Susannah Cahalan’s memoir, Brain on Fire, went on my To Read List immediately following a review I read here on CBR7. A junior reporter for the Post begins having personality changes, mood swings and forgetfulness- symptoms she blames of having a cold, or the flu. When her symptoms persist she calls her gynecologist; she recently changed her birth control and is hoping what she is experiencing is related. She gets an MRI but there isn’t anything abnormal in her test results, however she returns to […]
Real life medical horror story.
So, like you know how the first four seasons of House were super awesome and stuff? This book is sort of like that, except instead of seeing it from House’s perspective while he’s being an asshole, we see it from the patient’s, and we are intimately connected with her as she slowly and surely comes unraveled totally and completely. She has no control over her actions, she loses all sense of herself and connection with her friends and family and co-workers, and the doctors have […]
Brain on Fire
Brain on Fire is the memoir of Susannah Cahalan, a New York Post reporter who at the age of twenty-four began experiencing symptoms of psychosis. These ranged from episodes of paranoia to personality changes to more neurological findings such as grand mal seizures and visual changes. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and alcohol withdrawal by different professionals until finally being admitted to the hospital following a series of seizures. Cahalan herself has little memory of the time after this point; she reconstructed most of […]
You’ll never take your sanity for granted again
Many thanks to Rachel. S., whose review inspired me to read this book. I saw a neurologist once. I was feeling increasingly confused, forgetful, and mentally disheveled. I would find myself driving on the freeway and suddenly not know where I was or where I was going. I would walk into a co-worker’s office only to forget why I was there. I’d read a book or watch a movie and not remember what it was about. The neurologist gave me a handful of tests, during […]