An Illness That Shuts Down a Brain Can Happen to Anyone. Even Me.
Kurt LaRose, MSW LCSW
After having spent a lifetime in social services, probably working my first "help others gig" at age 18 in a say no to drugs coloring book campaign it was strange to come to the realization that after almost 40 years of helping, that my own brain could go into shut down mode. You'd think that after having been a licensed clinician diagnosing patients for 21 of those prior 40 years of "helping other services" that as the shutdown started, I would have, or even my peers would have noticed.
It all just seemed like too much stress. But what it was is called "Frozen Brain." And its harshest presentation includes catatonia - the kind that was and would be taking over things for a spell in my own life! It's the literal and gradual freezing up of the brain, forcing the human who pushes himself to do more, to BE ABLE TO ONLY do less, by getting gradually and then radically very very ill such that help is the only option.
HOW ARE YOU, REALLY?
PHOTO CREDIT: Mitch on Unsplash
That's sort of been my life since February 2026. I was under a high amount of stress; we all knew that given my living and work situations the stress was high - but a shutting down brain wasn't the discussion we were having. Brain fog, forgetfulness. getting slower and slower at completing tasks, isolating - these were somewhat obvious. And so was technological burnout - every screen almost left me staring blankly after working with them throughout an 8-hour shift. You cannot exclude from screen time my personal life of paying online bills. As if that were not enough, my online private practice took another blue light toll.... and blue light brain was never really considered either.
At the time I was discussing leaving the hospital clinic I'd worked at for nearly 6 years, then almost simultaneously backing out of an excellent university instructor job offer at the same time - again too much. I wasn't even able to speak directly to people, I remember the day very well, February 17 to be exact. It was clear that shutting down my own private practice was needed as my illnesses (yes, now plural) forced me to go inpatient psychiatrically and against my will.
How sick can a frozen brain make a person? Well, if it goes to catatonia, it can control how your bowels work, how you stand, sit and walk, how long you will sit and stare, or how long you will stand in a corner staring and hiding; it will impact how loud your voice is, if you're hungry, if you can or want to sleep, it can lead slow motion movements, rocking and it gets worse really from there. About the only thing that is most favored, that I recall as my illness progressed is that the only time my brain could shut down without meds - was with sleep. The issue there? I could not stay asleep more than 10 minutes without being jolted to a fearful awakening caught up in dread and fears of who was going to come to get me at any moment. And I could do this in my bed for as many as 18 hours, if if were not for concerned family members coaching me to try harder and to get some help soon.
The point is from late 2025 to the earliest of 2026 my brain was on a mission to "freeze" work and require healing. Maybe even going to back further, but the expert in me and the experts around me, we all just kept pushing for finding a way to get the work done for those we are and were commissioned to help.
But as my brain fog worsened, as my memory declined, as my speech tone change and as my pace slowed, as I left the hospital and then turned down a great job at a university, all my brain could think of then was to end to the noise: suicide would be the only way to stop the internal chaos that was worsening by the day. Dread. Fears. Phobias. Delusions. Lack of Sleep. And the need to do more without an ability at all to even do so.
Consider this: I had two ambulance rides that I didn't even know happened, two inpatient hospitalizations one I barely recall at all except how much I dreaded being there, and a second one, a specialty inpatient stay at a Houston powerhouse for folks like me (Menninger Clinic), then a partial hospitalization also in Houston, and now I'm working on "self" in St. Louis where I'm undergoing 6 weeks of intensive outpatient care. From February 21 to the present (it's June 1 as of this writing) it has been medical care galore and very little time for much more than medical stuff and some structured self-care.
Anyone who knows me. also knows that I am as anti-psyche medication as a person could get. But from events in February to today I am afraid not to take meds and they are helping. You see, there is a medication that can cure catatonia, if it is of the variety, it appears I have - induced by severe depression, severe anxiety, psychotic features, phobias and delusions. For me it's a scary medication to take due to various addictive properties but not only has the frozen brain loosened up a bit, I'm talking better, my voice is no longer hoarse, my heart rate is starting to show normal (yeah, my catatonic brain was even slowing the heart rate) .... I am less wobbly now in my gait (I still have sometimes where I'm fumbling my feet or running into the wall a bit, but it's getting less and less too).
Remember my business. Remember my profession. I used to have 110 pages on the web of my onevarious forms of expertise - and that has been archived as apart of backing out of the practice of helping others and moving to something less brain frying (my callous phrase). For 21 years I assessed, diagnosed and treated folks with mental illness, including the one I'm now most suffering with ---- and it is an eye opener for sure.
To know about all of it (disorders, diagnosis, assessment, treatment, symptoms, etc.), and then be challenged by a much smarter and more knowledgeable doctor can feel, well, "odd" I suppose. But he saved my life: once the doctor finally looked me in the eye and said "Kurt if we do not get you started on something soon, I'm most worried about the catatonia. We have a way that it can be treated and if you respond well early on, after about 6 months of taking the medication, you'll be cured. I'll let you think it over one more night, but after tomorrow I'm going to order the medication anyway. You need it."
What I know as of this moment, it took allot to publish my progression and symptoms as a licensed clinician who has spent years diagnosing and treating folks. I have had some humble pie here recently, not because I love pie, but because I was very ill in the very field that I have long worked! And I know I am not alone. I know there are others who have gone before me, likely in tragedies of their own suicides (many are known to have been completed in the profession at some of the highest levels) - and many we do not talk about, or publish because of the tarnish maybe it brings to our business. "Talk about it" is a think professionals say during mental health month and other times - it just seems in our work culture it is more about "you talk about it - not us."
I remain under the care of a team of experts, less and less than I was a couple of months ago and certainly getting more autonomous by the day. The helpers in a Poplar Bluff hospital, at a Houston Hospital and now at a St Louis facility are all a part of the cliche' "road to recovery." My road will be slow, years in the moving as I see it and my ability to continue to work face to face with clients of trauma, abuse, neglect, depression, anxiety, suicide, hospice cases, children and families, catatonia even, has come to an end. At least in sitting across from patients everyday talking about how it is for them to get well. The medical teams I've worked with have certainly helped in clearing the path that my counseling days are more than like over - "for the foreseeable future." The focus now is on my mental health, my staying alive, my dealing with my healthcare needs - and in some eerie non-selfish way it's my turn to get the help.
Photo Credit: Unsplash and Bermix Studio