"I had to bring the idea of journalistic distance to writing about myself. Researching the book involved forensically investigating herself. "I didn't even know who 'I' was any more." That uncertainty about herself, and who, under the effects of her illness, she became, is at the heart of Brain on Fire, her account of her illness, a survivor's memoir with a difference: a narrator so unreliable she can't even remember whole scenes that happened to her.įor a while, she disappeared the Susannah Cahalan who was admitted to NYU hospital's epilepsy ward and who, when she watched TV, believed people were talking about her on the news, was not the Susannah Cahalan she'd always known and who she is now. How was she? people continually asked when she was recovering. She's back in zingy red lipstick, drinking coffee in a hipster cafe, pondering the strokes of luck – the bad luck and the good luck – that have brought her here. You wouldn't know any of this meeting Cahalan today. For a period of time, she was, according to the description of one friend, like something from "a zombie movie". And, when, eventually, she was admitted to NYU hospital, nobody there knew either. A second neurologist suggested it was "alcohol withdrawal syndrome" and prescribed different medication. A psychiatrist said it was bipolar disorder and prescribed medication. The first neurologist she saw told her there was nothing wrong with her.
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