By Susannah Cahalan<\/a><\/br>\r\n[myrating]\r\n<\/div>
\nOne day, I woke up in a strange hospital room, strapped to my bed, under guard, and unable to move or speak. My medical records\u2014from a month-long hospital stay of which I have no memory\u2014showed psychosis, violence, and dangerous instability. Yet, only weeks earlier I had been a healthy twenty-four year old, six months into my first serious relationship and beginning a career as a cub reporter at the New York Post.<\/p>\nMy memoir Brain on Fire chronicles the swift path of my illness and the lucky, last-minute intervention led by one of the few doctors capable of saving my life. As weeks ticked by and I moved inexplicably from violence to catatonia, $1 million worth of blood tests and brain scans revealed nothing. The exhausted doctors were ready to commit me to the psychiatric ward, in effect condemning me to a lifetime of institutions, or death, until Dr. Souhel Najjar\u2014nicknamed Dr. House\u2014joined my team. He asked me to draw one simple sketch, which became key to diagnosing me with a newly discovered autoimmune disease in which my body was attacking my brain, an illness now thought to be the cause of \u201cdemonic possessions\u201d throughout history.<\/p>\n
\n[myrating]\n<\/div>\n
At first, there’s just darkness and silence.<\/p>\n
“Are my eyes open? Hello?”<\/p>\n
I can’t tell if I’m moving my mouth or if there’s even anyone to ask. It’s too dark to see. I blink once, twice, three times. There is a dull foreboding in the pit of my stomach. That, I recognize. My thoughts translate only slowly into language, as if emerging from a pot of molasses. Word by word the questions come: Where am I? Why does my scalp itch? Where is everyone? Then the world around me comes gradually into view, beginning as a pinhole, its diameter steadily expanding. Objects emerge from the murk and sharpen into focus.<\/p>\n
I know immediately that I need to get out of here.<\/p>\n Read More ...<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions\/437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolatrwst.com\/thebelvedereliterarysociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}