For years she had tried to be the perfect wife and mother but now, divorced, with two sons, having gone through another break-up and in despair about her future, she felt as if she\u2019d failed at it all, and she was tired of it. On 6 June 2007 Debbie Hampton, of Greensboro, North Carolina, took an overdose. That afternoon, she\u2019d written a note on her computer: \u201cI\u2019ve screwed up this life so bad that there is no place here for me and nothing I can contribute.\u201d Then, in tears, she went upstairs, sat on her bed, and put on a Dido CD to listen to as she died.<\/p>\n
But then she woke up again. She\u2019d been found, rushed to hospital, and saved. \u201cI was mad,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d messed it up. And, on top of that, I\u2019d brain-damaged myself.\u201d After Debbie emerged from her one-week coma, her doctors gave her their diagnosis: encephalopathy. \u201cThat\u2019s just a general term which means the brain\u2019s not operating right,\u201d she says. She couldn\u2019t swallow or control her bladder, and her hands constantly shook. Much of the time, she couldn\u2019t understand what she was seeing. She could barely even speak. \u201cAll I could do was make sounds,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was like my mouth was full of marbles. It was shocking, because what I heard from my mouth didn\u2019t match what I heard in my head.\u201d After a stay in a rehabilitation centre, she began recovering slowly. But, a year in, she plateaued. \u201cMy speech was very slow and slurred. My memory and thinking was unreliable. I didn\u2019t have the energy to live a normal life. A good day for me was emptying the dishwasher.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was around this time that she tried a new treatment called neurofeedback. She was required to have her brain monitored while playing a simple Pac-Man-like game, controlling movements by manipulating her brain waves. \u201cWithin ten sessions, my speech improved.\u201d But Debbie\u2019s real turnaround happened when her neurofeedback counsellor recommended a book: the international bestseller\u00a0The Brain that Changes Itself<\/em>\u00a0by Canadian psychotherapist Norman Doidge. \u201cOh my God,\u201d she says. \u201cFor the first time it really showed me it was possible to heal my brain. Not only that it was possible, that it was up to me.\u201d<\/p>\nReference:<\/h4>\n
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