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Shadow Brain: A Neuroscientist's Journey Through PTSD and Womanhood
At the age of 17, Apryl E. Pooley woke up in a fraternity house with no recollection of the past 16 hours and paralyzed from the neck down. What followed was more than the loss of innocence, it was a hurtling out of childhood and into the unfamiliar life—and brain—of a broken woman.
It wasn’t until her first year in a neuroscience PhD program that she learned PTSD is more than a military issue. Her newfound knowledge led to Apryl’s PTSD diagnosis after nearly a decade of living with the disorder, and she devoted the remainder of her life’s research to understanding the effects of trauma on the brain. She aimed to find a cure for herself and for others, but it wasn’t her scientific knowledge of PTSD that led to healing, it was sharing her personal story. Of rape. Of abuse. Of addiction.
Shadow Brain describes Apryl’s unrelenting attempts to escape her mind and body, only to find that what she really needed was to travel deep within herself to find the healing answers that were there all along. This story provides powerful insight into the range of emotional and psychological consequences of trauma, and most importantly, hope that the strength of the human spirit, body, and brain can prevail through the most difficult times.
It wasn’t until her first year in a neuroscience PhD program that she learned PTSD is more than a military issue. Her newfound knowledge led to Apryl’s PTSD diagnosis after nearly a decade of living with the disorder, and she devoted the remainder of her life’s research to understanding the effects of trauma on the brain. She aimed to find a cure for herself and for others, but it wasn’t her scientific knowledge of PTSD that led to healing, it was sharing her personal story. Of rape. Of abuse. Of addiction.
Shadow Brain describes Apryl’s unrelenting attempts to escape her mind and body, only to find that what she really needed was to travel deep within herself to find the healing answers that were there all along. This story provides powerful insight into the range of emotional and psychological consequences of trauma, and most importantly, hope that the strength of the human spirit, body, and brain can prevail through the most difficult times.
- GenresMemoirMental Illness
326 pages, Paperback
First published February 17, 2015
423 people want to read
About the author
Apryl E. Pooley
3 books14 followersApryl E. Pooley was raised in Charleston, Illinois--a small, rural college town where she stayed to earn bachelor's and master's degrees from the biological sciences department at Eastern Illinois University. She received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Michigan State University where she currently researches the effects of traumatic stress on the brain. Apryl began neuroscience research to gain a better understanding of her own life, but what she found was a drive to help other people living with PTSD. A scientist by training, a writer by practice, and an artist by nature, all of Apryl's work is inspired by the drive to make sense of the world around her and to help others do the same.
Apryl's first publication outside the scientific literature was a short story called Dichroma in author/editor Troy Blackford's "Robbed of Sleep" series (2014). Her second trade book, released on February 17, 2015, was the culmination of a three-year writing project that became her memoir, "Shadow Brain: A Neuroscientist's Journey Through PTSD and Womanhood." Shortly after self-publishing her memoir, Apryl signed a contract with Booktrope Publishers to release an expanded version of Shadow Brain. The result was Fortitude: A PTSD Memoir, released on October 16th, 2015.
In conjunction with her scientific knowledge of the effects of trauma, she relentlessly shares her own story of rape, abuse, and addiction to ensure that all victims of trauma receive the treatment and respect they deserve and to provide hope to anyone hiding in a closet. Apryl lives in Michigan with her two rambunctious dogs.
Apryl's first publication outside the scientific literature was a short story called Dichroma in author/editor Troy Blackford's "Robbed of Sleep" series (2014). Her second trade book, released on February 17, 2015, was the culmination of a three-year writing project that became her memoir, "Shadow Brain: A Neuroscientist's Journey Through PTSD and Womanhood." Shortly after self-publishing her memoir, Apryl signed a contract with Booktrope Publishers to release an expanded version of Shadow Brain. The result was Fortitude: A PTSD Memoir, released on October 16th, 2015.
In conjunction with her scientific knowledge of the effects of trauma, she relentlessly shares her own story of rape, abuse, and addiction to ensure that all victims of trauma receive the treatment and respect they deserve and to provide hope to anyone hiding in a closet. Apryl lives in Michigan with her two rambunctious dogs.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 20, 2015
This brutally honest memoir describes Apryl's journey through a challenging life, sexual assaults, addiction and an eating disorder. After learning that she has PTSD she claims her life and moves forward to a fulfilling career, happiness and love. We witness her courageous fight for life after she learns that she has PTSD. I could not put this book down! Good for you Apryl!
September 27, 2015
Shadow Brain: a Neuroscientist’s Journey Through PTSD and Womanhood
Apryl E. Pooley
• ASIN: B013RPNA60
• Paperback: 326 pages
• Publisher: Charley Books; 1 edition (February 17, 2015)
• ISBN-10: 0692373977
• ISBN-13: 978-0692373972
price 9.99
We write memoir to record, to make our tracks known to others, to provide information about the woods, jungle, mountains. We write memoir to speak to how we felt at each junction: in the woods a sense of relief, of being hidden and safe or in the woods dread.
We do this so others might expand their understanding of the big question, Life; we do this so we might warn others, regale the what and how our tracks veered and sometimes staggered.
To write memoir including an experience of PTSD demands a different compass: the hunter lost direction even with the sun on her back, the Medicine Woman forgot her chants even with them written in runes.
That’s because PTSD flat lines the nervous system. This means no traces reveal themselves as a pattern for others to recognize unless of course those others have also experienced PTSD.
Thus Apryl Pooley’s extraordinarily honest, clear and unsentimental account of her post twice raped life rallies the reader to empathize with behavior out of control (how to control behavior when you have no emotional register of where or what is too much) dedicated drinking and drugging (the cover up for not feeling anything, what is euphemistically called ‘self medicating’) and one disastrous attempt at relating after another.
The miracle? Pooley achieved such high academic grades and performance as a Graduate Assistant throughout this time she gained a scholarship to complete her PhD in neuroscience!
Read this book. Read this book if you or someone you love has had PTSD: anyone raped, anyone victimized by pedophilia, anyone from war, anyone from domestic violence, anyone from verbal abuse, anyone bullied consistently, anyone scarred by oppressive regimes the list continues.
We write memoir to teach others and to gain information about the paths in life that are different, unusual, off the beaten. From this information we gain understanding and increased knowledge about what it is to be human. Pooley has contributed to this information in her success, ultimately, at being a loving, happy person. Read this book.
Apryl E. Pooley
• ASIN: B013RPNA60
• Paperback: 326 pages
• Publisher: Charley Books; 1 edition (February 17, 2015)
• ISBN-10: 0692373977
• ISBN-13: 978-0692373972
price 9.99
We write memoir to record, to make our tracks known to others, to provide information about the woods, jungle, mountains. We write memoir to speak to how we felt at each junction: in the woods a sense of relief, of being hidden and safe or in the woods dread.
We do this so others might expand their understanding of the big question, Life; we do this so we might warn others, regale the what and how our tracks veered and sometimes staggered.
To write memoir including an experience of PTSD demands a different compass: the hunter lost direction even with the sun on her back, the Medicine Woman forgot her chants even with them written in runes.
That’s because PTSD flat lines the nervous system. This means no traces reveal themselves as a pattern for others to recognize unless of course those others have also experienced PTSD.
Thus Apryl Pooley’s extraordinarily honest, clear and unsentimental account of her post twice raped life rallies the reader to empathize with behavior out of control (how to control behavior when you have no emotional register of where or what is too much) dedicated drinking and drugging (the cover up for not feeling anything, what is euphemistically called ‘self medicating’) and one disastrous attempt at relating after another.
The miracle? Pooley achieved such high academic grades and performance as a Graduate Assistant throughout this time she gained a scholarship to complete her PhD in neuroscience!
Read this book. Read this book if you or someone you love has had PTSD: anyone raped, anyone victimized by pedophilia, anyone from war, anyone from domestic violence, anyone from verbal abuse, anyone bullied consistently, anyone scarred by oppressive regimes the list continues.
We write memoir to teach others and to gain information about the paths in life that are different, unusual, off the beaten. From this information we gain understanding and increased knowledge about what it is to be human. Pooley has contributed to this information in her success, ultimately, at being a loving, happy person. Read this book.
March 1, 2015
Honest, heartfelt portrait of a young woman whose painful journey leads her to find herself.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews