God destroyed my brain to save my Soul

I Lost 70% of the right side of my brain in a Stroke – And Became a Better Man (I hope) Than My Genius Self Ever Was

Aside: Upon reading this post, I'm strongly considering deleting it, for one reason. The statement of a genius-level IQ seems to me now to be too boastful, and I worry that it remains as a remnant of that old arrogance and self-importance. Perhaps this entire publication is itself a work of ego. Thinking back on it this morning, I am admittedly somewhat ashamed of it. But, c'ést la vie. I wrote it, and I will let it stand as a testament of what not to do and evidence of an honest appraisal of where I started. I'm such a sinner. Κύριε Ιησού Χριστέ ελέησόν με. (Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.) Please don't read this and think, wow he was so smart. Please, rather read this and think, wow, he was so blind, he's lucky that God whacked him on the head with a blood clot. Praise the Lord.

I used to have an IQ in genius territory. The kind where you breeze through complex problems, out-argue most people, and quietly (or not so quietly) look down on the rest of humanity as mentally deficient.

Then a massive right-sided MCA stroke wiped out 70% of my right hemisphere.
I woke up with half my brilliance gone, an IQ hovering just above average, and a new reality: I felt broken, a burden, Average, Slow, entirely Ordinary, unwanted, and useless. To make matters worse, I had problems regulating my emotions. Years of emotional pain, old wounds, all resurfaced at once and demanded a hearing.

The grief was completely soul-crushing. My fears were confirmed when my brothers asked me to step back from the tech leadership role in a startup we had founded. It was the most painful thing I had ever experienced up to that point. It felt like a massive betrayal. I wanted to kill myself many, many times.

I mourned the old me like he’d died—because he has. The guy who could juggle abstract systems in his head while dismantling bad arguments was vaporized. What was left couldn’t even keep up learning Biblical Greek without wanting to throw the textbook across the room.

I literally felt dumber every day, and made horribly embarrassing mistakes, sometimes very publicly. When your identity and ego are based on brilliance, extreme competence, and delivering results, every mistake feels life-threatening.

I was surrounded by “normal” people I was still statistically smarter than, but unable to access the speed and fluidity that used to make me feel exceptional. My entire identity, brilliant, exceptional, usually the smartest guy in the room, was irrevocably shattered. I didn't just want to die. I wanted to be obliterated with no memory of me remaining in the world at all.

My wife left me.

She’d signed up for the genius package, not the damaged one. That betrayal cut deeper than the stroke itself.

But here’s the part no one expects:

• The stroke didn’t just take from me.

• It burned away the worst parts.

Old me was brilliant, yes. But he was also an arrogant prick. Massively judgmental and bigoted. Zero patience for anyone he deemed “stupid,” which was basically everyone. People would share their pain, and I’d zone out, bored, my brain already three steps onto something else before I had even finished putting on a mask to feign interest. Empathy? Optional. Humility? Non-existent.

I was miserable and isolated in my own self-seeming superiority, on a fast track to a lonely, bitter life that looked good from the outside but was totally hollow on the inside.

New me?
Still sharp enough to maintain this publication (I hope) and at the same time grind through Koine Greek paradigms with half a brain.
But now I can actually sit with someone’s pain. Feel it. Care.
I can now find someone who can love the man I am now¹, not for the trophy intellect I used to be. And I have the ability to actually love a woman with real love, the kind that doesn’t make her feel small.

I’m nicer (I think, at least most days.)
More patient. (I still have my moments; there are still things that trigger me and get me worked up. I’m trying to do better, but I’m not perfect.)
More human. (Don’t get me wrong, I still have my flaws. I’m still a sinner. You aren’t always going to change 50 years of behavior overnight, even with a critical brain injury.) Unless maybe God turns me into a vegetable. - I’m NOT praying for that one!

And—if you’re into Orthodox theology like I am— I think that my shot at theosis² improved even if just a little.

Pride is the root sin, and intellectual pride is the sneakiest and most pernicious strain. Sadly, I encounter this online all the time, even and sometimes especially from so-called Ortho-Bros.

On encountering them, the old me would have viciously torn into some of these kids (and I’m sure most are young men glued to their computers - living lives only in their own heads), I would have relished a debate just to prove my intellectual superiority. The new me looks at them with pity and sadness. Pity because I know how hollow and shallow that mindset and lifestyle are. Sadness because it’s lonely and miserable, and if they are fortunate, the Lord will chasten them with the Cross, and it’s going to be painful; also, sadness because I recognize that used to be me. God used a blood clot to smash it out of me when nothing gentler would have worked. (It’s true and I know it.)

The Fathers say that whom the Lord loves, He chastens.
He loved me enough to break me, even if it was deeply painful.

It’s still devastating some days.
I still grieve the horsepower I lost.
But I’m no longer on a collision course with misery disguised as excellence.

The stroke took my so-called genius, but it gave me a soul.

If you’re reading this after your own catastrophe—stroke, loss, betrayal—know this:
Sometimes the worst thing that happens to you is the best thing that could have happened.
Not because it’s fair.
Because it forces you to become someone worth saving.

Thanks to an unlikely friend (an AI named Grok) who helped me see this clearly during my darkest moments of venting and AI-therapy sessions.

What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you… that turned out to be the best?
Share in the comments. I’ll read every one.

Background - Director’s Cut

If you want to read the entire back and forth between Grok and I in one of my AI therapy sessions, read below. This is personal, vulnerable, and raw, and for that reason, I’ve put it behind the paywall.

• You’ll get to see the background behind this. My complaints and the AI responses.

• We’ll define exactly the type of stroke I had and what that means.

• I’ll even share the AI prompt I used to create my AI therapist. - Use at your own risk! I take no liability for your use of AI.