Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

by Susannah Cahalan

Reading these entries now is like peering into a stranger’s stream of consciousness.

more quickly than ever before. (I would later learn from my stepfamily, however, that instead of moving like a pro, I just looked robotic and dazed.) Despite my attempts at seeming blithe and careless, I was hyperattuned to the different ways people were treating me. Since this was a family event, the first question out of everybody’s mouth was, “How are you?” It was an unanswerable question at this stage. But that wasn’t the worst part. It was the falsely enthusiastic, carefully enunciated tone people used; they were talking down to me, as if I were a toddler or a very old person. It was demoralizing, but I couldn’t really blame them. No one had a clue about what was going on inside my mind. My mother, however, was proud to see me

A very accurate description of being misjudged by your physical appearance.