An award-winning memoir and instant New York Timesbestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity.
When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?
In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Cahalan tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen.
Book Review:
I listened to this as an audiobook and am so glad that I did. It was such a riveting story that you would think was fiction but this is a memoir. Cahalan experienced the psychosis full of loss of memory, mass amounts of confusion and paranoia, and mood swings while everyone believed she was going crazy and that she would never be the same again. She almost ruined her career. If it were not for her family, for her significant other, for her friends, and for the doctors who took a chance on her, she may never have been diagnosed properly.
Cahalan knew that she wasn't crazy, although she felt like it. Thankfully her parents fought for her and she finally, after being hospitalized and losing her vocabulary and memories, was diagnosed by a doctor who had the experience to see what her other doctors didn't. It is truly amazing how one person can change your life. No other doctor was able to properly diagnose Cahalan, they were all ready to deem her psychotic and in fact it had nothing to do with psychosis.
It was interesting to hear some of her memories and learn about her experience from that but also from her talking with family and examining her medical records as she does not remember much of what happened to her during her "month of madness."
Pages: 250 Rate: 5/5
Favorite Quote:
“Sometimes, Just when we need them, life wraps metaphors up in little bows for us. When you think all is lost, the things you need the most return unexpectedly.”
