to be missed. Kurt, thank you so much for coming back again.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me again. This is an honor.
Speaker 1:Oh I am, so I can't wait. I ordered his books. They're going to be here tomorrow. I'm like a little kid at Christmas Open, open, open, open. So before we talk about these amazing books, tell everybody who will not hear your podcast, just as of yet about you and your backstory a little bit.
Speaker 2:So my name is Kurt Warner, I'm a licensed clinical social worker and in regard to the books, but into Victory and Every Fall in particular I've gone through, one of the things that brought me to social work was the suffering I've been through. I have a traumatic brain injury that took about roughly 40% of the neurons in my brain. I lost the left side of my cerebellum. I had to relearn how to walk and talk and function in virtually every way, and I've suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder since I'm, as my first memory is, obsessive compulsive disorder. So at least five and I've had just about every manifestation of OCD that one can have, every compulsion, every obsession that just about and I've had and that takes me to this day, and I have suffered with bipolar disorder since about age 15, which brought me to the precipice of suicide every year in one way or another, but because of the severity of the depression I would lose anywhere up to 60 pounds. A lot of times, in the downs I would lose my. In the downs I would lose my. It'd be very difficult to maintain any kind of sense of self, and they brought me to as dark a place as I could conceive of in human existence. Each time so, and then the mania would hit and I would feel like a godlike, I could do anything and was very productive, and I had the electricity running through me, as I describe it, and that guy Jekyll would get me into all kinds of trouble that Hyde would have to pull out of. And that was my whole existence from a bipolar standpoint in a nutshell.
Speaker 2:But I've also suffered from a very significant back pain that made my legs numb. I couldn't type, even though I had social work jobs where I had to type and I had to figure out ways to do it around that. I suffered the death of my social support network, which was my mom and dad, who, after the brain injury, was like being raised. It was like being brought up again. It was like being born over because I can't do anything. It was like being a child again and I had to watch as they both passed away within a year and I lost that connection and support network. So the concept the book centers around the notion of adversity and finding ways to overcome it, because there are the finding the strengths to do so and becoming stronger and, more than stronger, better, for having over encountered the adversity is what is what I tried to express in the book.
Speaker 1:Well, I first want to tell you how sorry I am for the loss of both of your parents. I'm so sorry. I appreciate that. Thank you, and if you don't mind, let's just talk about just for a minute. First of all, you've overcome so much, and to sit here and look at you today is inspiring beyond measure. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened that caused your brain injury? Tell?
Speaker 2:us a little bit about what happened that caused your brain injury. Sure, so, as noted in terms of the OCD started at a very young age. I have a family history of OCD and it becomes very severe very quickly. It also you tend to hide it from everyone. You don't tell people what you're doing. At least I'll speak for myself. I didn't tell people what I was doing in any way, shape or form. I at least I'll speak for myself. I didn't tell people what was doing in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:That led, uh to me having to find um escapes. It got too overwhelming every day to deal with that. So I I saw it um in high school. I I started to seek um ways to get around that, which it was in the form of drinking. That alleviated it. When I was, when I was inebriated a little bit, I didn't have to the checking, the counting, the hoarding, the contamination none of that I was. I had a lot easier time defying it.
Speaker 2:Then bipolar disorder hit around 15 and that sent me over the edge and I started using whatever I started getting into, whatever I was doing, whatever I could to escape the pain that I was feeling. That brought me into a very negative crowd. I fell into a group who it wasn't ideal to be vulnerable in front of. So when I so one night I went to, I was in very the very beginning of college, first semester of college. I went to a party on Friday night, which is what I always did to escape. It was my escape and I met someone there. I was close to someone there. There was long and the short of it is. I got put in. I got assaulted very, very badly. My left vertebral artery, which is one of four arteries in the brain, was broken, snapped, and the blood was all the blood bled on my brain. I was brought down onto a piece of cardboard into a dark basement where all my other people who I hung out with were, and I was left with the artery bleeding onto the brain for no one. I mean, there's no way for me to know for sure, but from anywhere, something like one in the morning to nine in the morning, with after many, many calls from my family, my dad was able to come and get me because he was finally told I was there. So all that time of the bleeding in the brain, the left side of my cerebellum died because it wasn't getting nourished. The left vertebral artery was broken. It was bleeding everywhere. I had grand mal, seizures. I had a vasospasm, which is a spasm of the brain that causes brain damage all over. I was in coma. I was. I woke up and I was given the last rites.
Speaker 2:I was told my parents, my family, were told that I was going to die and if I didn't die I would probably be nothing like who I was and certainly not have any of the capabilities. There was no expectation for me to do anything ever, and I was very fortunate in that I woke up with some capabilities. But I had to relearn everything. I couldn't um my coordination cerebellum guides coordination. I couldn't um reach out in front and grab a cup that was right in front of me.
Speaker 2:I couldn't walk. I couldn't uh, uh, certainly couldn't hit a ball or catch a ball like I used to from an athletic standpoint. So it was from scratch, uh, like being a newborn, and that's why I say it was like being born again with them, with my parents, because it was just, I had to learn. I was walked around the yard slowly for many, many, many, many months, you know, until and it was just nightmarish I was tied to a bed for a long time. I had every tube in the world you could have in you and I have pictures of it. I look like machines did everything for me for a long time.
Speaker 1:So, and you had to learn how to even speak again.
Speaker 2:Yes, my left vertebral from the assault, the left vertebral, I'm sorry, left vertebral my left vocal cord was broken. I was paralyzed between the assault and the intubation, uh, because after 40 days of being intubated it has, you know, and I didn't, I didn't have any ability to use that. I couldn't. I could communicate, but it was usually by writing things down or speaking like I was told. I spoke like the godfather. It was a very, you know, a rasp, you know, and, uh, I had every therapy imaginable.
Speaker 2:Um, after the hospital period, uh, I went to a place called john heinz, I had um uh in pennsylvania and I I had uh, uh, to relearn everything from scratch. So, occupational therapy, uh, speech therapy, uh, cognitive therapy, every uh, all kinds of testing, all kinds of things in my whole life was, was that? And I don't remember. I mean, memory is a key piece of all, yeah, and so I don't remember a lot of this, um, I I have, I would argue, the, the fortune of not remembering, because I do remember a lot of it, but it was, it's in patches and it's, you know, just horror, uh, between everything that was the, the tubes, the um, out of everywhere there were always some kind I had feeding tubes, I had intubations, I had catheters, I had you know. So it was uh overwhelming, to say the least.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry for what you went through.
Speaker 2:It's nobody's fault. I appreciate that, thank you.
Speaker 1:But look at you now. Now look at you. Tell us what you're doing now. Is this why you got to choose the profession that you're in now? Is that why you've chosen to help others and pay it forward?
Speaker 2:Absolutely One of the theses in in the books, a major concept I mean. Through the conflict of having to go through it take the brain injury alone I learned that life was a lot more suffering than I had my high school self or my, you know, before. The OCD was always, but the before the bipolar, I didn't feel that life was just suffering. And then, after the bipolar, and then the brain injury on top of it, and then I, for it's a very different philosophy and view of life. Faith and the concept that doing unto others you know Matthew 7, 12, a concept of doing unto others, is the notion that I clung to because it was the only thing that remained meaningful to me. If I'm going to have to go through all this, and maybe I could at least make somebody else's, less was the point.
Speaker 1:So tell everybody what it is you do today.
Speaker 2:I'm a social worker, I'm a therapist and I work with people from all walks of life who are suffering all manner of things. So it's, there's no, it depends on who wants to, who comes in and who comes in and there's not a lot of things that I won't or am unable to treat in that regard. So before that, I worked a lot in chemical dependency for a very long time and with addicts who struggled to, and I find all of it very meaningful and I'm I'm very excited, but I also. That's on an individual level, and then the writing is on my at least my hope for it is on a mass level where I could reach many with which almost all of it, in one way or another, is geared toward amelioration, improving existence on some level for others, Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now let me. Let me ask you this you stated, not only in our original podcast that we recorded, but today, that your parents were, were so influential in your, your healing, and I noticed with our daughter even from inception, like when she's been in the hospital we don't leave. There's so many kids in there that nobody's in there with they're by themselves and they're alone and they don't have visitors. They don't have family come visit them, and I've always explained to our daughter, Faith, that when she agrees that when you have that drive to, you will fight harder when you have someone in your corner. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely that propels up. Without my I can't say emphatically enough without my mom I'd be nothing, I'd be no. You know, she gave me the drive. One of the memories in the hospital my mom didn't want me to be alone a minute in the hospital at all. Woman who had social anxiety herself, a great deal of it that's her family.
Speaker 2:I'm much more, I'm very much like her family and that's where a lot of that uh, she would put one hard chair on one side of my bed and put another hard chair on the other side of bed because the hospital would not give her a cot. And uh, and she would sit in the one chair and and put her legs out in the other and use it as a sort of hammock, uh, for a self-made hammock for herself. And I can sit in the one chair and put her legs out in the other and use it as a sort of hammock for a self-made hammock for herself. And I can remember in the middle of the night, because they'd wake me up and I'm not putting them down, they did so much good for me in the hospital and they say, you know, but, but they'd wake me up constantly during the night, constantly.
Speaker 2:I never get sleep because they were always squeezing my hands and squeezing my feet and saying, here, can you, you know, and I'd have to get up and do that and I felt just anger at the time because that's after the TBI. There was just a lot of anger and can always remember looking over, and the most fulfilling, the most wonderful moment was when I knew that she was there and that the usually the moonlight would be hitting her face and she'd be just sleeping and it would be a comfort. Just okay, I'm not alone existentially. I'm not alone, you know, in that and that's so so that that support there is just immense, cause you do it. For when I talk about from a suicidal standpoint she also, you know how how could I? Doing that act would leave her without, and that I couldn't from.
Speaker 2:Yeah that was just so overwhelmingly. You carry on for her in a way, in a large way, that's became the mindset, so that that that link was immense. I couldn't, I don't know who I'd be without it. I will not be happy.
Speaker 1:You know they are both so unbelievably proud of you, right. I hope so I can tell you they are your mom and dad sound amazing and I can tell you from a dedicated mom to to you, I can tell you that they are very, very impressed and very, very-.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that and I very much hope they are and I hope they're at peace now. Yeah, because they were wonderful people.
Speaker 1:Well, so tell us about your books.
Speaker 2:So Victor Ian Eberfeld tries to codify it's my attempt to codify overcoming impossible odds with an actual method which I present in the book. And just to quantify, ocd, national Institute of Mental Health, ocd right now about 2.3% of the population is affected by OCD, has OCD, 2.8% bipolar, so they're not an overly prevalent, you know. And when it comes to severe TBI, you're looking at about 14 out of 100,000 people, which is far less than, obviously, the 2.3 percent. So uh, those three alone. And back pain is common, I understand, you know, in terms of uh more common and so on and so forth, but those three alone, it seems like. It seems like an almost impossible odd to if you, if you quantify uh people who can find ways to make meaningful lives with, it becomes less and less statistically. And the concept is what I'm trying to present in the book is that no matter what the odds, no matter what you're up against there is a lot of it and this is where therapy comes in is the thought process you bring to it and the way you encounter it and the way you're conceiving of your suffering and going through it. It makes a big difference in how you uh manage it and are able to persevere.
Speaker 2:And I give um? Uh a trope of um antias of greek myth, who, who is a giant? Uh, the son of um gaia and poseidon, who got the god of the sea and the god of the goddess of the earth. When he's thrown to the ground, the reason I use him is because he challenges people to a fight, he loves to fight people, he loves conflict. When he gets thrown to the ground, the ground makes him stronger because it's his mom. The notion that I'm trying to draw from that Greek myth is that we can all become stronger by being thrown to the ground. And I did, and and what ocd I'm for all the uh torment that ocd renders on me every day, uh, to this day, I can name ways that it's helped. I've become stronger from it, I've become better from it by using it to make me.
Speaker 2:In other words, to give just a quick example there, the perfectionist aspect of OCD enabled me to work with the lack of the memory I had with the TBI. In other words, I can't remember. I couldn't remember five minutes before what happened before in the beginning with the TBI. Four in the beginning with the TBI to know. So if I can't remember it, I have to check it again and again, and again, and again and again. And that's what OCD says, and it capitalizes on things like that. But I also know that I'm a perfectionist and based on obsessive-causative, so I use that to say I don't have to check it over and over because I know who I am and I know that I constantly do things very meticulously.
Speaker 2:So my memory, yes, I can't remember, but I don't have to check it. Ocd. Its biggest donation to me, I would argue, was I learned to rebel against unjust authority. Because it is an unjust authority. It's constantly saying I have to do things that are just not true. So I rebel and I have to deal with the discomfort of the rebelling and it abates because it's a bully. So that's a concept.
Speaker 2:With OCD, with bipolar disorder, You're Jekyll and you're Hyde. You're this guy who can do anything and you're this guy who can do nothing and sees no meaning in life and is just tortured in every way, shape and form, who can do nothing and sees no meaning in life and is just tortured in every way, shape and form. Uh and uh, the identity. There's no identity when you're two different identities. There. It becomes almost impossible to have think of yourself as one. And with bipolar disorder, I had to learn to merge, to find a way before I found lithium, uh, but I had to find a way to merge and and and make one identity who could face the world. And uh, it was a Herculean task, which is ironic because that's who actually ended up killing Antaeus, but, but, but it was a Herculean task to do that and uh, uh. But I learned who I was, because there are core things that both persons had the manic guy and the depressed one.
Speaker 2:And when it comes to the traumatic brain injury, anybody who's read Kafka knows that a lot of his stories open with someone in this absurd circumstance where they have, you know, they're on trial for a crime they didn't commit or they they're a bug in the metamorphosis. He wakes up, a bug and he has to figure out how to how to navigate this new world. I woke up in exactly that type of kafka-esque situation, which was I woke up without having, in this ridiculous situation where and I was tied to a bed, I had no way to do it, I had no way to function or anything else, and I had to figure out a way to start digging, building my way out of it. And that existential plight is something that I feel like, in one way or another, we're all in in in our lives and and that gave me that gift, and I can go on and on. The learning from our ailments rather than running from our ailments is what I'm trying to portray and to advocate, in each of his own way or her own way.
Speaker 1:Tell everybody where all of your books are. I'm going to make sure every possible link that comes back to you is out here for everybody on the webinar. Tell everybody where they can get these books and I will be happy to review them when I get them in my little one hand tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Barnes and Noble, amazon, apple Books in short, wherever any retailer of books are sold. All the used, a lot of the used book sites that I always advocate, for you can find it anywhere. Books are sold in one way or another, and that's Victory in Every Fall.
Speaker 2:Which is about ameliorating others, false Idols, how Diversion is Destroying Democracy, is a philosophical treatise that discusses the concept of value in society and what we tend to focus on in our lives versus what might be most important and what we want to most focus on in our lives.
Speaker 2:It talks about the bread and circuses, how we're distracted by things that are not as important to us a lot of time and, and, lastly, that the other book I want to just note is um, utopia realized, which is, uh, it's called utopia realized in search of a just society and it's about uh, it's about a. It's a fiction book and there's a plot to it, but the the concept and the base thesis of it is how we can begin to form a more just society by changing the systems within it, because, you know, we always use antiquated systems that we all say are garbage, that we don't like but we don't change. But the concept is to use our acumen and our abilities to change them and build something better for us all, so we could be in a better existence society I can't wait to read them.
Speaker 2:I can't thank you enough for making time in your incredibly busy schedule to do this with us I can't thank you enough for having me, and I I'm so grateful and appreciative for all you do as well thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Everybody, go check out the links, click, go get the books, purchase and support him. He is an amazing individual who is now part of our family and we thank you so much thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for everything.
