Brain on Fire

If you have not seen this movie, you need to. It’s a very teal, frightening example of doctors giving up, one who wouldn’t, and how a girl destined for a mental ward had a simple medical condition that brought her back to a normal life.

When I think about my own experience, I kept telling everyone I was not making this up. I was not crazy. Unfortunately others don’t really care to see the unknown. And that’s a shame. As a result of no one believing me and the events that followed I came home from being held against my will for 4 days with memory issues from all the haldol they shot into me. Because I wasn’t treated at that point when I begged for help, this spread on my body, wreaking havoc on my skin, leaching minerals from my body so that my teeth fell out. A fall backwards I broke both arms in half. My vision is impaired. My memory refreshes when I sleep and I forget everything. I start over each day. I have to write everything down but don’t remember that I did that.

I don’t leave my house unless necessary, even my bedroom. I keep my back against the wall and make sure no one is coming to take me.

I think what if I had not been believed by the psychiatrist and been held there? If I had to stay on their drugs longer which made me paranoid, denied of my own medications. I was denied of everything, toothbrush, change of clothes, everything. Four days. I fear I would be dead.

And that’s scary. Very scary.