Losing My Career and Myself, Then Choosing Who I’d Be – Cassie JewellLosing My Career and Myself, Then Choosing Who I’d Be – Cassie Jewell
Recovery After Stroke
Counsellor Cassie Jewell shares how a sudden demotion and stroke in the same week shattered her work-centred identity and forced a complete rethink of stress, drinking and self-worth. The conversation traces her journey through hospital, rehab, and into a new, gentler way of working and living.
1:06:25•21 Sept 2026
Losing a Career, Finding a Self: Cassie Jewell on Stroke, Stress and Starting Again
Episode Overview
- Overwork and perfectionism can quietly erode health and identity long before a medical crisis hits.
- Anosognosia after right-brain stroke may leave someone genuinely unaware of their limitations and overconfident in their abilities.
- Linking self-worth solely to a career or job role makes any employment change feel like losing oneself.
- Stopping alcohol and reassessing coping strategies became a key part of Cassie’s recovery alongside physical rehab.
- Choosing a slower-paced, more person-focused job helped Cassie rebuild a new identity that isn’t driven purely by work.
“"A stroke can be the worst thing and the best thing at the same time because it's not about the stroke, it's about what you choose to do next."”
How do people manage co-occurring mental and physical health issues while recovering? This conversation between host Bill Gasiamis and counsellor Cassie Jewell gives you a front-row seat to exactly that. Cassie was 42, working as a behavioural health supervisor in a US jail, clocking long hours, bringing data work home, and pouring herself into her role with inmates on medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorders.
As she puts it, "My entire identity was my career." Within one brutal week she returned from a trip to Iceland, was demoted from the job her life revolved around, and then had an ischaemic stroke in the right basal ganglia. You’ll hear Cassie talk through the overwork and perfectionism loop that kept her chained to spreadsheets and late-night emails, and how stress and heavy drinking were her go-to coping tools.
She describes the surreal moment her left hand stopped working while she was typing, assuming it was just too much wine and exhaustion, and the next-day realisation that something was seriously wrong. A striking part of the episode is Cassie’s experience of anosognosia – that stroke-related overconfidence where she tried to go back to work the very next day, convinced she was "fine" despite paralysis and clear deficits.
Her honesty about feeling more patient and empathetic now, yet still grieving the loss of sharpness and her old professional self, will resonate with anyone who’s had their identity ripped apart. The chat also touches on stopping alcohol, relearning what self-worth looks like without a high-powered role, and choosing a gentler job with more direct client contact.
Bill and Cassie swap stories on how a stroke can be both the worst and, strangely, the best thing that’s happened, because it forces a rethink of what truly matters. If your job, health, or old habits have disappeared and you’re wondering who you are now, this episode might be the nudge to ask: who do you actually want to be next?
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