Aubrey Plaza, known for her comedic timing, faced a stroke that altered her life at just 20 years old.
Aubrey Plaza, beloved for her role on Parks and Recreation, has shared the harrowing details of a stroke that left her feeling disconnected from her own body and mind.
The 40-year-old actor, who has also shone in shows like White Lotus and Agatha All Along, experienced this life-altering event at the young age of 20.
Reflecting on it, she described the bizarre sensation of her brain seemingly shutting down.
In an earlier interview with NPR, Plaza revealed that the incident began with a sudden blackout that signaled something was seriously wrong.
She recalled: “I remember there was just like a really loud kind of sound happening. And I brought my hands to my throat, and I was kind of making like an ah (ph) sound because I couldn’t talk because the blood clot was in my language center of my brain.”
“So I had expressive aphasia instantly, which means that if you’re talking to me, I could understand what you’re saying in my mind and understand how to respond. But I couldn’t actually get it out. I couldn’t actually talk.”
In a candid conversation with Howard Stern on his SiriusXM show this September, Plaza recounted how the stroke temporarily paralyzed her, calling the entire ordeal “wild” and surreal.
During the terrifying experience, Plaza had a profound realization about her mind and body’s separation.
“I lost my motor skills really briefly. The freakiest thing was I forgot how to talk,” she explained. “But oh God the thing that you realize when you have a stroke or that some people might realize is that like you start to understand that your brain is not you because there was me and then there was my brain that was malfunctioning.”
“And that was the moment that I had where I went, ‘Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, how am I conscious? That my brain can’t say these words, when me as me knows what the answer is?'”
Aubrey Plaza experienced a stroke at 20-years-old
HBO
“Because the paramedics were asking me questions and me as me, whatever that is, soul me, higher me, whatever me is, was going, ‘The answer is yogurt’.”
“They’re going, ‘What you have for breakfast?’ And I’m going in my head, say yogurt brain […] but I couldn’t do it.”
Plaza shared how frightening it was to witness her brain malfunctioning while being acutely aware of everything happening, an experience that left her deeply introspective about the workings of the human mind.
After calling for help, Plaza was rushed to the emergency room. Despite her visible calmness, the seriousness of her condition went unnoticed initially, leading to a wait of nearly two hours before she was examined.
She described how she was unable to speak, write, or properly communicate during this time, a deeply frustrating and alarming ordeal. However, after being transferred to a stroke unit, intensive cognitive therapy enabled her brain to begin healing itself naturally.