Today I’m sharing an exclusive interview with comedian, writer, filmmaker, and brain injury survivor Mimi Hayes. As a fellow female who creates humor in spite of (or because of!) a broken brain, I’ve wanted to get to know Mimi ever since discovering her on Instagram. As luck would have it, I finally got the guts to reach out to her during Brain Injury Awareness Month! Happy BIAM, everybody. Let’s all wear helmets and eat lotsa salmon to celebrate.
In this entirely unscripted conversation (Mimi’s idea, not mine!), we chat about attractive brain surgeons, badass moms, balancing humor with harsh realities, and so much more.
Give it a watch or check out the transcript below. Just keep in mind that I have NEVER edited a video before. But it’s fine, really! The hiccups only add character.
Natalie: Hi, Mimi!
Mimi: Hi, Natalie!
Natalie: I don't know if everyone who would be watching this, listening to this, would even know what a brain injury is, so could you sum up what your experience is?
Mimi: Yes. I am not a traumatic brain injury, I am an acquired brain injury, which just means that I wasn't hit in the head, but it was rather a structure within my head, a clump of cells called a cavernous angioma. It was probably there my whole life, just chillin and for whatever reason, it hemorrhaged. The first time—spoiler, it happened twice—it happened in 2014, and I was 22. And it honestly felt like a really bad migraine. I hadn't hit my head or anything. I was, honestly, on a blind date, like a Tinder date, and I had a migraine and didn't know at the time what it was, and it actually took us a few weeks to get it diagnosed as a brain bleed.
The cis hemorrhage was like my slow leak, so over the course of about a month after finding it, I was on bed rest because these bleeds can grow and shrink like a balloon. It doubled in size and by that point it was time to extract it. So we did a brain surgery, which was more of that traumatic impact on the brain, but yeah, it's technically an acquired brain injury. But yeah, brain surgery when I was 22 years old, wild ride, had to relearn how to walk and see, and I was in rehab for a few weeks doing all these fun things. So that was number one.
The second one happened in 2023 and same thing—I was with a man. I'm sensing a trend here! I had another migraine and we found a second bleed in the same place, so that one's been here ever since, and has stabilized for about a year, so I just get into an MRI machine every six months and they take a look at it and make sure it's not getting that big again.
Are you a TBI? [Traumatic Brain Injury]
Natalie: No, I'm not. I have chronic migraines of unknown origin, but they were very sudden onset. This is perhaps similar to your experience in a way, because I think most people who get chronic migraines have migraines before they become chronic. It's like a gradual build. But in my case, my first migraine lasted ten months and it took me about two months to figure out what it was because I'd never had a migraine before. So similar to you where I was just like, I have no idea what's going on. And from that point on, I've had very frequent migraines So it was a rather strange situation that wouldn't technically be considered traumatic because there wasn't any physical contact involved, but it was very sudden.
Mimi: And they don't know why this is happening?
Natalie: The question of why has never been the most important question to any doctor I've spoken with. For migraine, at least, the answer for why is just because you have migraine, and because it's an inherited disease if you have it, you have it. I don't really buy that.
Mimi: No, I don't either. That's ridiculous!
Natalie: But I'm sure that, the why question comes up for you a lot too. Why did your brain just decide to freak out and start bleeding?
Mimi: Yeah, we had to really fight for that diagnosis, because I was misdiagnosed several times over. The first one was my own doctor who I was going to see for a different reason and she had me walk in a straight line and I was like, Something's going on. I felt different. I felt strange. Even after the migraine kind of fizzled out, things were different. She essentially told me I was young and healthy and asked me if I'd been through a breakup lately, which I had, a big one.
She prescribed me Valium, which could have killed me had I taken it, but my mom was not having it. My mom was a very active part of the diagnosis process because she also knew something was wrong. She was going with me to all these appointments, because she knew something's going on, we’ve got to figure this out. Then there was an urgent care, then there were two ER visits, and one of them there was a neurologist who did the finger test and I was reporting like four of his finger over here where there was only one. And he looked at my ears and said they were all plugged up. What was he seeing? Like earwax? I have no idea. So then they sent me home too. And then, we went to another ER and my mom was like, we're not going to leave until they find something. I don't care. We're just not gonna leave. We're just gonna refuse to leave. They can drag us out.
So the nurse came in and did the finger test, but she was doing it wrong because she only put it here. When it was there it was fine, there was only a problem on the side. So my mom literally stepped in front of her and said, No, you're doing it wrong. Then we waited for the MRI, finally got the MRI and they found it. I feel for people like yourself who don't get answers and are told oh, this is just the way it is. You're told to accept it or you're gaslit or someone, even a neurologist who's doing an exam can't pick up that you're having what I think is an unmissable stroke symptom.
So you really have to take your power back. I would say something my mom told me. She said you have the most power when you're in the hospital. You don't think you do, but you do. They have patient advocates there. They have people whose job it is to make sure you get what you need.
And, funny enough, they actually offered my mom a job as a patient advocate! They're like, you're really intense. You're really crazy. You could have a career here if you wanted to. She never took it. But I fear for people that don't have that kind of support in the hospitals or just talking to doctors who just dismiss them, left and right.
Natalie: Totally. First of all, go mom!
Mimi: She's a real awesome lady, for sure.
Natalie: I've definitely had my fair share of run-ins with ER doctors in particular, because there's… it's taken me a while to figure out what exactly the problem was, but there's insurance stipulations for admitting people to the hospital if they come with a complaint of a migraine.
Mimi: Really?
Natalie: Because there is nothing to do other than treat the migraine. And so I had many times that I would come into the ER with a migraine and I was unable to stop at home and their response was always just giving me the same few painkillers available in the ER and if they didn't work they would just send me home.
Mimi: Yeah, it's just so frustrating. I think for women especially. I spoke to this man was a medical ethicist and I was asking about why a lot of this was happening. And he was like, they are training doctors and ER nurses to not order MRIs and to not allow hospital stays. And so they'll do anything to not have to do those two things. Which is very scary.
I do count myself lucky, though, because in all my travels, when I finally had that second bleed, I was back here in Colorado. And it just so happened that my brain surgeon was also back here in Colorado. I also have a crush on him. He is a lot older than me, but I think this is something called White Coat Syndrome. Essentially you fall for the person who takes care of you because you're like oh my gosh you're the first person to actually listen to me and tell me I'm not crazy. I like to think it's not impossible. I have not seen a ring on his finger. As far as I know, he's still single.
Natalie: Since your first brain injury and all through these many years, what's been one of the hardest things and what's been one of the funniest things?
Mimi: Hard thing is probably that I've always been doing so many things since I was a kid. I was doing theater and hockey and I had friends and I was doing this and I was doing that. And my parents call me the girl with her hair on fire.
I'm not technically a redhead. I'm close. But really they mean that to be like, you just can't sit still. You like doing everything. I have a really hard time slowing it down even now when my brain is no. I took a nap right before this and I'm still coming back online.
And, managing my schedule and just over committing myself. Sometimes I have a really hard time with that. When my body says No, we can't keep up with that pace anymore. That's really hard.
Funny…it's all pretty outrageous. Having a crush on my neurosurgeon, that's pretty funny. Just the lack of functionality sometimes and being on stage a lot, I like to lean into my mistakes and my flaws. I used to not do that.. I used to be really…I didn't want people to know I was brain injured on stage. But now I'll let myself get distracted. If I hear somebody in the front row, ordering a drink, I'm like, Oh, you're getting a margarita?? Okay, cool, good choice. I like to interact with them instead of trying to be perfect and sticking to my routine and not going off script. Now it’s like, I broke the microphone, it happened. I tripped on stage. I can't remember a word I was going to say, or I said the wrong word. I just let myself go with it because I think people appreciate it and it's more true to who I really am than trying to be this perfectly polished version of myself.
What, for you, has been the most interesting thing that you've discovered about yourself since yours?
Natalie: I think that in many ways my migraines taught me that I had a sense of humor. I thought I could be witty beforehand and whatnot, but I started surviving by finding things funny. There was really no other choice. Other than just like getting extremely depressed, which happens from time to time. But it was just like the way I got through the day, and that's really changed my outlook on a lot of things.
Mimi: I also like to remind people, I was not a comedian before. I did improv, but I would never have called myself a comedian. I would never have called myself a writer or filmmaker or any of these things. So having the experience created that career for myself. And it was in little moments of making jokes to the nurses in the ICU, saying something inappropriate because I had no filter, crushing on my neurosurgeon. You do those things to get through the unthinkable.
Though what I've really found, which is my whole TED talk, is the trauma will catch up with you. A lot of people did not like my TED talk. I said, go to therapy and they were like, she's not funny! I appreciate that it's really hard for people to hear that. They think Oh, I can't just totally laugh it off. And you can, you can, but, in my experience anyway, trying to just be funny about it 24/7 had a bit of a cost down the line, which I knew even before I had the second bleed. So definitely the second time I was like, Oh, I have to deal with my fear of death! I had to settle with that because I didn't do that work back there. I skipped it, which is okay. It happens to a lot of people, but yeah, that's the main message of the TED. “Laughter is Not the Best Medicine” is what it’s called.
Natalie: I'm glad you brought this topic up because I think that there is always a temptation to put your happy face on when you're going through something difficult.
Mimi: I was just using that as a way to cope, right? And having compassion. But yeah, I had to rewrite my whole book, like several times over because I had to be more honest with myself and be like, Oh, no, you weren't laughing! You were really freaked out.
Natalie: I did the same thing at the beginning of my migraines as well. Because I mean you don't have a space in your brain to think about what is the most healthy way emotionally to go about this experience? You're just in survival mode. So I was powering myself on these gags. Because the hospital system is so funny anyway. It did take a while for all the grief to catch up with me, but it certainly did.
Natalie: One final question for you would be, what do you think is the number one thing that you would want people to know about brain injury or invisible disability?
Mimi: Trust what we say, and when we tell you how we feel, listen to us. Give us grace and patience, because we may look a certain way, but you just never know what someone's going deep down. And it's okay to ask Hey, how are you doing? Is it too loud in here for you? Do you need a nap? Ask me that. I would love for people to tell me that that versus, Yeah, you should figure it out. You're fine. That kind of thing.
One fun fact about Mimi that didn’t get into the video: She’s working on a documentary about life with a brain injury which involved having a crew film her during migraine attacks. Now that’s taking awareness to the next level. Gold star, Mimi! 🧠
Please give Mimi a warm Brainee welcome in the comments! And if you have a recommendation for who I should interview next, please reach out.
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