A Scar is Also Skin Audiobook

For the first twentyseven years of his life Ben McKelvey didnt spend too much time thinking about his brain nor much about trauma He was fit carefree and happy working as a magazine journalist writing listicles and doing celebrity junket interviews

Then one day while boxing he suffered a stroke In the time it took for a left hook to be thrown Ben disconnected from language and therefore the world He wanted nothing more than to go back to normal life and after a time it looked like he had He spoke again in a few days read in a few weeks and then in months returned to his listicles and junkets Only normal life no longer felt normal Bens brain had changed and so had he

Bens stroke was followed a few years later by a startling heart attack A crisis followed and surgeries dangerous painful and scarring On an unsteady path of recovery Ben started to question everything about his life He wondered what makes us who we are and what role family fate and physiology plays He wondered what a good life looks like

While still weak thin and questioning a letter arrived from the Australian Defence Force It was an invitation to embed with Australian forces in Iraq and also an invitation to a new career and a calling one that would allow Ben to ask deep questions about life connection and the morality of people who have also visited the precarious edge of human experience

Combining autobiography reportage and science Ben Mckelvey tells his personal story along with research about psychology physiology and neuropathology He shares intimate stories about people who have dealt with illness or trauma and some who are moulding our understanding of ourselves In the telling Ben investigates trauma change and resilience This is a powerful book for anyone who has ever been broken and hoped to find themselves remade